Rick, THis morning I was going to rebuild the carb and realized that when I saw the carb bolts that hold it to the intake they were both loose, maybe one full turn each, enough that I could move the carb around on the base. therefore creating a vaccum leak I assume, so I took the carb off and cleaned it up and re installed it. I then took the hose off going to the plastic box and it fired up and idled ok, I put my finger over the end of the hose and it smoothed out quite a bit, but when I would give it throttle with my finger over the hose it ran crappy and I had to play with it a little to get rpms up, (nothing too bad, I am just used to a very responsive throttle) I just had to feather it for a second, if I gave it throttle without feathering it , it would kill it. it was idling smoothly with my finger on but if I took my finger off the hose then it would sputter and die. So I am assuming it has to due with the power valve you had mentioned?
Also I took the plug at the top of the regulator out and removed that mixture screw, cleaned it off and screwed it in snug and then backed out 2.5 turns. I screwed that in and out while it was running smoothly but it did not seem to effect it at all, maybe the fine tuning should be saved for last :)