I have a 68 Camaro. It is a base model, originally a l6 250. I believe it had a manual transmission based on the console. Prior to my purchase, the 250 was replaced with a 327 and a Muncie 4 speed was swapped in. The car used to live in Nebraska but has now found its way to me in Arizona. When I got it, the car started and ran but idled really rough and was back firing. It also produced such a strong gas smelling exhaust that you could smell it for easily 30 minutes after turning off the car.

My first order of business was to adjust the Carter 9625 carb. I noticed that the choke was always wide open. It didnt matter if the car was cold or not. Granted, it is 70 deg here, but I figured the choke should be at least mostly closed when the car is cold. I adjusted the choke and set the mixture screws about 2.5 turns out and the car seemed to do much better. The backfiring stopped and the idle was much smoother. Yesterday I was ready to hook up my vacuum gauge and start doing a little fine tuning. I started the car (I think it started on the 3rd try) and I let it get up to temperature. I watched the choke slowly open. Once fully open, the car sputtered a bit and died. I started it back up with no trouble and it ran for a few minutes and then died. I have not been able to get it started since. I feel like the battery is about to die from so many unsuccessful attempts to start it (brand new battery).

One other thing for the sake of being thorough, I received the car with just over 1/4 tank of gas (assuming the gauge is correct). Other than driving it around the block 1 time, it has only been consuming gas while idling in my driveway. A couple of days ago, it got down to about an 1/8 of a tank and I added about 3 gallons of 87 octane.
I've been going over my notes and thinking about what I've done. I feel like the engine should only be running much stronger after what I've done yet here I am with car that wont start and not sure where to start to make progress. If anyone in this forum can make some suggestions on where to go from here I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.