Hey all,
Today I headed up to the local VW FLAPS for some vacuum hoses & stuff.

I wound up buying the 4 intake manifold to air distribution box boots, a
section of 12mm ID German cloth-covered hose, a set of fuel injector
seals, small and large (8 seals total), and the intake manifold to
cylinder head gaskets (these are a piece of thick plastic sandwiched
between two thinner sheets of metal).

All this stuff for around $38.  Much less than I thought it would be.

Upon removal of the fuel injectors I found the small seals near the tips
to be in pretty poor shape, with lots of cracks.  I suspect these may
have been creating a vacuum leak.
The large seals were also bad, but I learned they don't actually seal
anything.  They just give a soft surface for the injector hold-down
clamps to grip.

I found the intake manifold to head gaskets to be in OK shape, but not
great.  They don't have any obvious problems but they also don't look
nearly as nice as the new ones.
I found the 4 intake boots to be in pretty bad shape.  There wasn't a
lot of cracking but they were an extremely loose fit both on the intake
air distribution box and the manifold pipes.  I think the biggest
difference will be made with these.

I also washed and closely inspected the intake air S-boot.  I found
three significant cracks in it, which I sealed up with some silicone
goo.  I'm now waiting for that stuff to dry.

I also replaced the short hose from the auxiliary air regulator to the
air distribution box and will replace the hose from the S-boot to the
regulator when I put it all back together.

So it seems like I may have found some vacuum leaks.  Hopefully the
elimination of these leaks will go a long way toward making the engine
run cooler.  If not, next step is to have the mixture checked out.

Sean Bartnik
Johnson City, Tennessee
'81 Vanagon L Westfalia