Running much better... Finally

After reading the multiple posts on other blogs about the M116 and M117 engines, I decided that the best approach to tuning the engine was to have it almost perfectly sealed, No vacuum leaks. These engines are notorious for not having massive amounts of vacuum to start off , so any vacuum leak will not help.
With the help of a vacuum gauge, and lots of patience I isolated a couple of vacuum leaks that were minor, and the gauge went from 14 to 18 Inches of mercury. That is a good start, but I was still having a nasty cutout every time I accelerated the car, If I accelerated it slowly, it would do fine. If I mashed it, it would stumble, vacuum would drop to alomst zero, and try to die. I was thinking that I might have a very tired engine, with worn rings....
Out comes the compression test. I had done this when I bought the car years ago, but hey, a ring could have let gom, or another not so nice episode could have happened. So In I go to check compression on all 8 cilinders. While I was at it, I used my spark plug gauge to make sure that the plugs were gapped correctly, and saw that my spark plugs were rather blackish, showing a very rich running.
I went ahead a tested the compression in all cilinders. The high was 170, the low 165. That is not bad for a 8.0 CR engine built in 1976! So, after that I went and gapped the spark plugs. There were 2 that were way off, , and all of them were too narrow. I also retorqued the intake manifold bolts, as the engine has had time to expand a couple of times. The oil was changed about a month ago, so that should be OK as well.
I plugged my laptop into MS, and turned the engine on. It was still missing, but not as bad. I went through the sequence a couple of times, playing mostly with the MAF tables, and the engine gradually got better. Found that the best running was developign 200 HP at 4750 RPM and 250 Torque at 3000 RPM, but still that damn miss when I mashed the throttle.
Again went through the configuration wizard, and got to the acceleratin enrichment table. Played around with it, as there really is only one side of it, the MAF side, as I do not have a TPS. I enriched the top end, for 200 Pascals, and the engine got worse!. So, I leaned the top end, to 5, and the engine not only did not miss, it ran beautifully. It was missing because it was over enriched!.
Now I can get back to getting this on the road again!. Doing brakes and Exhaust next!