first, no pics. sorry.

yesterday was the day to go from a single carb to dual webers. i was counting on a 30-40 hp gain from the otherwise stock 1.7. maybe someday...

Dino was coming over to help with adjustment later, but i figured i could get the ball rolling. so, out came the tools, and into the engine bay i dove.

everything coming out was pretty straight forward. i even remembered to disconnect the fuel pump, and to cap off the line. even figured out how to take off the accelerator cable pivot pin (2, count 'em, 2 mm hex).

anyway, to make a long story short, i was playing with the linakge when dino, his lovely wife, and sapphie the wonder wheaton came over for dinner. not wasting any time at all, dino dives in and makes sense of my mess of the linkage. after some metal modification ala sledgehammer (no, i am not making that up), it is time to light the fire. or "fahr" if you will.

the good news: it started right up! wow did it. only one or two flames came out of the top of the left bank carb whilst dino was doing his magic, narrowly missing his facial hair.

the bad news, and the plea for advice (yes, you know this appeal was coming, so don't act surprisec): how does vacuum effect all this? i need to complete the routing of new (and as of now nonexistent) vacuum hoses. is there a rationale to all this? i, i mean, we, cannot begin to adjust the carbs until this stuff is in place.

so now my daily driver languishes in the garage, all because of my quest for horsepower. i offer this brief narrative so that all of you across the nation and world don't get the idea that everyone in the pacific northwest is a 914 guru of some sort. people like JP and Geoff and Kevin and Dave and Craig and Dino and Al and Dan, etc., etc.,etc. ( i can't begin to name them all) would give you the impression that all teener drivers up here have a vast wealth of knowledge. well, it just isn't true. i am here, sponging information and knowledge off of these guys, and all of you, whenever and however i can. call me a 914 parasite...

usually, vacuum doesn't -affect- any of it, because the vacuum/advance/retard/whatever distributor is pulled and replaced with something that works strictly by mechanical advance.

which is what you get if you attach -no- vacuum lines. the vacuum stuff just modifies the machanical advance in various ways to 1) improve performance or 2) improve emissions.

can't imagine why hooking up no vacuum lines would make any difference whatsoever on how you adjust carburetors.

if you want to go in search of various kinds of vacuum to actually operate the dizzy - well - the flat-4 configuration and firing order make that challenging. porting to one throah leads to a VERY erratic signal, hardly what you want. T'in into all 4 throats - especially if you want both manifold and ported vacuum - creates quite the hose nightmare.

this is one reason why most people sh!tcan (excuse me - archive for future generations) the stock distributor and replace it with something like an .050 (say one on EBay the other day for $150) or a Mallory which i gather is a bit more.

do an initial static time somewhere around 3* BDTC and see what your full mechanical advance is. conversely - adjust for full advance where you want it and see what you've got at idle. you may be good enough - i have no idea what the base mechanical advance curve for your engine's stock distributor looks like ...

The only vacuum hoses to worry about would be the ones coming off the distributor, assuming you're still running a vacuum advance distributor. If you aren't, then no problem. No vacuum hoses, just breather lines. If you are running a vacuum advance distributor, and if you have older Webers with no vacuum ports on them, you either need to switch to a centrifugal only distributor, or you need to add vacuum ports to the Webers. On the former, I can say you should avoid an 009 unless money is really tight, and just buy a Mallory and be done with it. On the latter (adding the ports), I can't help much.

The breather lines should be vented into something, but the car will run fine with them left open to the air. Ideally, you'd vent them into the air filters, usually by adding fittings to the filter bases or tops. You can also vent them (esp. the oil breather) into a separate catch tank.

both carbs (34 ICTs) have ports into the bottom of them for a big breather toube, about 12 mm or so. the same size that goes from the port near the oil fill neck, and at each head near the intake ports. if those are not vacuum, then what? breather for recirculating gasses?

as for distributor, it has no hoses at all. the engine was carbed initially.

i have some work to do, i can see that. thanks for the input.

seems like you'd run the breather lines from each head into the carbs for pcv...

on the "original" carb, shich ran just fine i should add, both heads were routed to ports near the oil fill neck then another port near there was routed to the air cleaner. some sort of arrangement like that should be done?

one vent for each head...one vent next to oil filller route them into the barbs on the carbs. (ex: one head vent hose goes to one carb, other 2 hoses go to the other carb.)

