Cylinder compression check numbers and spark plug reading inconsistent idle

Ok, so I did mechanic in a can and hot soaked the bad cylinder for 2 days.


After seeing this carb diagram I decided to try something. Carb cleaner on a new carb.
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So I puffed the excess sea foam through the spark plug hole and put the plug back in and started it up. I mosquito fogged my neighborhood on my way out of town. I discovered immediately that it was running decent and idling in drive at stop lights but I couldn't ignore the obvious miss. I was worried that I had somehow hydrolocked the rings into worse shape. So about a mile into the test/smoke-clear drive I pulled over because I remembered that I didn't hook the spark plug back up. I hooked it back up and the miss went away.

I drove out on the highway for about 10 miles and headed back home. I checked the compression and it only mildly improved to a little over 95, but since it was idling I decided once again to tune it up. I actually got it to idle down to 600 even in gear. There is still something wrong with the carb in general. I guess I never said before but this is a carter clone from Amazon. It idled best with the idle mixture screws out about 8 turns... As far as my vacuum being so high, well I figured that out as well:

View attachment 1715321876

Not sure how or when that happened because it was working before. So using 6 as my zero my vacuum was showing about 19 at idle now.

Long story just a little longer, I would say the carb cleaner did more to fix my issue than the sea foam. I doubt that my 10% increase in compression on #7 gave me my idle back. I need to go ahead and get a decent carburetor.

Thanks everybody for your input. Thanks especially to @nm9stheham for the link with the carb diagram that really helped my understanding of what was going on in there.
Your vacuum gauge is broken and shouldn't be trusted.