Straight off, don't say go EFI. It's an EA81. It's probably not worth the effort to get a TBI setup from the U.S.

here's the basic premise. My EA81 like most others has a Hitachi progressive. It's not the best example, and the carburettor in general is pretty crap. however I gave it a good clean out and got it running sort of okay.

A few months ago I ordered a Weber adapter of the EA81 and got sent one for its smaller brothers, so I have an expensive paperweight.

If it hasn't been pocketed somewhere along the way, one day I should have an EA81 manifold modified for a Weber progressive coming in the mail. Today was the cutoff for worst case scenario postage time and it hasn't arrived

Aaaanyway... my questions are about blue slip, suitability etc.

I have a holley / Weber DFEV from my type 4. That means it's backwards oriented for the subie motor. To get it to work my best bet seems to be to take it to an engineering place and get them to drill and tap the blank for an alternate position fuel inlet. otherwise the inlet will foul the distributor. My other option there is to find a gigantic spacer somewhere, put long studs on and reverse the carburettor so it has an underslung throttle lever.
then I have to contend with putting together an air filter with PCV fittings.

The plusses of the Weber are it's a good carburettor. It's jetting should already be pretty close, it has a float bowl vent hose, and it has an electric choke.

The plusses of the Hitachi are: It's already on there. Blue slip may be easier. It fits.

I know there is something on carburettor swaps in the VSI bulletins etc. about emissions. As it is I would think having a charcoal canister fitting puts the Weber ahead, but I don't know. Also are auto chokes considered better than manual for emissions?

that's my other problem. If I stick with the Hitachi it means it really needs a choke cable maybe 7m long. Where the hell do I get something like that? Even on a nice day it's a pig without choke on startup so ignoring it isn't an option. So I don't need to keep babying it sitting stationary I tied a bit of string on to the choke butterfly lever. So when I want to start it I pull the string and wind the other end around the back hatch latch.

So what am i best pursuing?

As an addon, i was going to buy the bits for an EDIS setup recently but my wallet's condition became critical and had to abort That would have solved my distributor issue straight off.

change the carby after you get it on the road , you never know once you start driving the car a bit the carby may come good. people seem to make things harder then they need to be.

I don't think that carby will ever come good. But I made a world of improvement by giving it a good clean out. I freed up the power butterfly, got the needle valve regulating fuel again, got tons of carbon out and other bits and pieces. The engine blows less smoke now. Actually none under a fair few circumstances. I don't think the power butterfly diaphragm being full of sand would have helped. The power valve shaft binds a bit and there are other wear issues too. In all I don't have a problem running it for a while because I've had worse, but of that's the case I need a choke cable but have no idea where to get a VW length one.