Hey there Phil!

My water pump was definantly higher than the deck height. I had to elongate the holes in the water pump to allow it to fall down even with the deck. What didn't help was using the copper gasket. It probably doesn't "conform" as well as a fiber gasket. As I mentioned, the problem didn't manifest itself until I maintained rpms above 6000, as required with racing. The copper gasket had a wire o ring, but I still think I had a leak. I wanted to put the situation out here so that others can rule it out or in.

Hmmmm chokes size. I think preferrences for chokes are like preferrences of tires. The only real answer will come from dyno testing with your particular engine. On the race engine, I started this season off with 40mm chokes on 45 webers,then for grins and giggles, went to 37mm chokes. The was an noticable improvement.

What we aren't mentioning is that jetting plays a huge roll as well. I spent weeks trying to figure out a stavation problem I was having above 6500 rpm. What I learned is that the air jets has the most affect at higher rpm, while the main jets affects the entire rpm band.

The air correction jets I was running was fine for low to mid rpm. With the main jets I was running, I was actually a little rich. However, at 6500 and above, there was too much air and therby causing me to run lean. If I increased the main jets, that would fix the high end of the rpm, but make the low and mid even richer.

By changing the air jets for smaller ones, I was able to put less air in at high rpm, thereby not affecting low to mid main jet selection. In retrospect, I beleive my poor milage on the street 1800 with solex sidedrafts was due to inproper jetting. It sounds like you got yours dialed in just right if you get 30 plus!

Phil, I'm not writing all this to preach, but just so the info is out there in case someone searchs on google or something.

As you said to me before..we are all making it up as we go ;-)

Take care.