Mike,
TELL YOU SON TO ROOF IS OWN D#$M GARAGE. GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF MAN!
Anyways, yesterday, after reading your vacuum results I checked my vacuum. At idle it was around 9.5. Cruising down the flat road at 45 or 50 it was around 8 or so. Light to moderate accelerations reveiled readings down to 5 or 6.
I have had great luck with Autolite plugs. For some reason, they have been less prone to fouling on engines I have owned.
As for that stump, find some termites and let 'em do their thing
Mike,
Go here
http://www.bob2000.com/carb.htm and print out the entire article. Now locate it next to your favorite crapper. Every time nature calls, (#2) read it, love it, live it. It will expand your head so much it will barely fit throught the door frame. Below is an excerpt out of it about drilling those holes in the throttle flys:
"Another common cause of non-responsive idle mixture screws is having too much (more than .040 inch) of the idle transfer circuit exposed. The idle circuit allows a very small amount of finely metered fuel into the engine. By exposing the transfer circuit too much, the gross feed of fuel coming out of the transfer circuit overpowers the fine amount coming out of the idle ports. This is akin to adding a squirt gun's flow into a garden hose's flow...the fine amount of the squirt gun is so insignificant compared to the garden hose, that there is no way that adjusting the flow of the squirt gun will make any difference. There are several ways to fix this problem:
1. If your engine is worn, or has a big vacuum leak, you should fix those problems before trying to crutch your carb. Sometimes, with worn engines or one with a vacuum leak, the carb must be opened quite a bit just to get the engine to run.
2. Buy the right sized carb! If you're trying to use a 600 cfm carb on a lopey-cammed 460, then you must open the primaries too far into the transfer slots just to get enough air into the engine to get it to idle. A larger carb on this example would have a larger throttle plate, which would need to opened less to allow the engine to idle.
3. Open the secondaries a bit, and close the primaries a like amount. This will allow more air in, without exposing quite so much of either primary or secondary transfer slots.
4. If opening the secondaries doesn't work, then you may have to drill small holes (1 per plate) in the primary throttle plates to allow air in while the plates cover the transfer slots. This is a trial and error procedure, so start small, about 1/16 inch. You should not have to go much larger than 3/16 inch. Drill on the side opposite of the transfer slots, to help keep this added airflow away from the idle ports and transfer slots. "