I'm not going to tell the whole story here, but the short version goes like this:
I was sixteen and had talked my Dad into putting 3 deuces on the family '53 Merc, to go with the headers, complete Mallory ignition and a couple of other fancy do-dads. Bought the Offenhauser manifold new and scared-up a trio of Stromberg 97s. The carbs were a bit tired and I'd carefully taken them all apart and cleaned them and made gaskets, in some places, from Cheerios boxes.
I called my buddy on a Friday afternoon and said, "Let's throw these carbs on this afternoon and then go to the Basketball game after!"
We worked until midnight that night, worked all day until long after dark Saturday, and then most of the day Sunday. We'd had all the problems a pair of green, but willing, novice 'wrenches' could have in getting everything back together, but it ran very poorly.
Along about dusk on Sunday, we called a hot-rod garage I knew about and drove the car, haltingly, (I did tell you it ran very poorly, didn't I?) about 20 miles where we left it for the night.
The 'Engine Clinic' put a set of Holley 94s on, and set-up the progressive linkage. But the underlying problem was that the internally-stock flathead was over-carbureted, and the velocity of the incoming gas-air mixture was way too slow. After a couple of weeks of my long-suffering Mother driving it to work (she was a teacher) while I tinkered with it every afternoon, I pulled the manifold back off.
It finally found a place on my new-to-me '34 Five Window several years later. "Let's throw these carbs on and go to the game" has been a comment ever since when we were diving into a new project.
KS