BTW, I'm sure Steve will be more than happy to ship his needle kit to you if you'd like to buy it from him. Much lighter than a full carb, so I'm sure the shipping costs would be worth it to you in the long run.
Steve has put a lot of research into his needle designs, utilizing a few of the group here as willing (and happy) guinea pigs over the years, and the reason so many of us are raving about him right now is because his products quite simply improve the performance of the bike, from both a power and an economy standpoint. He's been working on Connies for well over a decade now (2-3 decades?) and he has a particular love for this bike.
I still remember the dyna charts 'here's the performance with this tweak, here's the performance with this other tweak, note the flat spot on the dyna chart at 'x' RPM range, and note how this change reduces that'. Yes, Steve takes this stuff THAT seriously!
I've never seen an unhappy Steve customer on this forum, or on the previous version of this forum. He makes great products, pure and simple. The one time I remember reading about some issue (I think it was shipping related -something was damaged in transit or something), Steve fixed it in short order and again, happy customer!
In the Connie's case, the 'factory' version of the Connie is OK (really more than OK, she's a really fun bike), but it can be improved upon fairly easily for those that are mechanically inclined. For those who are gearheads that like to do performance and efficiency tweaks, it's a good bike for that! Plus it's no slouch to begin with, which is why I'm still a proud owner of mine!
Anyways, good to see you've got a handle on the problem, and let us know how you make out! Connies are great bikes and I'm sure you can't wait to get back on the road once you've put the proper TLC into your carb rebuild.