Shane, what modle are those again? Might help with the suggestions from the group...
btw, the big vac ports were near the base and sucking VERY hard... Also the syncrometer was at the top of the scale. Good nooz was all the gas stayed in the carbs...
So, we could not get the car to idle below 2300 RPMs and it would pop when reved. I tried adjusting the air/mix screw and the dizzy with the vac blocked off...

black art these carbs ARE!

dual 34 ict's?

exactly what i thought ...

yeah, that seems right... I haven't dealt with them before...

the old single-throat Solex's from my T-III days simply tied those two ports together (side-to-side) with a metal pipe and some short connector hoses on each end. because of the firing order (one side, then the other) this connection creates a plenum effect to keep the carbs breathing a little all the time and minimises the carbs trying to 'gulp' in enough air.

so - if they're what i think they are (originally T-I carbs...) connect those two ports to each other with some mild steel tube like 1/2 conduit or something.

you mounted the carbs with those ports facing each other across the engine, right ?

yes, dual 34 ICTs is what they are. i figure connect up the ports should make a difference, yeah?

also... without them being hooked up...i bet you have a hell of an air leak! thats prolly why you cant get them sync'ed and the car to idle. all that extra air is going in and mixing with the fue/air mix.

plug them or connect them to each other i guess

I've dual 34ICT on the 914 I recently picked up and needless to say they were way out of balance. After looking on the web for data on the webers I found cbperformance had an installation guide for these online. It can be found here:

http://www.cbperformance.com/weberict.asp

You'll note it advised attaching the vac ports between the two carbs for a smooth idle. I did this as the PO had had this attached. I noted no difference in idle but you're mileage may vary. Needless to say I left it in place as I'd done such a nice job installing and using up tubing

Hmmm, this might be a good manual to purchase if you plan on keeping the 34 ict's.

http://www.webercarbsdirect.com/inc/pdetai...ail?v=1&pid=634

I've got the HP Weber Manual for my IDF's, and I don't recall anything about the "ict's" in there.

they came with a heavy hose connecting the carbs together. however, as they are both facing the same way the ports don't face each other, however they can be connected. dino, was it the fitting on the carb that was sucking hard? that makes sense, in a way.

why should i buy it? i just borrow dino's and keep it at my house!

I hate it when I miss part of your post. In order to get them sync'd up with the flow meter disconnect your linkage between the two carbs.

Then adjust the idle on each carb indpendently until the flowmeter shows the same numbers. On mine the flow was right around 12 @ 1000rpm. Once you get the flow sync'd between them you'll want to adjust fuel ratio screws...tighten them up until the power starts to drop off then back you're screw out something like a 1/4 turn and follow suite on the other carb. Once you get them sunk up, reattach the linkage (PITA) and watch your tach and ensure it stays were it should be when the linkage wasn't attached.

I found the gaskets on one of mine was bad as it wouldn't allow me to adj. the fuel ratio. You can check this by spraying some carb cleaner around the base of the carb and downpipe and if you've a leak you'll notice the engine act like you're giving it gas.

My engine now purrs until you rack it up to around 2500rpm but I suspect I need to rebuild the carbs as the PO had this car in storage for a couple of years.

so, with the hose disconnected to adjust the idle, do you have to plug the port where the hose goes? otherwise it draws something fierce.

and yes, the whole linkage deal is indeed a PITA.

Just like the little dutch kid at the dike...plug them up when you're adjusting it out..

Good luck on that linkage it took me longer to adjust that then the rest of the entire process including finding some docs on line.

asdf

it is so clean and shiny in there! your linkage is identical to mine, except i ran mine from a high throttle cable holder to the arm on the hex bar sticking up. and i have some really sexy conical air filters to slap on that will, unfortunately, attract so many young women as to drive my wife insane with jealousy!

plug 'em, adjust 'em reconnect 'em. got it. easy, right?

that noise you hear is dino laughing...

