1975 1.8 on twin carbs running poorly Options

[dt4]

My car is now registered over in the UK so I can enjoy it at long last, I took it out today for the first time other than the short drive to the MOT centre last month

It drove OK to a point but I noticed it was very slow to respond once in 4th gear, it felt very flat and not at all keen to pick up speed
If I shifted from 3rd to 4th at around 30mph / 3500rpm it was sluggish and a just over 30mph in 4th it felt like it was in the wrong gear and needed to down shift back to 3rd

on the hills it soon ran out of grunt and I was having to down shift from 4th to 3rd and even 2nd to get it to rev again and build speed
Setting off on a hill I had to really increase revs in 1st before shifting into 2nd otherwise it would bog down and feel like it was stalling

thoughts:
fuel?
timing?
other?

thank you
David

[rhodyguy]

That helps. Judging by that intake to carb gasket, those carbs have been on a long time. As mentioned, lots of possibilities. Not relevant, but where does that black wire on the + terminal go to? The line coming off the distr vacuum canister too.

[dt4]

That helps. Judging by that intake to carb gasket, those carbs have been on a long time. As mentioned, lots of possibilities. Not relevant, but where does that black wire on the + terminal go to? The line coming off the distr vacuum canister too.

The black wire from the +ve terminal goes to the starter motor
The rest of the set up looks like this

[914Toy]

That helps. Judging by that intake to carb gasket, those carbs have been on a long time. As mentioned, lots of possibilities. Not relevant, but where does that black wire on the + terminal go to? The line coming off the distr vacuum canister too.

The black wire from the +ve terminal goes to the starter motor
The rest of the set up looks like this

Looking at the direction the plug wires follow from the distributor, I believe you have them out of the proper order(?). The picture shows the two spark plug wires on the driver side (next to each other) of the distributor go to the driver side cylinders, similarly the two spark plug wires (also next to each other) on the passenger side go to the passenger side cylinders. This seems rationally wrong to me where the driver side cylinders fire one after the other, similarly passenger side firing one after the other. Check your firing order and attach spark plug wires accordingly. Hope this helps.