Hi all,

I'm a new reader and I'm pretty impressed so far. I hope you can help a not particularly technically-minded chap.

I've just had my Amazon serviced and 'unfortunately' they decided to balance the carbs as well; they were beautifully balanced before and now they aren't. Bear in mind that I live on a typical London street with lots of houses and I usually make early getaways in the mornings (I want to avoid a neighbourly riot)

Symptoms:
BT (before tuning) the car would start on full choke (fine) and I would almost immediately be able to ease it in about half so that it didn't make a racket and wake up neighbours. I could then pull away smoothly, drive smoothly until the temp guage was up to the middle, and then push it in all the way. Prolonged drivings was quiet with no back-firing.

AT (you guessed it) the car still starts fine on full choke but if I dare to just push it in a jot before the temp's up, almost all power is lost as I ease off the clutch and it does a popping sound from the exhaust; if I maintain slight pressure on the accelerator then very little power is transferred, it just gurgles and I have to put the clutch in and rev. Also, once the temp is up and the choke is fully in, I have heard popping from the exhaust as I come off the motorway onto a slip road, for example.

This is really getting me down as the noise of a full choke for the first 3-4 minutes is embarrassing.

Could anyone elucidate on whether it's too lean or too rich and whether I can adjust this myself or whether I should find someone better who can balance them from scratch?

I hope you get the picture from my (imprecise) wording. Thanks guys.

Eric