[dfink]

Well it has been awhile since I flew but I don't remember it quite like the article. In the plane I was taught in we didn't have head temp or a/f guages only the throttle and a mixture adjustement. We took off full rich at cruise leaned to peak the backed off to the rich side. Certainly didn't go lean of peak. Then went full rich again for landing. Problem is I have no idea what a/f mixture was peak as we didn't have a gauge only the tach. The article you posted suggests going way past lean of peak and eventually the cylinder would cool down. Sorry don't have enough balls to lean out an aircraft engine that far. The first step out is a *****.

Anyhow tried a couple of things last night.
First I set my initial timing to 5 degrees (car would not start cold it was very unhappy even knocking during tring to turn over) didn't try that one long. Went back to 12* and it popped right off.

Second tried leaning out the idle. I currently run around 13.5:1 I tried going to 14.5:1 and the idle speed of the car dropped significantly idle was no longer smooth and stalled on acceleration. I was able to take out some of the stuble with acceleration enrichment but not all and mostly the enrichment just made it go rich after the stall. Went back to 13.5:1 and idle speed picked right up also tried going richer mostly due to other enrichments car would run down to even 10:1 but not very well however better than lean. At least for my car and confirmed by several others the target for at least the ITB setup is 13.4-13.7:1 at idle.
This is also the setting I use for cruise at this point. I need an assistant to slowly lean out the cruise and see where the best is. Certainly don't want to go richer at cruise. Even going to 12.5:1 at cruise will show a significant reduction in speed.

Still pretty convinced that 12.5-13:1 is the number for WOT would really like to have more opinions that just psalt and myself don't know psalt but I am not very authoritative. Untill confirmed by some others I will edit the first post to include the lean values but with a disclaimer to not confirmed.