SU carb clean and reset

[MSHolme13]

Hi all. Has anyone any hot tips for initial setup of HIF SU Carbs (bottom float ones)?

I put new floats into these carbs (floats were full of fuel) and had some leaky gasget issues so used some instant gasget stuff. Car started OK and was running sort of OK and was about to use the colour tune to set the mixture when the engine died.

The car will sort of re-start but sounds like it's running on 2 cylinders only. I suspect some of the blue gasget gunk has broken free and is blocking something.

Carbs are now off and I intend to strip them down and clean everything. Is it worth replacing needles and jets at same time? The ones in the carbs are not that old (5 years?) and car was running OK before the new floats went it.

Are there any tips for re-assembly, such as where to set the mixture screw? Fully backed out, or a couple of turns from where it touches the little plate, etc?

Thanks in advance for the help!

[MSHolme13]

So, all back together and things are better, but not great. Idle is fine once warmed up but really rough and mis-firing on applying throttle. I tried the colour tune and on one carb couldn't get a blue flame no matter how far the adjustment screw was backed off. The other carb seems better.

Car will idle fine and doesn't stall at idle.

Carbs are balanced quite well and have a brand new electronic distributor, and timing is correct.
Will try the compression tester today in case it's a mis-seated valve but doubt that.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance

[MSHolme13]

So, update. Came to the conclusion that the timing was at fault. Had it set with the strobe and the timing marks matched up.
By trial and error got the car runing (rather well) by turning the dizzy clockwise. Now neither timing marks are even visible with the strobe at any rev range

What's going on here then?? When I installed the new dizzy, rotor arm was pointing to no 1 (or so I thought).

Have I installed on the wrong stroke of the engine, as I beleive TDC is reached twice??

[MSHolme13]

So it would be possible to have the dizzy in 180 degrees out and still get the car running by rotating?
Thanks for your help, Phil

[MSHolme13]

Problem is, I have it running really well now, but just timing by feel and sound. I guess I'll have to take the dist out and start over, make sure I look at the valves this time to get it in the right position.