It must be connected to a full-time vacuum source such as the intake manifold.
bigger port, lower vac, smaller port, highr vac..........
Take a vacuum hose off at the intake manifold and put a vacuum gauge on the port, then read the vacuum with the engine running.
It hooks to a vacuum port on the intake manifold behind the carb.
if you cant find a plugged vacuum port on manifold buy a tee fitting and tap into it
You did not say what you were working on and that would help. Now I do know that it has to go to a direct vacuum source like the base of a carburetor or the intake manifold vacuum port.
It needs to be attached to a full time vacuum source such as a port on the intake manifold.
it should be right off your intake manifold.
The brake booster runs to the large port in the rear of the carb or you can tap into one of the intake runners. You may have to T off some vacuum lines as the 600 carb probably won't have enough to run everything. There are fittings that will screw into the large rear port of the carb that have 2, 3, or 4 smaller Ts for running all this. Manifold vacuum will be any port on the carb base plate and intake manifold. You'll need manifold vacuum to the plastic reserve vacuum ball....that's for the HVAC controls. The intake should have a couple of places to install switches into the coolant flow. You will need the ported EGR vacuum switch for your 84 truck. The switch should have two places to hook vacuum up....one you will hook up to manifold vacuum and the other runs to the EGR. There should also be a ported switch to operate the canister purge valve. If your distributor runs a vacuum advance, run that to a ported vacuum port.....anywhere above the base plate of the carb. That should get you started.....as I'm just going by memory.
A MAP sensor is an anacronym for "Manifold Absolute Pressure" sensor. The sensor has a vacuum line going to it from an intake manifold vacuum port. It senses the amount of intake manifold vacuum or pressure depending on how far open the throttle (your foot) is when you drive. Wide open throttle-foot to the floor, dictates low vacuum in the intake manifold. This device is all part of your engine electronic control devices/sensors used to make your engine run at peak efficiency and perform its best.
If you have the four port vacuum switch there are two ports on the bottom and two running vertical, kind of like an upside-down "T". For the two on the bottom one comes from the vacuum advance and the other comes from the distributor delay valve. This is the valve after the "Y" in the vacuum line coming from the vacuum advance. The next one that runs vertical to the two bottom one, or the middle one, connects to EFE (or the butterfly on the exhaust manifold). The port on top goes to manifold vacuum source behind the carburator.
Engine manifold vacuum should be between 15 and 21 inches of vacuum, the reading should be steady at idle, when the engine is revved and held the vacuum will drop then stabilize to 15-21 inches. The vacuum reading should be taken from a port after the intake butterfly. A Vacuum reading can be a helpful tool for diagnosis especially onvehicles prior to 1996 and OBD2, with OBD2 the computer does a lot of the diagnosis for you.