Your rusting can also be due to the fact that Chinese S/S is prone to rusting. Overheating good S/S will just warp it, not make it rust. Popping and glowing in the exhaust is not due to being over lean, you are putting too MUCH fuel into the exhaust and it is burning in it getting it too hot or exploding (popping). If the popping gets too much you can actually blow the pipes apart. That's why you have decel valves on the throttle plates, to allow more air to get in if you slam the plates shut at high revs. The additional air leans the mixture to prevent the popping.