[blykins]

Like I said in my first post, I pulled the header off and saw the sooty spots on #2 and #3 cylinder exhaust ports. But I was just trying to affirm that it was in fact only a header gasket problem.

I would trust my bud's word...he sees this stuff everyday. Now let me add that in no way am I knocking Edelbrock, but the Victor Jr. is designed for higher rpm ranges...not just idling in the garage.

As a matter of fact, when I had the engine on a dyno, you could see by the thermocouples we were using that some cylinders were running leaner than the others. My dyno guy advised that I used a turtle down in the plenum to help even out the mixtures.