Suzuki Repair: 87 Samurai stalling, vacuum leaks, suzuki samurai

Question
I drive an 87 Suzuki Samurai.  It is a 1.3L carburated engine.  I live in Canada so we don't have O2 sensors on our models-our carb is also slightly different than the states (aisan).

My problem is stalling at idle.  I can start the car easily enough.  But after a 15 sec of idle it stalls from a cold start, and right away there after.  It stalls very hard.  It seems that the engine is really working to run above 1200 rpm-anything below it struggles and bottoms out.  It will drive pretty well on the road though (no dramatic difference in accel etc from what I can tell).

It was working fine prior to this other than an occasional stall (sometimes the rpm would sit low 600-650 instead of 850) which wasn't a huge issue.

Prior to this I have cleaned the carb, changed the fuel filter and PCV valve, adjusted the choke plate, adjusted the valves, and changed the air filter all within the past month.

It was running fine for the past week.  A friend told me to run up the rpm's to 5000 when getting on the highway a couple times-I did that, but after getting off the highway I noticed the problem.

Since then I have changed the timing belt, cap, rotor and wires-no change.  I can't see any vacuum leaks, but I can hear a slight hiss which seems to be coming from the fuel feed into the carb.  A friend suggested it may be a fuel clog, and recommended giving it full gas after ignition for 10 sec to clear it.  Will this help it or harm the engine?  (I'm hesitant about red lining it)

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks, Mike

Answer
I've got an '87 U.S. version that had a similar problem.  I live at about 2 kilometer altitude in the Colorado mountains, and found it necessary to increase the fast idle speed when the choke was on.  It won't hurt the motor if you run it at 2 to 3K rpm for a while if necessary.  I agree with your hesitating to red-lining a cold motor immediately upon start-up....not a good thing to do.  Sometimes setting the warm idle up to approximately one thousand rpm will help deal with all manner of other unpleasant performance quirks.  If not, try setting the fast idle up to about 2500 rpm.  The factory settings are for essentially sea level, and moderate temperatures.
Let me know how it works                     Scotty