BigBadWolf

After cruising along at 95-100 for a while, I was pulled over(I know, surprise surprise!). Officer friendly had me cut off the engine, I guess he isn't a fan of throaty exhausts. When I restarted it sputtered like hell except when WOT, then I runs perfectly. Pulled in to rest area and discovered one of the vacuum caps was gone from spacer, which has me baffled. I recapped but still had same symptom. Figured I still had a vacuum leak somewhere, and took my chances with rest of drive from Orlando to Ft. Lauderdale since I was half-way there. Didn't smoke or overheat, and gas consumption remained normal. When I got to my Dad's house I let it cool down since it would die if I let it idle. Did the old WD-40 check at every cap and hose(I removed the rats nest a couple of years ago), ran a little better when choked, but found no leak. Sprayed around intake, air pump block off, all sides of Nikki carb, back to canister, zero degree tank, etc. still found nothing. Put in new lead plugs, checked the igniters(DLIDFIS), and the dizzy to see if the advance got stuck. Thought maybe the secondary diaphragm was stuck out since I'd removed the spring, but replacing spring when I got back home and that didn't help either. Yes, 240 miles of stuttering back with temp and mileage normal. WTF!!! Before I rebuild the carb is there something I'm missing? Was running perfectly until I was busted. This is an '83 12A w/stock Nikki carb.
PLEASE, any advise would be greatly appreciated by me and my neighbors(I go to work @ 6-6:30am).

BigBadWolf

Got it! Blindly missed strangely uncapped stub pipe on intake that used to go to anti-afterburn. WTF!

hanman

I was going to say it sounds like a classic air leak.

BigBadWolf

Yah, I just can't believe I didn't spot where sooner.
I always new Oswald was framed, but I didn't realize there were pictures!