Are these symptoms of a lean carb?

[66FBCharger]

I have a stock '69 440. It has an Edelbrock 1407. The car is a 4 speed with 3.54 gears.
The car has a hesitation or poor throttle response from idle. Once I seem to get a little farther into the throttle the hesitation goes away. I am guessing that the idle circuit is too lean.
One other thing to note is, in Ct. they only sell gas with 10% alcohol (i forget if it is ethanol or methonol). I am figuring the alcohol in the gas would tend to lean out the fuel.
The other thing that I think indicates a lean mixture is, when I am cruising and let off the throttle, I hear a pop,pop,pop,pop,pop,pop out of the exhaust until I give it more throttle. It is worse at highway speeds.
Do you agree I need to get an Edelbrock tuning kit and need to change the step up rod to a little richer mixture?

[Chryco Psycho]

the eddy carbs are always on the lean side , if you have a long duration cam with low vacuum you may find that it will not adjust as you cannot change the air bleeds for idle or jetting

[B5charger]

I had the pop, pop, pop, pop issue with my charger last summer.  I adjusted the mixture screws on the front of the carb.  Just make sure that you adjust both the same amount and not too much... like a quarter turn at a time, then try it out.

[68 RT]

Buy the tuning kt. Change to the lighter step up springs one up, You can try to go one step up on the rods ans primary jets, but I would go 2 steps. Also go at least one jet size up on the secondaries. I did this on my stock 440 and it worked out great. The instructions are pretty good, also keep track of your changes.
And what jet sizes and rods/springs you have in the carb. 

[66FBCharger]

Buy the tuning kt. Change to the lighter step up springs one up, You can try to go one step up on the rods ans primary jets, but I would go 2 steps. Also go at least one jet size up on the secondaries. I did this on my stock 440 and it worked out great. The instructions are pretty good, also keep track of your changes.
And what jet sizes and rods/springs you have in the carb. 

Great advice. I printed off the instructions to tune this carb from the Edelbrock site.

[Dino]

The tuning kit may work but you may want to consider ditching the 1407.  I have the same and did a lot of research, apparently they don't like 440's.  I have the same off idle hesitation.  Very annoying.

My carb is rich at idle and lean at wot, it'll hesitate when you floor it as well.

[71bee]

The Eddy Thunder Series 1812 or 1813 works much better on the 440 than the AFB Performers. it's like giving your engine a modern version of the original AVS.