Douglas
i too have a tri-carb and just put my engine together. First is your car running rough now?
1) if your car is running i don't see a need to static time it. Go to HF or some other place and buy a timing gun if you don't have one. they are not that expensive and you can set the advance on the gun (15*BTDC). i only used static timing to get mine started that first time. and for that i used points and condenser. then switched back to pertronix.
2) i left my balance tube in place while making my adjustments. are you thinking this for adjustments to the fuel mixture and carb balance? i set all my jets the same depth below the bridge (2 turns and then usd a depth gauge to make sure they were all the same), i just tried using a colortune plug for the first time. not real sure it was a big help. just more of a confirmation. But when i adjusted the front carb, each adjustment i made i made to all carbs at the same time because of the balance tube. then i rebalanced the carbs and checked the mixtures again. but i left the balance tube in place the whole time.
3) on the colortune plug, i took it to all blue but then made the mixture a little richer until i was getting flashes of yellow. i think maybe some of the flashes were because of the way the plug wire sits on the plug. not a great connection. i would get a couple of flashes of yellow and then blue. so i got to a point of some yellow and blue and went with that. i never did see the orange as in the videos.
after driving the car i felt it was running hotter (my engine has just been rebuilt with less than 500 miles) so i lowered my jets one more flat. tonight i took it out again, it is running a little cooler. Although it is tougher to start when cold than before the colortune setting. after i try this setting for a while i may try one more flat lower if the cold start does not improve.
if your engine runs cooler, you may be able to go leaner right from the start. if you have your breathers off you can also do the lift test. And... also do some hot runs, then read your plugs.
having said all this i will tell you the one thing i have read on more than one forum with different cars. "the biggest problem people have with SU carbs is they don't leave them alone". once i get mine set where i feel comfortable i hope not to mess with them again.
in other words if your car runs fine after the valve adjustment and timing being set, i would leave the carbs alone.
if you are having issues past that, i would check the floats/needle valves, and the float levels before anything else. then balance, and then colortune, in that order. if the car runs fine after either step, i would stop.
there are certainly people here who have more experience than myself and can probably give better advice.
one thing, once you get everything working as you like.... if you ever pull the tops of the carbs off, i would be interested in how deep your jets are below the bridge and all the steps you did for your tune up. please follow up here. i would enjoy the info.
oh one last thing i would check before doing too much to the carbs. i would make sure my linkage is still balanced. and remember to rebalance your linkage after any changes carb balancing. each time you change the idle screw setting you change when the linkage picks up the throttle.
Good luck
TL