Ok let me explain the situation. I have a 74 Super Beetle. It was running great stock pulled hard etc. I decided to upgrade it a little bit by putting a hide away exhaust and dual Dellorto FRDs on. This is where my trouble started. I manged to get everything on but had a hell of a time with the dellortos. The engine ran really hot with them on and it smelled like it was flooding. I did nothing but test drive it a few times around the block but it always ran hot. And smelled like it was flooding. Then it became difficult to start and I would have to crank on it forever unlike before when it was stock it would fire right up. So I figured I must have done something wrong and decided to put the stock card back on figuring the hard starting was related to putting the dellortos on. So I put the stock carb back on but was still having trouble getting it to start. I checked the points, valves, timing etc. Put a new battery in, swapped the starter out with another one, still no luck. So finally I took it to a shop today to see if they could figure it out, they did a compression test and the compression was real low. So they retorqued the heads and adjusted the valves and checked it again. The reading was 60, 110,20,45. What would cause this. A month ago it was running great before I started to "upgrade" now it's hard starting and the compression sucks. The oil smells like gas. Could flooding the engine with the dellortos and washing down the cylinder make the compression drop? Could I have screwed the engine up just by doing test drives around the block? Should I even try to change the oil to see if the compression goes up? I don't have the $1200 they quoted me to fix it. HELP!!!!
- posted
20 years ago