Spring is here, so does the 914 problems.
To start the car has never really been on the road since I got it a few years ago, only short rides around the block. Before the winter I noticed the problem. The car starts right up, but the left side exhausts get very hot while the right side gets only warm (ran it only for a few minutes). If I put my hand and cover the top ports of the carbs the idle actually speeds up. I am getting fuel and spark. The engine is an early 70 1.7 with 96mm cylinders, dual dells. I tried adjusting the valves and no change, I am thing to getting a compression gauge and seeing if maybe I have a compression leak somewhere, any other things it could be?

Hot means lean. Better adjust or repair the carbs on the hot side before you start having serious problems.

Ken

sounds like a vacuum leak.

Where would I start checking for vacuum leal

Where the carbs meet the manifold and where the manifold meets the head.

You could have also adjusted the one bank of carbs really lean.

Easy there greezy, its probably as symple as synchronizing the carbs. That sounds more like a synchro problem than anything and yes your car will seem to run fine while they are off. Start there and come back if it ain't that.