Help me get my engine running, trying to get it to idle with progressive carb Options

[nathansnathan]

I'm familiar with type 4 engines but only in a bus, and with dual carbs, so any advice on how to make this progressive work in the 914, I'd really appreciate. If I can get it to run on this, my plan was to use this carb to break in the engine that I'm rebuilding for my car (this one is in my parts car). I also thought about trying to figure out my fuel injection on this engine and then swapping it over to the other. Either way, getting this carb to idle on this is the first step.

The motor is a 1.7 EB (73 CA low compression) block that has a pinto progressive carb. The po could make it run with starting fluid, but not quite idle.

First day I looked at it, I took off the pedal board and it freed up the pedal a bit, took out some slack in the throttle cable by the carb, and I got it starting a bit better than he did without having to use starting fluid. It would almost idle and sounded pretty good.

2nd day yesterday I checked the valves which all seemed good. I switched the distributor from the newish chinese 009 he had in with points to my spare brazillian 009 with pertronix. Try as I might, it's even worse now somehow. The best I can do is it will start and race at like 2500rpms for 5 seconds, longer if I pump the gas, and then die. No matter what I do it will die though within 10 seconds. It's weird though because I've tried backing out he throttle stop screw as much as makes a difference, and spent a good while trying different adjustments of the distributor advance vs the stop.

I've been timing it staticly, like get it at #1 tdc, then I put it to the line that I think is 7 or 8 after? and turn the distributor counter clockwise until the light just comes on going from ground to the negative post on the coil. I'm thinking that this is 'staticly at 8 btdc'? From there I've tried retarding it to get it to idle down on start which it seems to sputter only and then die, advanced it some too, but no good either.

I'm going to try to free up the pedal more as it still seems like it's binding, not returning like it should. I'm going to check if the air cleaner is interfering with something I'm thinking, maybe the choke? I'll also get a compression check. Gonna swap the distributor back, too, as that was the biggest difference. I did add some gas and I'm wondering if it was bad.

I was thinking yesterday before I messed with it that the high idle (could only keep it going at 1500rpms or more) could maybe be a fuel pressure issue, so I did order a regulator. Once that comes, I got a gauge with it so I can check if it's getting consistent fuel. If anyone has any ideas/ pointers/ procedures etc, post 'em please!