Somewhere above you said you had talked to Holley about referencing the carb off the manifold. I think what you mean is referencing the powervalve off the manifold pressure/vacuum. Holley makes conversion carbs that have this built in. They are abit spendy but they work very well. I think you would find a major inprovement in gas mileage as well as performance.

I drove the wheels off my T-bird super coupe which had a blower from the factory. It had as high as 24 inches vacuum with 22 at normal cruise. It got 26 mpg all the time and ran like crazy flat out.

Years ago I built a blown Hemi Dart which we used manifold referenced power valves and it ran very nice and got reasonable mpg considering it was almost a racecar. It made all the difference inthe world as far as setting the cruise condition on the carbs.

you also are absolutely right on the a/c clutch..no good. It would take one powerful clutch to hold that kind of torque. Even a 3in flat timing belt is near the edge which is why we use the metric belts.

...................................................

Dodge CTD dualies rule. Kings of smoke