should i have the idle lowered?

I cannot answer the question because I have no idea what the current idle speed is. I will say, adjusting the idle will not, in and of itself, make the car quieter.

The idle speed does not cause noise at all. If you believe the engine gets louder as RPM increases, that is not going to be cured by adjusting the idle. A noise may be masked by lowering the idle but the cause of the noise is still there.

Do you have a video camera? If so, video the engine running (with sound ON, of course) and post it to You tube. Make comments on the sounds you hear and try to capture the sounds for us. Then link to it from here.

In your response to Repairman you mentioned that you will have your mechanic adjust the carbs. If you intend to have someone else do everything the old car is going to need, my advice is to sell it now. Unless you are independently wealthy, it is just too expensive to turn to a mechanic for every little thing that comes along.

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Mr. Shannon DeWolfe -- I've taken to using mister because my name misleads folks on the WWW. I am a 52 year old fat man.