paul:

obviously, many possibilities here.

immediately suspicious of two things:

1. ignition timing. especially with poor idle, suspicious of assumed base
timing setting. in any case, advancing timimg to 5 deg BTDC with idle
stabilizer bypassed, connectors plugged together, would be worth a try; or
perhaps simply rotating distributor with engine idling, or trying to idle,
hopefully finding a sweet spot to obtain a smooth enough idle to
facilitate other trouble shooting.

2. big vacuum leak; and related to this - although not personally familiar
with '81 air cooled - if there is a positive crankcase ventilation system,
too much flow from crankcase into air intake would have similar effect,
and check to make sure oil filler cap is snug.

dan

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 08:41:22 -0800, Paul Guzyk <paullist@GUZYK.COM> wrote:

>I took the engine out of an 81 California Westy.  Put on new heads,
>new cylinders/pistons, new seals, changed fuel line rubber, cleaned
>and painted the tin then reinstalled everything.
>
>I hooked up everything but the darn engine won't idle.  It will start
>and if I hold open the throttle it will stay running (although it
>sounds a little rough to me)
>
>I set the timing as per Bentley (5 degrees after) and even changed
>the fuel pump and filter with a known working one. (at first I
>thought it wasn't getting enough gas)
>
>Still no idle.  Has anyone had similar trouble?  What have I overlooked?