82 450E Jetting Help Needed - Don't match what's available?

[pete]

Hey Don, yes, looking forward to getting stuck into it once I'm able to put some km's under the tyres.



I stuck the new pilots and mains in today but alas the pilots are now too rich!

Highest RPM method had the mixture screws just off closed completely... ha! Plugs are rather black...

I still get the feeling there's the slightest hesitation coming down to idle which makes me think the needle may still be on the lean side, but I'll get to that later.

I've ordered some 25's which should be here tomorrow again.

Oh, and while it's a bit fiddly, I can get the float bowls off without removing the carbs



And just in case anyone tries the large round mains in the 450 carbs instead of the small round mains, they ain't gonna fit:

[GsRocket]

Pete, good to hear your'e making progress, only suggestion would be to keep pilot stock even one size up makes it way too lean. I had mine running AMAZING for a full week before i had the urge to tear it apart again. See pic:

http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g441/jwehlmann/Oceanside-Escondido-20111125-00089.jpg

I went in to replace my steering stem bearings and fork seals. However when i was putting it back together i noticed more rust in the tank and my petcock was all blocked up. After i cleaned/cleared it out and put everything back it started up and was reving fine. Got it about 3 blocks out though and it began to stall on me, running until i stopped. Wouldnt start after that... i don't feel like this has anything to do with jetting since it was running fine for a full week. any ideas?

Also it started right up the next day with no problems then died a few minutes after. there was no spark after it stalled and plugs and battery are fresh.

[pete]

Pete, good to hear your'e making progress, only suggestion would be to keep pilot stock even one size up makes it way too lean. I had mine running AMAZING for a full week before i had the urge to tear it apart again. See pic:

http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g441/jwehlmann/Oceanside-Escondido-20111125-00089.jpg

I went in to replace my steering stem bearings and fork seals. However when i was putting it back together i noticed more rust in the tank and my petcock was all blocked up. After i cleaned/cleared it out and put everything back it started up and was reving fine. Got it about 3 blocks out though and it began to stall on me, running until i stopped. Wouldnt start after that... i don't feel like this has anything to do with jetting since it was running fine for a full week. any ideas?

Also it started right up the next day with no problems then died a few minutes after. there was no spark after it stalled and plugs and battery are fresh.

Thanks mate, only just starting and very keen to get stuck in

Hopefully I can get her registered on Friday and then I can do some real tuning.

Sounds to me like you need to give your tank the full and proper rust treatment and get a lining in there, otherwise you'll keep coming up against this. I did the POR 15 liner in mine.

If it's running for a bit then stalling, you may also find the little breather hole in the filler neck has been blocked. Try releasing the fuel cap to see if that lets her run.

That wouldn't cause no spark though, so not sure what's up with that unless you have some dodgy grounds or something that are being disturbed while riding...

[pete]

Got the 25 pilots today



And figured I should probably give the plugs a clean before running it next time so I can get a good indication from them.

Before:



After a go over with the wire brush:



Fingers crossed the weather cooperates on Friday as I'm working from home and should be able to go get her registered.

[Suzuki_Don]

Fingers crossed the weather cooperates on Friday as I'm working from home and should be able to go get her registered.

Ah!!! the old WORKING FROM HOME trick. Sounds a bit dodgy to me!!!

[pete]

Ah!!! the old WORKING FROM HOME trick. Sounds a bit dodgy to me!!!

Hahahaha that's it Don!

Got 2 hours owing to me again from on call this week so far, so might get away with it

(Un)fortunately I really can work from home... otherwise it would be a good excuse to ditch work and go ridin'

[Suzuki_Don]

Also it started right up the next day with no problems then died a few minutes after. there was no spark after it stalled and plugs and battery are fresh.

I agree with Pete, get the fuel side of things fixed up first. Clean tank, seal it, clean petcock, etc. Clean the carbs out again. There must be no crud in there at all. It takes only the tiniest bit to block a main or pilot jet, or even a small passage in the carb itself. For no spark I would suspect the igniter. Do some tests.

[pete]

Forgot to update this one Friday night, got all excited and carried away after getting her registered and then having my first real ride in nearly 10 years

Anyway, turns out I haven't been warming her up enough before checking the plugs and mixture screws at idle, and the 3 size up pilots are *still* too rich...

