Thermoquad help questions

So I epoxy'd the spot on the adapter where I heard the hiss when I was listening through a piece of hose. Fixed the hiss. Helped a bit, vacuum is up from 5" to 6" now, but that's not right. (and I checked my vacuum gauge reading against my Mighty Vac, so it's accurate.)

I sprayed some parts cleaner all around the base and heard no change in the idle. I also checked the connections on the vacuum line to my brake booster. Everything seems tight. I've run a small hose from my ear to the carb, followed every gasket edge, carb connections, etc.

Where could I be losing vacuum? I had 10-11" when running the Edelbrock 750 so why am I now at 5" in/hg.??