Instrument cluster vacuum meter reaction time?

It's not a piston. It's the inlet port of the vacuum gauge. Here's a different perspective. It's not sintered material in there (I know the filters in carbs that you're talking about), it's pot metal of some kind. Kind of soft, but harder than lead. I think I will try drilling a small hole in it, something like a #60 (0.040) and see what that does. Worst case, I end up drilling the entire thing out and putting a disc with a precision drilled hole to reduce the responsiveness.

The metal plug is staked on either side (I said peened earlier, that was wrong).

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