I figured that out because I got just up the road on the way to the Dept of Transport when the idle went up to about 4000 RPM's and stayed there. I had to shut her off, rip my glove off, and wind the idle screw out to get her back to just over 1000 RPM's again.

Then, on take off, she bogs down at first, so definitely rich, and to prove it, this is what the left plug looks like after that ride:



I've gone back to the two size up pilots again and set the mixture screws at 2 turns out as a starting point, and I'll wire brush the plugs again before riding again. Feral rainy weather at the moment but I'm hoping for enough clear weather to get her out for a run tomorrow and go say g'day to john82q as well.

I need to get started on some plug chops soon too because I have a feeling that while she's rich on the pilots she's lean on the needle.

[Suzuki_Don]

Well done Pete. good progress so far.

[pete]

Well done Pete. good progress so far.

Cheers Don, got out for a short blast with John82q today and while I didn't do any plug chops I'm getting a fairer idea of what's happening now.

I did a bit of mixture screw fiddling after a warm up this morning and it looks like I'm going to have a different sized pilot left to right, one size smaller on the left. I think if I put the stock one in it will be too lean, whereas it's currently still a bit rich on that side.

The headers on my pipe are different lengths and it seems to make quite a difference on the pilot there.

Anyway, here are how the plugs look after the run today, most of which I'm guessing would've been 1/4 to 1/2 throttle with a little bit of WOT thrown in for good measure. Didn't stop much so not a lot of time with the throttle closed.



To me they read lean... comments?

[pete]

Definitely need to order a #20 pilot for the left carb tomorrow.

Did about 60 or 70 km's today and when sitting at traffic lights you can really feel her start to bog and I reckon she was bordering on fouling that left plug today. She'd occasionally stall as well.

I think if I can get a #20 in there I should be able to set the mixture screws properly and I should be on track I hope...

[GsRocket]

Pete, i think i mistyped in my earlier post. I meant to say anything above stock pilot will make it too RICH. I think the reason its not responding well is your main jet is to small. Mine had a hard time starting and would barely run on 138 mains

I got 144's in there and its still too lean, Idle is perfect and full throttle is ok but i can tell its still a little shaky. If you up your main it will help your pilot as well.

again from experience i seriously doubt you need to mess with the pilot until your main is A LOT higher. I spent a lot of time with the pilot and in the end i put it back to stock and it works great.

Hope it all works out for you i know how painful jetting is.

[pete]

At the moment I'm just trying to get the idle sorted so it's properly rideable around town, then I'll start my plug chops with the main and then the various points on the needle.

The main issue at the moment is the left plug fouling from being too rich... my jet didn't arrive today though so hopefully tomorrow so I can get into the mixture screws again on the weekend.

[pete]

Ok, I've really neglected this thread and keep meaning to update it with my Chrissy presents



I got myself into a bit of no man's land with the pilots and have ended up with a #20 in the left carb and a #22.5 in the right carb as I figured the uneven header lengths of the pipe were making the left cylinder a little richer.

Then I gave the Carbtune a run:



I had the idle a little high for the before video above but you can still see they were way out of sync.

After:



And now the idle and off idle jetting is shocking... it idles for a bit then tends to stall out, and bogging off idle is terrible, gotta give it a good wrist full to get moving. Once I'm moving, it has plenty of get up and go, but back the throttle off and there's a whole lot of popping going on during deceleration.

I've got over 700km's on her since the rebuild now so the first big service (1000km's) is approaching rapidly where I'll need to do an oil/filter change, check all the bolts are torqued up nicely, check valve clearances, etc. and so I'm hoping I can get the time to put the Colourtune to work at the same time and get some good readings.

I really want to get her running a bit better by the 5th Feb for the first Brissie run, even if she's not perfect yet.

I won't be surprised if I end up getting a set of Rapidray's needles as I think these stock ones are not going to be too flash. Sure they're adjustable but from everything I've read so far the taper just isn't going to help me at all. Time will tell...

[oohsam]

Looks like we're going through the same thing at the same time! lol...

i had the same issues after my vacum sync. Im going to go up with my mains to 142.5 and see how that goes. I'm going to leave the pilots as stock as per most peoples advice.
Haven't pulled out the needles yet to see where they are and adjust them...

One more thing, with the colortune, when you hold revs at 3-4k it kinda pops...not sure if its ok, but it worried me!..