Howdy y'all. I've got an 81 special that I've been working on. I gave it a new head gasket, rebuilt the sock 34mm carbs, and are trying to get the bike to run. Right now it'll kick start every time, but as soon as i give even a hair of throttle, it the motor flat out dies. I'm too much of a newb to know if this is a condition of too rich or lean. It'll idle ok, but won't accelerate at all. I've got 135 mains, 45 pilots, and mikesxs performance needles set on the third ring. I'm also running a 2-1 header and mikesxs highflow muffler. Any ideas how to help? No adjustment of the mixture screw or swapping main jets works.
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Rich or lean?
- Thread starter jb57
- Start date
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- Tags
- carburetors
Tramaha
XS650 New Member
Try starting the bike get it warm if it will run that long, crack the throttle open just a hair not to fast or too slow, if it pops or backfires out of the intake/carbs its way lean, and your idle circuit and possibly needles are a bit off. If id backfires/stumbles thru the pipes your rich and the problem is in the same place. Something ive learn since im not an expert is if u make a change and it gets worse your going the wrong way. Another thing if it was bone stock exaust and intake and u open up either end to breath better u are more than likely lean
That performance needle set isn't for the newbie. Even experienced carb tuners can have difficulty getting it to work right. I would advise going back to the stock needles for now. Maybe sometime in the future, once you gain more carb tuning knowledge, you could give the performance needles another try. But don't be surprised if you can't get the bike to run good with them. There have been several reports that they just plain don't work.
Turns out I made a really noob mistake... I didn't take the spacers off the stock needles and put them on the new performance needles. That solved my problem, now its just a matter of fine tuning. It still's runnin a little rich, but that I think I can get worked out.
