Chris writes:
< snip >
> looked down and saw the vacuum line (from carb to dizzy) was just hangin'
there...disconnected from the dizzy. As I had regreased the tach drive cable
following the recent thread, I guess I knocked it off at that time. Thing
is, I didn't notice any change in performance during my morning commute.
< snip >
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Without seeing the car I can't say for sure, but I would bet that the vacuum
take off on the carb. is a timed port, that is the vacuum will only be
active slightly after idle. You can check by connecting a hose to the port
and feeling to see if there is vacuum during idle or if you have to crack
the throttle before you feel it. Otherwise you may have a bad vacuum
diaphram in your advance and may have not been working before. You can
check this also by connecting a hose to the advance while the engine is
running and suck on it (yeah I know, yech, but it works). The engine should
increase in speed (or decrease if it's a vacuum retard unit). The vacuum
advance is not really necessary and really only helps the engine fuel
economy, it's not there for power. When you think about it, at full
throttle you have no vacuum at all and the only time you have more than say
8-10 inches is during cruise, idle and deceleration. If you time the car
correctly, and possibly re-curve the distributor you can do without the
vacuum advance altogether. Of course for emission testing you may need it.
Barry Schwartz
Bschwartz@encad.com (work)
Bschwart@pacbell.net (home)
(San Diego)
70' Spitfire (minor surgery started) , 72'-V6 Spitfire (daily driver)
70'GT6+
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