Hi Guest!
Hey - did you know if you click on the title of a thread it will take you to the first unread post since you last visited that thread?
but were afraid to ask: 
STOP!! Never post your email address in open forums. Bots can "harvest" your email! If you must share your email use a Private Message or use the 
smilie in place of the real @
Pretty Please - add it to our Events forum(s) and add to the calendar! >> 
My last couple of posts to this forum concerned questions I had as to why I would be getting a different color on spark plugs in the same motor. I'm still trying to sort things out with this engine but I may have found something that would have contributed to a rough idle and inconsistent color on the plugs.
Over the winter, I had a brief discussion with Dave Hagenbush of TRF concerning a comment a foreign car mechanic told me about me having to buy an aftermarket mechanical distributor because of the upgrades I was doing to the engine. Dave set me straight and said that the TR250 distributor, although vacuum assisted is a mechanical device and will work fine with the upgrades provided it had enough advance...maybe I would have to change out the weights and springs if I needed more. He said I should block off the retard vacuum line and to install the advance vacuum line to the Webers, as they have a built-in advance vacuum port.
So, these past couple of days I was thinking about what Dave said and looked through my Haynes Weber book and could not find a reference to the vacuum ports, only that they existed. I did an exhaustive search on the internet and could only find a couple of references to the vacuum ports but not a line as to where they were. So I took the carbs off yesterday and looked them over and found the only things that could possibly be what I was looking for and confirmed it by sucking air through them. And the light went off. All this time, for nearly ten years, these carbs have been leaning out the air/fuel mixture because the advance vacuum ports were open. I purchased some plastic fittings, plastic tubing and a length of 1/8" o.d. copper tubing at the local hardware store and re-routed my advance line to work off the carbs, instead of the intake manifold, a temporary set-up until I can fabricate something that looks better. It idles great now, which makes sense, because being connected to the intake manifold, the timing was being advanced at idle and on throttle up the Webers was sucking in fresh air through the advanced ports, leaning out the mixture, a sure recipe for uneven running. So I'm wondering how others have handled this vacuum problem or am I just waking up to the obvious.
On another, but related note, I have found a dyno shop in my area who is willing to bring my car in to sort through jetting the carbs and getting the timing set properly. I e-mailed them some questions I had and am waitiing for an assortment of jets to come in from the West coast before I make the appointment.
Over the winter, I had a brief discussion with Dave Hagenbush of TRF concerning a comment a foreign car mechanic told me about me having to buy an aftermarket mechanical distributor because of the upgrades I was doing to the engine. Dave set me straight and said that the TR250 distributor, although vacuum assisted is a mechanical device and will work fine with the upgrades provided it had enough advance...maybe I would have to change out the weights and springs if I needed more. He said I should block off the retard vacuum line and to install the advance vacuum line to the Webers, as they have a built-in advance vacuum port.
So, these past couple of days I was thinking about what Dave said and looked through my Haynes Weber book and could not find a reference to the vacuum ports, only that they existed. I did an exhaustive search on the internet and could only find a couple of references to the vacuum ports but not a line as to where they were. So I took the carbs off yesterday and looked them over and found the only things that could possibly be what I was looking for and confirmed it by sucking air through them. And the light went off. All this time, for nearly ten years, these carbs have been leaning out the air/fuel mixture because the advance vacuum ports were open. I purchased some plastic fittings, plastic tubing and a length of 1/8" o.d. copper tubing at the local hardware store and re-routed my advance line to work off the carbs, instead of the intake manifold, a temporary set-up until I can fabricate something that looks better. It idles great now, which makes sense, because being connected to the intake manifold, the timing was being advanced at idle and on throttle up the Webers was sucking in fresh air through the advanced ports, leaning out the mixture, a sure recipe for uneven running. So I'm wondering how others have handled this vacuum problem or am I just waking up to the obvious.
On another, but related note, I have found a dyno shop in my area who is willing to bring my car in to sort through jetting the carbs and getting the timing set properly. I e-mailed them some questions I had and am waitiing for an assortment of jets to come in from the West coast before I make the appointment.
