Weber 40IDA Mods for racing

[puffinator]

I have a 2.2 engine with S cams and pistons and Weber 40IDAs. The engine was built by Rothsport racing in OR in the early 2000s strictly for racing. I dropped the engine and trans to do some mods to the transmission and while they were out I decided to do a refresh to the engine. In taking the carbs apart I found the float bowl bottoms to have some silicon or other pliable material spread around the corners of the bowl. See picture. Any ideas as to why this was done and what advantage it provides? It also has 125 main jets but 170 air correction vice 130s and 180s which would have been stock. Why?



Also, is there some advantage to partially crushing the floats?

[1QuickS]

Crushed float is due to compressed air being blown into fuel inlets...typical issue. Floats are not crushed for performance advantage.

The caulk is used to keep the aluminum baffle plates in place and to provide a fuel seal. The baffle plates create a fuel reservoir during sustained cornering loads which would otherwise uncover the fuel inlets to the main jets and cause fuel starvation on one set of cylinders...the other carb would not suffer starvation at that time.