With the holidays and some time off, I finally got around to installing some VM34's as well as some new pipes/exhaust. I've been meaning to switch out the exhaust for a few years now...but just hadn't felt the drive to do the swap/mess with carbs/jets, etc...and if I'm honest with myself, I was pretty happy with how it looked as is... And yes a bit lazy I suppose. Ha ha.
But there has been a part of me that has a very specific vision for my build that I've been after, and that voice in the back of my mind kept nagging at me to finish this damn thing.
So, last spring I finally got back to thinking about it and initially went with a low-cost alternative to minimally change the look by adding some kerker exhaust tips for a "reverse cone" look on the stock pipes. And that looked "ok" but I wasn't happy with the sound. They were a bit too raspy for my liking, and that is mainly due to the stock pipes being a bit raspy as well.
Here's a clip of the stock pipes with kerker tips:
I actually dig the look of the exhaust tips...but it wasn't "complete" without the sound.
Meantime, over the summer after many good days of riding, my stock BS38's started leaking (on the right carb). I would clean them up, check the valve needle seat and floats for leaks and adjust, etc. which would cure the issue for a few weeks and then every once in a while it would leak again. (I think it's murphy's law that had it leak exactly at the wrong time when I was in a rush to get somewhere!) BTW, I suspect a bad float that I had replaced last year with some aftermarket variation (but that's for another thread)...Anyways, this fall I was going to send them off to oldschoolcarbs to get completely rebuilt and looking pretty...but after a few seasons of racing my Honda 175's, where we run with Keihin round slide carbs, I kind of fell in love with them (so simple and work great)...thus, I did some research and some more research (Learning a hell of a lot from this site of course), I decided that the pros outweighed the cons and I would give a set of "XS650 tuned" VM34 Kit a shot. Thus, fix my leaking carb...and since I had to tune them, might as well swap out the exhaust altogether at the same time.
I decided on a set of 1.5" header pipes from Mikes, as they aren't all that expensive and I had some 45 degree extensions off of Dime-city for my race bikes that would fit. I also decided on some mini cammando-style slip-on's for the Norton look I was after...once the old exhaust came off, they pretty much bolted together fairly easily..although I had to make a bracket and space them off the frame a bit. I may go with a wider diameter header down the road...as I prefer the larger pipes, but for now, I think it works.
For the carbs, the install was simple, being very familiar with round slides now, the tuning has been painless so far (For those interested--I'm currently running a size 20 Pilot jet, and 180 main jet... with the needle clip in the mid position. So far this seems solid, revs great and no hesitation anywhere...I may be a bit lean on the mains but I won't know until I do more testing).
Here's a pic of the bike as it is today:
And here's a clip of it running:
Happy New Years everyone!
