Tips for adjusting dual quad set up - FE

[DanEC]

I've just started my motor in my chasis for the first time and for the most part so far, so good. This is my first multi-carb motor and I'm looking for tips to get it set up to run smoothly - particularly at idle.

It's a Keith Craft built 459 FE that was built to be pretty mild and streetable. It has heavily reworked steel heads, 9:1 compression, dual point distributor, LR Ford 2x4 intake and 600 Holley carbs. Cam flat tappet hydraulic and is custom ground and thought to be fairly mild wjtb .563/.575 (I/E) lift with 280/290 duration at .006 lift. Lobe separation is 112 deg. it was broken in and run on KC's dyno. At the time it struck me that it didn't have as good idle characteristics as I was expecting but I figured they didn't spend a lot of time on that.

I ended up with 32/33 deg dwell when I started it and decided that was good for now and I set the timing on the white line KC marked on the damper for initial timing but I'm using a different distributor than he used so I don't have that quite dialed in yet. My distributor has 11/22 deg mechanical advance built in so I need about 16 initial for a total of 38. KC ran it at 40 deg total because of the low compression and recommended that.

Despite the timing which I've moved up and down a little, the best I'm getting is a pretty lumpy, not real stable 950 rpm idle. I'm having a charging problem that I'm also working on and the weather is cold so I haven't been able to do a lot of testing and and I haven't checked vacuum yet. The battery is holding up only so long. It's on a charger currently.

After all that background - what's the best way to set up the carbs at idle. Both carb idle circuits are functioning at idle - correct? So, I need to adjust idle mixture and idle setting on both? Best to use vacuum or tach? Adjust the front carb for best response and then adjust the back one. And then go back and fine tune the front one again?

I have a 66 Corvette with a 12:1 L88 motor and a lot more cam than this thing and I have a fairly manageable idle of about 850 rpm when warm. I would expect this thing to do better than that.