No this is not my first gasser. I do have a good general idea how the engines work. I just never had a problem like this stump me this badly. The needle settings are irrelevant as the problem persists even with the needles removed! There is no visible sign of debri that I can see but like I said there some areas that are hard to examine without removing the Welch plug.

I am going to try RCIGN1's idea to check the pulse and then report back.