My guess would be that it's taking 1.4 seconds for the php to be parsed into binary code and execute enough to send output to the browser. The test I asked you to do was to see if it was your up front processing taking the time or the parsing.
If it is just this specific page you're code is probably verbose, heavily nested and requiring a lot of optimization by the parser.
If it is all your pages then look at your server configuration.
Things to consider:
1) How large of a document are you parsing?
Be sure you include the size of any included files in this.
2) What is the relative complexity of your code?
Simple calculation each decision the program makes (if, switch, etc.) is 1 point. Each nested decision is 2 points * the level of the nesting. Decisions inside loops, are nested. The decision a loop makes to stay running or not counts as a decision and nesting rules apply.
3) Is your code clean or sloppy?
Look for things like looping through the same data more then once. Use of the ! operator is bad, attempt to avoid it at all costs.
4) Search the web for code optimization strategies.
I'm not accusing you of doing or not knowing any of this but without seeing the code, or even having the code described to me these suggestions are the best I can offer.
