Eliminating elephant ears, changing headers

It's got factory pulleys on it now.

I'm certain I'm connected to manifold vacuum - under the front bowl coming out of the baseplate. All other vacuum ports are plugged. I unplug the hose from the gauge and there's no suck. When I first noticed it after changing the valley pan I took the carb off thinking there must be something blocking it like maybe I need to turn the spacer over, but there's not.