What surprised me was that with the engine running at 2000, the pointer was swinging very rapidly over a range of over a pretty wide range; from about 27 to 37 psi.  It is an undamped bourdon-tube gauge, responding to a lot of pulsing.  I had no pulse filtering between the manifold and the fuel pressure regulator.

Was the engine running smoothly at 2000?  Did all the improvements you made actually allow you to run a smooth idle down around 1000 or so? 

As you may recall, I tried using a fuel filter and a needle valve to smooth out my idle, with absolutely no success.  I've had a normal vacuum gauge on the line before, and never saw any significant bouncing around.  I never looked at the fuel pressure with a normal gauge when the engine was running though. 

Still thinking about all this...

Rusty (new rudder and aileron ready to install and hopefully fly tomorrow)