No argument there. Mostly I was whining about how once the truck rolled off the assembly line, the heat range under the carb was more or less fixed. That's a good point you mentioned how we can tweak this with restrictors, etc., but it's still all trial and error. Make a change to reduce max heat and it might be too cool during warm-up, and visa versa. That's why I was wishing there was actual feedback to control this system, versus just pre-setting the variables and hoping for the best.

What about exhaust temperature as an engine ages? As compression slowly drops, doesn't that mean more fuel consumed to make the same power output? If so, wouldn't that also mean hotter exhaust? That might really skew the original calculations. The official party line answer might be it's time for a rebuild, but many of us (self included) are okay nursing a tired old engine because it still does everything we need.

And what of modern fuel chemistry? Does today's stuff have a higher exhaust temperature compared to the straight dino juice we used to get? I know our engines were approved at the time for ethanol blends, but maybe throw in 30+ years of wear and tear, leaving precious little margin to avoid heat-related carb issues.