my '75 1.8 sounds like a harley

[kevinseven]

This past weekend I put a Bursch exhaust on my 1975 fuel injected 1.8L. I was suprised to find I had a California car with one of those wierd EGR valves that sniffs the exhaust. Well the Bursch and the sniffer tube didn't quite line up and after much finessing/cursing I was able to get the flanges to mate up.

In the process I stressed the metal so much that a tiny pin hole developed. A bit of epoxy and duct tape and I was back on the road. My questions are as follows:

In between shifts or on engine braking, the exhaust makes a nasty snap/cracle/pop sound that I associate with some of the harleys I see cruising around here. Is that the hole, did I not get a good seal on my gaskets, or is it some hidden bonus that I unwittingly paid extra for from Bursch.

I also may have shot myself in the foot by yanking the cat for one of those straight pipes. The old muffler refused to let go of the old cat and I was forced to go with the $30 pipe.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

kevin
atlanta, ga

[Dave Thompson]

I just put a Bursch on my '74 2.0, along with stainless heat exchangers, following pulling the drivetrain and a complete degrease, etc. My car now has the same sort of backfire you describe. In fact, the word Harley had come to mind for me, too. I have been wondering about it and trying to tune it away, messing with timing, mixture, anything I can think of. It seems consistently much worse until the engine warms up to operating range, but it persists a little even then. Not only that, but my car has developed an intermittent miss very much like the way it used to behave when I connected my old throttle position switch - the on-off-on jerky effect, "trailer-hitching" if you will, described in a number of books as symptom of a bad throttle switch. The thing is, I just installed a new throttle switch and very carefully adjusted it, and everything runs GREAT until this intermittent thing starts up. I am going to hunt down loose or broken wires, as I can only think that I must have a bad wire somewhere in there.
But as far as the exhaust note is concerned, I would also like to hear from anyone who knows whether this is normal for the Bursch or not. I usually get nervous when my car backfires a lot. I just can't seem to tune it away.
Dave Thompson

[Joe Bob]

A lot backfire can be attributed to leaks in the exhaust. I would trouble shoot there first.

[DK914]

I agree with Mike....I had a small leak at the exhaust port that resulted in some pretty significant backfires under engine braking. Turns out about three of the eight exhaust studs were pulling out of the case. Luckily, I found a great place in Costa Mesa, CA, called EuroPro that installed those threaded Timeserts into the heads without removing them from the car. Turns out this is a relatively common problem with 914s and Vanagons. Good luck!

[MJHanna]

That's' OK, my Harley sounds like a 2.liter.
:{))) Loud pipes save lives. Remember if you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space.

[James M]

I take my 914 to Europro as well. The guys there do great work. Had a similar problem with the exhaust where one of my bolts and fallen completly out they taped in a slightly bigger bolt and seemed to fix all the noise problems.