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I've been taking the oportunity of a few free days to do some much needed maintenance on my Fasty and was pleased with what I'd achieved until the ride home tonight. Just when you're feeling like you're getting things sorted, something has to spoil it all. On Friday I rebuilt my carbs AGAIN! This time I was looking forward to it as I made up my new linkages and fitted them. I also fitted a new matching pair of fast idle cams in the choke housings. As always it took ages, and a few long drives to get them tuned satisfactorily. This morning was beautiful, warm and dry and my drive to the work carpark was fantastic- everything felt great- loads of smooth power- lovely. During the day I checked and found out that my steering damper needs replacing- about 2inches free travel before any "damping" :-( But I felt good because I stripped, cleaned and fitted new cylinder and shoes to the other rear wheel (should have done it a year ago with the other one) Think I need to get back under there though as bleeding was difficult so I think I need to replace the flexi's too. Well I got in to come home- it was dark and cold and had turned rainy. So I had to put my lights on- these are the only differences from this morning. But it ran like a dog again! Stalling during warm up and lumpy and under powered all the way home. I ran round the back after I got it (just) running again and peered down the carbs thinking it may be a stuck needle valve- nothing untoward there. But there was a nasty unhealthy smell to the exhaust. I checked the voltage at the coil and it read only 11V. I checked the output at the gen- 13V at idle, 14 at mid rpms. So now I'm thinking that this maybe the culprit. I know how important a steady voltage is for FI, but is 11V too low for a decent spark for a carbed car? Perhaps it is something to do with the pertronics ign module I fitted needing more than 11V to be reliable- I will try to look up the specs in a mo. Could this be a regulator problem? (the lights seem bright and white though) or maybe the wiring from the ign switch to the coil? I guess tommorrow will be taken up trying to sort this out- I have a few spare regs so I will try that, and maybe a relay giving power direct from the battery to the coil on its own cable. Just to clear the obvious- the battery is less than 1year old and a good bosch. The plug leads are new and the plugs I cleaned last week- oh and they have the silicon rubber sealing boots that I bought off Jim A so I don't think its the rain. Jesus- the more I think about it, the more depressing this is- perhaps a stupid duff regulator has been the cause of all my poor running problems and the crap mpgs I get. Maybe there was nothing ever wrong with my carbs that I've sweated over and tweaked for so long. I bumped into a guy with a splitty in the supermarket car park yesterday and he said he got 26-30mpg! and I got 18 last tank full ;-( and his weighs 2 tonnes! I think there has to be something really wrong with a car that can drive like a champ and put a big smile on your face one minute and the next make you feel like trading it in for a bicycle! I don't think it is the engine itself (which has always been my paranoia) because it would run crappy all the time but sometimes it runs really sweet. So what gives? Any ideas appreciated. Mark Seaton '73 Fasty London ------------------------------------------------------------------- List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org