I think I need to go to Carter BBD Skool !

I had the same problem you did. Exactly. I ran the car with the top of the carb off. Turns out the floats were set too low starving the power valve of fuel.

reset the float a 1/16 of an inch runs fine.

was neat to get an old schooler to show me this. Was really cool to see how the carb really operates.