On my 1.7l one of the distributors vacuum hoses is disconnected and a bolt chucked in the end, why would this be? My mechanic servicing it has just spotted this and said that it would be giving me zero advance, so wants to obviously reconnect as per standard.

Any ideas why this would have been done by the PO??

A lot of 914s had the vacuum advance hose disconnected from the factory. The distributor only used the vacuum retard port. It didn't even need the hose on the vacuum advance, but a lot of mechanics would see the fitting and assume that a hose was supposed to be there.

Both the vacuum advance (when needed) and the vacuum retard went to the throttle body. Do you have 2 fittings on the throttle body or just one?

It has two.

You will still get mechanical advance so his comment above zero advance is incorrect. The dizzy is vacu-mechanical.

If the retard side is plugged the advance may not move as freely as it should. I have a two sided port vacuum pot and the retard side is open.

That's how they came from the factory.


Unplug it and leave the hose open and tugged away under the air filter.
Andy

So if the car were yours what would you do? So far I have three options..

Leave it capped
Remove the cap and leave it open
Reconnect it

Which should it be??

I don't want him to f'u' my car..

He said that when he reconnected it, he had to reset the timing....

It was never meant to be connected to anything, nor was it meant to be plugged, so i would go with the factory option of "Remove the cap and leave it open" ...

Andy

PS: Whatever you do, you should set your timing anyways.

If it were my car, factory motor = factory setup. Check your engine number, match that with what FI you have and then look up the vacuum hose diagram and follow it.

You're not going to magically gain something by plugging in something that shouldn't be. In fact, you could over-advance and ping your motor to death.

The only time you're going to get vacuum advance is when the motor is pulling good vacuum ... (now there's a brainstorm)

1.) Cruise @ steady throttle (gas mileage)

2.) Deacceleration with closed throttle (emissions control supposedly)

All the advance you need for rapid acceleration is mechanical ...

Ok so going by factory settings it should be connected - as per this diagram? The later 2.0 models had only one hose connected..

http://www.pelicanparts.com/914/technical_...el_diagrams.htm



If the above is right - this is the way it has now been connected up and timing re-set