Well, today felt a bit better. I was still suspicious that the pilot, needle and main jets were all related, so I did some fishing around in the ol' interweb. I bumped into a web page published by Factory Pro, a very reputable shop in San Raphael. They are one of (I believe) two motorcycle tuning shops in the entire Bay Area that tunes by Dyno! I am familiar with them, because I have bought parts from them before for my SV650S. Excellent quality and well thought out and tested stuff.
All the tuning tips pages I have read so far start with tuning from the bottom up- get your idle going, then mid-range and lastly WOT. Their method has you start with the main jets and then you work your way down, since the main jet has an affect on the way all the other ranges operate. This made total sense to me and it is what I had suspected. With their methodology, you do not go to the next step until you complete the current step, since the fatter jets play major parts on tuning the smaller jets. Also this tutorial had a blurb in there about adjusting the float heights, where no one else even breathed a word about that. I changed my floats from 23mm to 24mm, effectively lowering the fuel in the bowls by a smidge.
By the end of the day, I had my bike running well into the red line and pulling pretty substantially! Best of all, not a single plug fouled all day!!
The last range I worked on today was the idle range. I had been running the 30 pilot jets all day, so just for yucks, I swapped out and put in 27.5 pilots. Amazingly, the low range suddenly had a crisp snap and got off the line without dogging! How could this be?? I fiddled with the A/F screw and took my final test ride at 0.75 turns out, basically trying to richen the pilot close to as much as possible. The bike ran well with no real flat spots, and the rpm's would climb steadily. I took her on the freeway for a couple of miles. The bike ran easily at 65-70 mph @5500 rpm. But the engine just wasn't as powerful as I thought it should be. I'll have to work on that- maybe raising the needle one more position or going back to the 30 pilots- we'll have to see.
Anyway, it was a very encouraging day indeed. Tomorrow, I'll be taking Angie into Alan & Sons to have them take a look at my electrical, signals and brake light specifically. Once those are sorted out, I'll feel okay about taking the bike out at night.
All the tuning tips pages I have read so far start with tuning from the bottom up- get your idle going, then mid-range and lastly WOT. Their method has you start with the main jets and then you work your way down, since the main jet has an affect on the way all the other ranges operate. This made total sense to me and it is what I had suspected. With their methodology, you do not go to the next step until you complete the current step, since the fatter jets play major parts on tuning the smaller jets. Also this tutorial had a blurb in there about adjusting the float heights, where no one else even breathed a word about that. I changed my floats from 23mm to 24mm, effectively lowering the fuel in the bowls by a smidge.
By the end of the day, I had my bike running well into the red line and pulling pretty substantially! Best of all, not a single plug fouled all day!!
The last range I worked on today was the idle range. I had been running the 30 pilot jets all day, so just for yucks, I swapped out and put in 27.5 pilots. Amazingly, the low range suddenly had a crisp snap and got off the line without dogging! How could this be?? I fiddled with the A/F screw and took my final test ride at 0.75 turns out, basically trying to richen the pilot close to as much as possible. The bike ran well with no real flat spots, and the rpm's would climb steadily. I took her on the freeway for a couple of miles. The bike ran easily at 65-70 mph @5500 rpm. But the engine just wasn't as powerful as I thought it should be. I'll have to work on that- maybe raising the needle one more position or going back to the 30 pilots- we'll have to see.
Anyway, it was a very encouraging day indeed. Tomorrow, I'll be taking Angie into Alan & Sons to have them take a look at my electrical, signals and brake light specifically. Once those are sorted out, I'll feel okay about taking the bike out at night.
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