South FL help please

DoTheTon

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So my bike is 99% done just like everyone on here. But i cant tell if it needs some serious tuning or something else it is an 1983 XS650, has PKW32 carbs 1.5" exhaust and velocity stack filters. If anyone knows much about syncing and tuning i would love the extra help and am more than happy to pay for services.
 
I think what you may need to do is pay for another set of carbs, lol. The ones you have are pretty bad from most reports. The design is good but the quality of build is very poor. Slides stick and/or floats hang up. You can't tune a set of carbs with those problems, no matter what jets you use.
 
If you have BS38's, rebuild them. Great carbs and tons of info on here about them.
The '83 XS came with BS34's though. Which are goods carbs as well.
 
DTT, not scolding you, just repeating some information for others who might be tempted to buy something unsuitable. Even if those carbs are genuine Keihin PWK's, they are not PWK32's. KEIHIN DOES NOT MAKE A 32 MM. PWK, AND THEY NEVER DID. That's a PWK28 or knockoff thereof with the venturi bored to 32 mm.

The bore job is done because the PWK is a dedicated 2-stroke carburetor, and 2-stroke motors require big, fat needle jets. Keihin doesn't offer optional needle jets for PWK's. The cheapest way to get a NJ that's close to lean enough for a 650 cc. 4-stroke twin is to punch out the PWK28 and use big, thick jet needles. And that still leaves the cruising range mix too rich.

As far as I know the first vendor to hustle punched-out PWK knockoffs for old 650 and 750 twins was JRC Engineering, who offered the lousy things for Brit bikes; the first ones I saw had been removed from a Triumph after the owner had installed them, given up trying to get the bike to run clean, and turned the job over to a local shop. I don't know if they managed to get the owner to accept that he'd been burned and needed different carbies or not.

As far as carb options are concerned, you'll get the best performance out of OE vacuum carbs if you retain the still air box. If you just have to have pods, the Mikuni VM series is the most economical choice. There's plenty of information available on tuning, seek and find. Avoid discount vendors who claim to install application-specific brass and wind up costing you more money than you'd have paid to somebody honest. If you want a trick look and crap performance, go ahead and hang velocity stacks on vacuum carburetors. Most guys who do that don't know the difference, maybe you won't notice the performance loss either.
 
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