Replacing Carburators

[Darkchyld]

Reading through the mass of information in these forums there does seem to be ALOT on carbs. Rebuilding, swapping, performance and the like.
( Still have 200 or so pages to sift through )
What if I wanted to replace mine. 82 GS1100GL. What would I look for?
I'd like to see a performance gain, up the economy, and improve servicabilty.
Any thoughts?

[jimcor]

I would look for a winning lottery ticket, too.

[gsBert]

the slingshots are easily serviced, expect to go through jetting hell though.

and if you want better fuel economy, keep dreaming

[first timer]

look here maybe you can cross refererance some stuff

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/viewtopic.php?t=19364

[kalessin]

Hm.

For more performance, people generally put on a less-restrictive exhaust system (which also means a louder bike), which often means putting in wider jets.

However, the price paid for higher performance is lower gas mileage.

I don't think there are any carb mods you can make to get better gas mileage, unless you want to lower performance. Probably the best way to improve a GS1100GL's gas mileage (other than swapping in a GS850 engine) is to stop twisting the throttle so damn hard...

[ptm]

Assuming the bike is stock (mainly air box, carbs and exhaust), your best bet is make sure they are clean and adjusted properly. That will give you the best combination of performance, serviceability and economy IMHO.

The next possibility up would be to replace the airbox with pods and the stock exhaust with a 4-1 unit to let it breath better. You will need to rejet the carbs to match the better air flow. That can go relatively smoothly or (more likely) turn into a long tedious process, but it can be done and the results can be very satisfying. Do a search on the threads here about it. You will gain some performance but lose economy. You will gain servicability because you will learn so much about them during the rejetting process.

Lastly you can replace the carbs with something really radical - look in the Performance Mods section to see some of the possibilities. The sky's the limit with these bikes - carbs, cams, pistons, even turbos...

[KEITH KRAUSE]

Performance increase and economy increase isn't going to happen.