Digital BW, The Print

Sorry if this has been covered a thousand times, but in reading 
hundreds of posts I couldn't find the answer.

I bought an 1160 and the original MIS quadtone cartridges to try 
b&w printing. That was about a year ago. I have been so busy 
with color work that until the past holidays the 1160 has been 
collecting dust. If I can't figure out a fix for my
disappointment it may end up on ebay. 

Basically my concern is not with the quality that I can get but with 
the absence of a good strong black. I knew when I ordered the 
inks that the prints would be warm but I didn't expect such a 
strong sepia. I am printing on EAM. 

I don't understand why I get a good strong black when I print a 
grayscale image just using the black ink on my 1280 dye based 
MIS CFS system but with the b&w quadtone inks there is no real 
black. Interesting moody prints for certain images but always a 
result that lacks enough contrast to give it guts.  My wife wonders 
why I have an 1160 setup when I am getting far superior results 
with Photoshop quadtones or even just the aforementioned 
black ink approach. I tell her there has to be more to it. 
Unfortunately I don't know what the `more to it' is and I
am not aware of photographers in the Toronto area who are 
doing this work.

So my questions are:

1.  Why are the areas that read zero in RGB, or if you like 100% in 
CMYK, not stronger? Is it just the inkset I have? Is it pilot error?

2.  I've read where the VM quad set gives a better black, but
will the black be as strong as the black I am getting with the MIS 
dye base color inks?

I am very happy with the MIS folks and may try the newer VM 
approach as I like the idea of being able to tailor the tone of your 
prints. 

Any reponse or help would be appreciated.

David