You're already screwing up if you let her ride with you

I took mine for the first ride yesterday and she liked it so much she asked how much it would cost to install a/c. Now if every project I under took was so easy to get her to agree too.

BTW: Anyone have a A/C pulley for the engine (1.8) they want to let get rid of?

I am not laffin at you, but some where near you!

that CB artical is really good. The IDF version is in the book... dont forget to tighten the dizzy retaining bolt!

easy fo ryou to say, dino; tighten it when the dizzy is where?

going to the FLAPS to get some fuel line to use for vacuum hose. then to tinker with the carbs, and hopefully not break anything!

i am going to print off the CB art-ee-kul. maybe i can learn more stuff.

shouldn't have had that second burger last night. still not hungry. i am out of training...

that is funny stuff! Call my cell if you need anything!

i got cold feet. going to take inventory in the engine bay and see exactly what i need to replace. the thought of simply buying a dozen feet of 1/2 inch fuel line and a bunch of wire and connectors, well, i wimped out. maybe later, like tomorrow.

my daily driver is now a project. i never thought it would happen to me. i could be a 914 poster child... "i thought i could just drive it every day and enjoy it, and not be like the other guys and their modifications. then one day i thought i'd just slap on some dual webers, you know, for the horsepower. all the cool kids were doing it so i thought it would be ok, just a one time thing. but once i was taking things off in the engine bay, i just couldn't stop. i could replace some stuff whiel i was in there. no one would notice, and i could stop any time. yeah, i could stop any time..."

shane, what model of distributor are you running? an 009, 050, the stock one? perhaps others might be more hip to the single barrel carbs. did you dress the intake manifold bases? what did you use for gaskets? if you are running an 009 shouldn't vaccum ports be capped/plugged? the previous owner may have been running a distributor with a vaccum port on the 2.0 engine the setup came off of.. you're making to much of the linkage adjustment. back the idle adjusment screw off the stop on the passenger side. start the car. the idle may be low, stumbling. with the drivers side screw turn the idle up to around 1500 rpm. now check the flow on the carbs. is it the same? do the pulses make the needle jump around? rotate the base on the unisyn i loaned you so the hole is open. leave the threaded rod on the drivers side alone and turn the one on the passenger side to get the unisyn to read the same on both carbs. when you get the flow equal turn the drivers side idle screw down to get a stable idle around 900rpm.

kevin

Actually, as long as you own the car, you can never stop.

KT

what dizzy, kevin? i have no idea. i don't think it is stock. i will try out your advice, as i am going to play around in there today.

i want to replace a couple of the wires and connectors in there also. they are a bit old, etc. then i'll stop. i know i can do it. i won't be like all the other guys, the ones who can't stop. it doesn't run my life, it doesn't. really. i can quit any time.

"hi, my name is shane, and i drive a 914..."

"hi shane"

shouldnt it be more like what i would have to say?.....

"Hi, my name is Mark and I OWN a 914"

and the crowd with a knowing nod says "Hi Mark"

i stand corrected; thanks Mark.

"hi, my name is shane, and i own a 914."

"hi, shane!"

Well??????????????????????????????????????????

sorry, Levi, but nothing is happening today. i have a job interview over in seattle, and i was prepping for that yesterday as well as mowing lawns before the (really hard!) rains that are falling even as we speak.

tomorrow, my friend, tomorrow. i will have have studied (again) the cb article, the weber tuning book, and pestered dino on the phone yet again. more updates on shane's folly soon.

yes, i know this stuff is easy for all of you. but it is fun to learn!

uh oh, sounds like the initial stages of Dirk Wright's Disease!

Ok, its time .....you need to get up at 5:00 am and get to work on your little red car....

well, it is a couple minutes after 0500, but i have some other things to do today as well. i will post my whining about carbs after i dive into the engine bay this afternoon. gotta get her running...

thanks, Levi, for the kick in the butt. and nice shot of the 3 teeners!

