1975 1.8 with L-jet - Have had idle/vacuum issues and shop is telling me advance is not working. OEM replacements not quickly available, so they're suggesting a Permatune replacement. Any feedback on this unit? Thanks.

P.S. Shop works exclusively on vintage Porsche's. Owner is long-term 914 owner and 914 concours judge.

123IGNITION

Ummm. Do you have advance on that engine? A 1.8 person will know for sure.

+1 for a 123 Ignition distributor

I decided against the 123 for my L-Jet because of the lack of proper mapping and it doesn’t have the ability to read both advance and retard vacuum. I went with the Pertronix Ignitor II and couldn’t be happier with that decision.

But, I know vwnos can get you a fully restored distributor and has NOS vac cans:
https://www.vwnos.com/022-905-205-ab

The above link is your distributor with new everything.

thats a good link van. why didn't i know about them?!
located in the USA?
i just went for a prowl through the website.
am seeing all sorts of good stuff including what look to be good sets of old bosch and beru points.

one thing i can't find and not surprised is the speed limited rotor for the distributor.
i'm guessing then the only difference between an AA distributor and and AB distributor is the rotor and nothing else? i have an AA distributor on mine.

i am wondering how good the NOS vac cans are. guessing that beng in a box in the dark makes them ok. be a bit of ageing of the diaphram but probably still in really good shape.

well if its a stock 75 it won't have advance on dist can hooked up to "advance" port on throttle body.

its a cal 75 the port will be there on the throttle body but it was for the EGR.
and if its a 49 state 75 it won't have the port on throttle body.

as far as i know the 75 1.8 does not use the vac advance function on dist.
they just tucked the hose under the distributor and left it open.

they did use the vac retard side of the can.
hooked up to retard port on throttle body.

which is i think what van is getting at.
though in his case (and mine) we have 74 49 states which use both vac funtions.
that makes distributor behaviour even more interestingly complex?

that NOS distributor he has linked to looks the stuff.
amazed you can get it. worth snapping up.
or if you know what you are doing just the internals/vac can and rebuild it yourself.
i think i might go order a stash of those distributor rebuild parts.

Yeah he’s in Houston. It’s mostly VW stuff, except for ignition. In that case he has everything!

A NOS vac can will be fine I’m sure. No heat cycles to wear out the spring or rubber. My decel valve was NOS and it is perfect.

He has the speed limiting rotors for our year, if you want one. But I think most of us don’t lol…

i'm gonna have the last 914 left on the planet with that rotor!
the way its going down here the speed limit will be 20 kmh within a year or two. they got to raise revunue to pay off the d a's 1 trillion lockdown debt.

it took half a century but a 76 hp emissions restricted wheezer 1.8 is making real sense.
they can't book me for going around a 90 degree corner fast, not yet anyway.

Don’t get me started or we’ll get this thread locked lol!