81 GS450S Build

[jmaresca]

I wish I would have noticed it sooner. The notches on the advance metal arms are sheared straight off. Just ordered a used advance on ebay for 20 bucks

[pete]

Yep they sure are! Wow someone did something very nasty there...

Hopefully that should sort it for you.

[jmaresca]

Here's the culprit of my issues. Just got it started. Need to set the idle, mount the seat, tighten everything up, then take a maiden voyage. Here's a stupid question:

Which direction is the choke on? Up or Down?

[skreemer]

push down on the lever to choke, pull up on the lever to not choke.

[pete]

Glad to hear she's running! And yep, what Skreemer said about the choke

[jmaresca]

Took her out on the maiden voyage today. I have a few odds and ends to finish up, but she runs well. I can't get into neutral. Might have my shifter a tooth off. She also seems to bog down in first sometimes from a stop, causing me to stall a few times. I wonder if I need to increase my pilot jet. I also just got my SH775 R/R in the mail. That will be mounted once I figure out a good spot.

I wanted to send a huge thanks out to Pete. You really know your bike and the tinkering you've done before me has saved me countless hours.

If anyone's interested, an album of my build is here.

[pete]

Mate she looks good, I like the minimalist approach there, good job!

Glad I could be of help and that all my fiddling is useful to someone else

My suggestion with your bogging would be to leave the pilot as you will likely find that it's actually the needle that is your issue if it's just as you crack the throttle open.

That's exactly what I'm dialling out at the moment and I think I've pretty much got it licked.

After dropping the mains down to 142.5's, I ended up with a bit of a flat spot just as I cracked the throttle open. I've also had issues with idle during the commute with popping through the pods and an occasional stall etc. which told me my needle was a touch lean but my mixture screws were still too rich.

On the weekend I installed the purple needle shim from my kit which makes it 3/4 of a notch richer than stock, and I wound my mixture screws back in to 2 1/2 turns.

A test ride yesterday and the commute today tells me it's much improved, no more flat spot and only a couple of pops through the pods. I'm trying another 1/4 turn leaner tomorrow.

I would leave the jetting as you have it for now, get it nice and warm and see how it feels after 15 to 20 minutes of riding at different speeds.

[jmaresca]

Mate she looks good, I like the minimalist approach there, good job!

Glad I could be of help and that all my fiddling is useful to someone else

My suggestion with your bogging would be to leave the pilot as you will likely find that it's actually the needle that is your issue if it's just as you crack the throttle open.

That's exactly what I'm dialling out at the moment and I think I've pretty much got it licked.

After dropping the mains down to 142.5's, I ended up with a bit of a flat spot just as I cracked the throttle open. I've also had issues with idle during the commute with popping through the pods and an occasional stall etc. which told me my needle was a touch lean but my mixture screws were still too rich.

On the weekend I installed the purple needle shim from my kit which makes it 3/4 of a notch richer than stock, and I wound my mixture screws back in to 2 1/2 turns.

A test ride yesterday and the commute today tells me it's much improved, no more flat spot and only a couple of pops through the pods. I'm trying another 1/4 turn leaner tomorrow.

I would leave the jetting as you have it for now, get it nice and warm and see how it feels after 15 to 20 minutes of riding at different speeds.

I don't have notches on my needle. I added washers under the one clip. I measured it from top of the clip to the bottom of the bottom washer and it came out to 3.38 mm. I just test rode it and didn't feel any flat spots.

I installed the SH775 R/R and it seems to be working. I need to silicone the connections up.

Now I just need to get my neutral to work and tuning should be done.

[pete]

Cool... the notch I have my clip in is the stock notch, so in theory my shims should be similar to having no notches for adjustment at the moment.

No flat spots is a good thing!