Kick? hell I'm gonna come over and slap you around ifin you don't back to work on it...quit slackin...

no need, Levi. Dino, hereafter to be known as "Dino the Magnificent" came over last evening and helped (read: did the work whilst i marveled at his technical genius) me get them closer to running right. dual carbs seem to be like dark magic, but i am beginning to understand some of what is involved, and learning more about my car in the process. we took Brunhilda out for a spin to feel what was going on, and things are getting better. some of the other things i have learned:

-my distributor is a 009
-how, exactly, timing is adjusted.
-that even a big man like Dino can move quickly to avoid fire
-that my wife's grandma thinks i should be ticketed for a loud car
-very small adjustments can make a big difference
-the number of variables is pretty large
-and finally, the process of learning is quite fun!

thanks to you all for your advice, support, and of course, toleration of my posts. trekkor, you are getting set to do this with 3 times the number of barrels! amazing. i have two to figure out, and you are diving into 6! good luck! and have fun.

Good job on the Carb Sync Shuffle .

the help of club members is what I'm counting on to teach me th SIX Weber Waltz.

KT

still learning to shuffle up here. continue to post your progress, because some of us are learning (or trying to) vicariously through your experience.

six weber barrels have to suck so much air they cause a local depression. maybe that is what starts some of those cyclonic storms...

I had a customer drop off a 911 2.8 the other day. Pulled up - POP!, BANG! POP! Wouldn't idle on it's own. He asked if I could look at his carbs.

Me:
"When was the last time you had valves adjusted?"

Him:
"uhhhhh, what?"

Me:
"Leave it here and I will start there."

Dual carbs are very, very picky and the air cooled engine valve adjustment is also picky. This guys engine is new and barely has 2k miles on it. So I think he was confused about why it started running "bad" to his eyes/ears.

Before I even bothered looking at the car, I put it up, drained the oil while still warm and pulled the valve covers off. Next day, adjusted the vavles. most of them a little loose and 2 of them too snug. I also pulled the plugs. WR5C's, with a .024 plug gap but looked pretty good. A few of them a little black, but okay. He is running MSD 6A and no points so let's try some WR7C's and a .034 gap. Button it all back up, fire it off and yeah, you can tell, already sounds 100% better. Still poping just a tad. Pop off the linkage so the carbs can be adjust independantly of each other and do a little tweeking. Sounds really good now. Check the linkage for adjustment, pop it back on and go for a run. I like his 2.8. I think I took a little life off those rear tires though.

No more poping, farting or gunshots. Idles great and very smooth across the RPM range.

Point here is:

Start from scratch, even a little off in a valve adjust, even one can throw things off. Pull your plugs and take note to what cylinder is doing what. Then go on from there.

Had my work not corrected anything, I would have done a compression check to see if maybe he had a hanging valve or something.

Another happy customer (with a little less rear tire).

you make very clear what dino said last night, to wit, we need to look at new plugs, new plug wires, etc. the valves were adjusted (granted, by me) about 700 miles ago. i have never changed the plugs, the plug wires look quite old, etc., etc., etc. you offer good scoop. thanks, i will follow up.

that is exactly what to do! We didn't check the valves, but we reset everything and the car is very close...
If they wouldn't keep feeding me, we might have finished... Dino sleepy after food!

The most important thing is to be very mindful of those pops other wise you might end up "like Kojak" but with out the eyebrows!

Too funny!

Hey, if you guys don't get things ironed out soon, let me know. Maybe I can swing by and get fed too?

Dan, that is pretty much the deal: come help me with my car , and you get plied with food (usually grilled, last night not) and cheap beer . stay tuned for the next episode of "teachng shane the basics!"

Yeah, I will keep on eye on your thread. Maybe the wife and I will take the 914 for a ferrry ride? Those are always fun.

we do need to plan a 914 kitsap breakfast sometime early this autumn. maybe we should start a thread about it?