Holley tuneing 101...help

[JeepsAndGuns]

Ok I am in the middle of tuneing in my holler truck avenger 670 cfm. After changeing intakes and it not running good. Then after talking to a guy at a local shop I check a couple things and find I am running way to rich. Checked one of the plugs and it was pretty black. held my hand over the exhaust and my hand reaked of nasty smell. So I come to the conclusion that I need to re jet. I have never done it before and searched on the net and found a decent write up. Well after calling around to a few parts stores I cant find just the individual jets, only one store has a complete kit. So its either that or nothing. So I brake down and pay the $42 for the dam thing and pull tha carb to change the jets. From the factore it had 68 primary and 89 seconedary. I know I was running pretty rich so I jump down two sizes to 66 pri and 87 sec. Put it back together and put it on. After haveing to take it back apart cause the stupid fuel tube didnt seal in the rubber seal things. (What ever you want to call them, my engine got covered with fuel as soon as I hit the key and turned on the fuel pump) After that bout of cussing and cleaning, more cussing nad then finally got it together. Fire it and and take it for a spin. seems to run a little better. After takeing it down the road, getting it warmed up and burning the tires a little I come back to adjust the thing a little bit. My choke is still not comeing all the way off. It was working just fine one day, then the next it starts not comeing all the way off. Its about 95% open, but just closed engouh to make it idle at around 100-1100rpm. I can open the choke by hand and blip the throttle and it will drop to idle like it should. I adjust it a little and think I got it working now. I adjust the mixture screws a little, but because the jumpy needle from (I was told the cam?) I cant really get them adjusted right. So I do it best I can my ear. I do notice that it wants to surge a little when the seconedarys open. It almost feels like they open and close just a little. Anyways I was wondering about the accel pump cam and I notice on a junk holley I have off of a parts truck it has a diffrent color cam on it. So out of curiosity I put it on. The factory one was orange, this one is pink. I put it on and take it for a spin. It seems to run a little better, mabey a little more response to the throttle. But seconairys seem to want to surge still just a LITTLE bit, but not too bad. It has the black spring in it from the factory (for heavy trucks) but it came with the lighter silver spring to make them open sooner, but I havent tried it and dont think it would help. Any other suggestions or help you guys can give me. I am completely new to tuneing carbs and know little about how to dial them in right. I am on a strong learning curve. As I am pretty mutch haveing to teach myself.

401
comp cams XE256H
40 over
stock type pistons (stock compression)
edlbrock preformer non egr intake
stock heads
stock exhaust manafolds
2.5in singe exhaust

Need any other specs let me know.

[Goose]

Well I think your frustration level is causing you to overlook some things..you say the vacum needle pulses, and the engine seems to pulse/surge when the secondaries are open.. Also I would call the good folks at Holley and ask them what they recommend for jetting for your Cubic inches/altitude combo..

But in my humble opinion. that cam you have in there isnt really all that radical, I wouldnt expect to see the vacum bounce or have a lot of "lope" in the idle.. But if that is the cam and your vacum reading is low keep in mind that all of the important functions of a carb are dependant on vacum levels as to how much and when.

[JeepsAndGuns]

Well I just drove it to the movies and back. and while comeing back home I got on it good one time. It seems like its not surgeing any more, but I did notice after a couple seconeds at heay throttle it sounded like the seconedairys closed. I think that pink cam might have helped it.

I have tried everything I can to get the needle on the vac guage to hold still and it wont do it. There are no vaccume leaks that I can find. I sprayed carb cleaner around the gaskets and everywhere else I could to search for leaks, none found. I thought about it leaking on the underside of the intake. So I unpluged the PCV valve, pluged the line and caped off the port, then checked the oil fill tube for any sighn of slight vaccume. None, I placed a dollar bill over it and it would not suck it down at all, even when I reved it. Thats about the only way I can think of checking for a vaccume leak on the underside. Unless someone knows a better way.
Other than that I dont have any idea why the vaccume guage wont stay still.