it is starting to wear thin now but we're going to crack it & learn from the mistake...it's bound to be something silly!
I'm certain the valves are all opening and closing correctly, they certainly look to be - all nuts screws and washers are present and none went AWOL...we did have the rockers off Thursday when we reset the dizzy and all appeared to be ok. I'm edging my bets to mistaken leads orientation & one is 180' out Worth my having a look at the valves though, thx for the input!
Update on what we found tonight.. Swapped leads around, 1 to 3 & vice versa..worse than ever. Swapped 1 with 2, still no good..tried various other configurations, nada I did ponder Saturday with Fletch if the right hand inlet manifold was leaking..we popped it off and straight away the crush gasket hadn't crushed and there was petrol residue on the faces of the manifold & cylinder head ports. The Empi inlet manifold, where the bolt holes are, we could see where the head bolts had dug in..we matched this manifold up with the VW one and the holes didn't quite mate up and the casting was about 3mm wider all round & you could see marks on the outside edge, towards the bottom where it had chaffed on something (we believe it was the head tin). Filed it down to match the og inlet manifold, made the bolt holes a bit wider and engineers blue'd the face of the inlet - it was a much better fit and blue'd the face of the head aroud the inlet ports. Rebuilt it all & fired it up, wtf it backfired when revving from idle but it idle smoother - my Dad did some tweaking of the airflow screw and got it running smooth, it was now revving cleanly and responding very well We now have the left hand manifold off and are repeating the process as we felt we had nothing to loose - the casting was as equally wide as the right hand side! Ill update again later this week as I think we're onto a winner!! Thanks to all so far for the input, much appreciated!
They do take some fitting, though force usually works. I always use the empi fibre gaskets - those crush metal ones, though the standard fair, don't inspire leak free confidence.
No I know what you mean Zed, I refitted the steel ones for the moment & depending on how it starts when hot, Ill get a pair of those phenolic gaskets at a later date! Both sides its evident fuel has been seeping past the gaskets
Problem solved and we are now running as sweet as anything, idles at 800 rpm & the throttle response is smooth. The issue was the EMPI manifolds not seating correctly, overall they were 5mm too wide and catching on the cylinder head tins both sides. Filed them to the same profile as the VW inlet manifolds & bolted them up nice and air leak free! Thanks for all the pointers guys, as always, its appreciated!
