75 914 with D-Jettronic, need help diagnosing stuttering Options

[Rant6]

Hi folks. I have a nearly all original 1975 914 with the 2.0 engine. The car has 93k miles on it, and I have owned it for almost two years. I have been troubleshooting one particular problem for quite some time. The car runs perfectly with one exception. The engine hesitates or stutters often. It is a hard stutter, that is, it actually feels like maybe the ignition is cutting out for a fraction of a second, and so it causes a bucking sensation when driving the car. There are few discernible circumstances where this always occurs or never occurs. It seems to be random, and it can occur under easy acceleration, steady throttle, or off throttle (usually VERY slightly off throttle). It can occur under cold or hot conditions. It happens every time I drive the car, sometimes infrequently, but more often it happens constantly. It seems to happen most often in the middle of the RPM range, that is from about 2500 to 3200 RPM.
Some of the emission control stuff has been disconnected or removed from the car including the charcoal canister, the distributor vacuum retard, (I don't think there was a vacuum advance because I can't find where the hose would have connected to), the vacuum line to the decel valve, and an electrical 2-prong plug that goes into the intake plenum. I have done the following things:

Fuel injector cleaner
New plug wires
New plugs
New rotor/cap/points
New air cleaner
Re-attached the electrical plug in the intake plenum (this caused the idle to surge up and down 1200 RPM, so I disconnected it - what is this thing?)
Re-attached the vacuum line to the decel valve
Replaced the circuit board in the throttle position sensor, and aligned.

I really thought the last item was going to be the fix, but it had no effect at all.
Can anyone offer some possible causes?

Thanks,
Mike

[Java2570]

In reference to your engine photo, trust me we've all seen much worse. That is the air intake temp sensor and I'm sure someone will have a good one if you post a WTB ad in classifieds here. I'm guessing that it's an issue in your wiring that's causing your problems. The wires and connectors all get pretty baked after all those years and Jeff Bowlsby makes great replacement harnesses for our cars. I believe the Anders
link has the procedure for testing that sensor to determine whether it's ok or not so you may want to do
that before buying another. For wiring, a quick thing to do is to check and clean all your connections and grounds and see if that improves anything.