Vacuum line removal

[Tim]

All those vacuum lines and valves and other crap on my carb'd Festiva have me scratching my head. I have no clue where most of them go and I'm missing some as well.

Has anyone ever cleaned up the carb a bit? Removed all the hoses, plugged off the extra ports, and only hooking up the necessary stuff (brake booster, distributor, some solenoids, etc)?

How does this affect performance? Any change in fuel economy/power?


Regards,

Tim

[FestYboy]

if your engine is stock, you need ALL the vac lines to be in place. they control everything from emissions to ign advance and knock retard (YES the carb engines had a knock retard solinoid built into them) one line inparticular modulates the "kick down" circuit and increases the engine idle to compensate for any electrical or a/c load while at idle.

basicaly i'm saying you need them all if the engine is anywhere close to stock.

[Tim]

The engine's all stock.

It sucks that they all do something, I was hoping to clear out the engine bay...

[FestYboy]

well there are a few lines that can be done away with, BUT, you'd have to remove the cat's guts first. I'm not sure how your annual inspection goes in Wash., but if things arn't broke, don't fix them, you know?

[Tim]

Yeah, best to leave it alone unless I do a custom carb or something.

Just out of curiousity, what does the cat have to do with it? This car's an 88 and there's no pipe running from the cat to the air filter pan.


Tim