Holley 1920 issues

I am building a Rat out of a 59 Dodge truck and it sits on a 85 Dodge truck chassis running a 225/6 w/904 a/t. I eliminated the smog carb and distributor and went with electronic ignition and tried to fabricate a two one barrel intake and headers from scratch , I purchase online two Holley 1920 1 bbl carbs and had a friend who has rebuilt carbs for several years and very good with Holleys and had him rebuild them for me.
We mounted the intake and headers tried to start the /6 and we developed a leak at a few welds and one of the carbs poured gas to the point it ran down the block from where it bolted to the head back by the starter.
So since we were trying to get this truck to a Rod Run that I had been busting hump to drive this truck to that was coming up in a week we decided to pitch the header and intake we built and go back to the stock 1bbl intake and exhaust manifold and use the one good Holley we had.
We made up new linkage mounted up everything but ran into other issues like brakes and wiring and needless to say had to drive the civilian car to the run instead.
What I am having problems with now is I have the /6 running and idling really good until I go to mount the air cleaner on and it starts to idle rough and begins to pour black smoke (running rich) and eventually stalls but pull the air cleaner off it clears up and runs fine ?
The air cleaner I am using is what I planned on running on the 2 1bbl intake they are the small 4 or 5 inch diameter air cleaners you can buy at the local parts stores could that be the problem ? Are they to small and not getting enough air to the carb and choking it out or is there another problem that I am over looking ? I have limited space for a air cleaner since we had to recess the fire wall and the carb sits close to it and can not use the stock 85 Dodge truck unit but may have room for the smaller ones like ran on the 60s and early 70s Abodies that ran the /6 ?
I also believe I have a brake booster that may be bad because with the engine not running my brake peddle is perfect , but start it up and the peddle drops about half and won't spring back enough to turn off the brake lights ?
If the brake booster is bad and is leaking could this be giving me my problems I am having with my carb ? I would really like to find a 2 1bbl intake and headers for this rat rod of mine but I would think hens teeth would be easier to find and when I do I would have to give up my first born to pay for it so I think I am just gonna run her stock and put the biggest y pipe I can mount off the exhaust manifold and run straight pipes all the way to the tail gate for now.:burnout:

Any input would be great ..