best way to check vac leaks
 

ok Ive had a t2 for three weeks now. when I got the car the idle was at 1 k solid as a rock, I could live with it being a bit high so I did not worry about it. the car was boosting 11 psi and pulled hard in every gear, but now its at 1.5 k solid, and there was a power loss in 1st and 2nd gear i found 2 broken hoses but fixing them did jack shit for the problem. If it helps any the idle will go back down to 1k when i put it in second and let off the clutch a bit. I know its gotta be a vac leak im just not sure what the best way is to find it. any help would be nice.

Check the connection of the boost guage hose were it connects to into the vacumm line.
That might of came loose again and is causing a vacumm leak and causing high idle.

just replace all vac lines....they are all probably old anyways and need to be replaced or will need to be soon. its worth just replacing all of them at once.








-Matt

Never tried it but somebody said blow some cigar smoke towards where you think it is leaking....you might see the smoke getting sucked in....

Sounds interesting:)

Unless the fan is on, then it probably wouldn't be too helpful. :)

BTW, on the topic of replacing vac lines, anyone have a link to where it had a how-to that told you about how much of each size hoses you needed?

take a can of carb cleaner or something combustable and spray your vac lines and when the idle changes theres your leak!!!! and i also agree with MATTB about just changing all of the lines

Doesn't work, I tried it. THere are far to many things in the engine bay blowing air around for you to see where the smoke is getting sucked in. I have my main clutch fan removed hoping that there would be no turbulance so I could see the smoke, turns out that the alternator kept on blowing the smoke around.
Cigar smoke, cigarette smoke, it don't work.

I also tried using carb cleaner as well, and that didn't seem to work either. My vac leaks are pretty insane though. I still encourage the carb cleaner if you haven't tried it yet.