Good riding this weekend. It was a little warm on Saturday, but there was some awesome riding. I was really out to find out how my off season mods turned out. HV48, Vortex, cut hubs, and Sidewinder 520 (15/40).

Overall I was pleased with the new parts. I now have enough power to lag back and then, peg the throttle and I would be on the a$$ end of whoever was in front of me within seconds. That was just not possible at my weight before these mods. Since I did everything at one time I cannot tell which parts did what, but I am pleased.

The Sidewinder setup and hubs made spooling up the engine very easy... even from a near bog. I do wish I had gone with different gearing though. The 15 front was an awesome change but I may buy a 14 front just to see what it does. I still didn't get into 5th, but I did see a lot more of 4th than I ever have. Very happy with the combo though.

I do have some complaints/concerns, however. The first is the stiffness of the throttle. It is not all the time, it mostly affects the throttle pull after I stab the throttle and then let off and try to stab again. It is NOT anything that makes the bike unridable... actually I rode all weekend without any real thumb discomfort. I just had to change the way I approached using the throttle. I really think it may have a lot to do with the design of the thumb lever. Its just not long enough for me. I use some pretty cool grips that bolt on, and I can't get the throttle lever far enough over to make it comfortable. Yes I could probably get new grips, and I will if it comes to that but, I've heard that I can get an extended thumb lever, so I'm going to look into that. If anyone knows of one (other than that goofy looking plastic one that I've seen) let me know.

I also had some cutting out at WOT. At first it was only while pinned going down an incline... I noticed an air bubble in my fuel line, so I rerouted it and shortened it and it seemingly went away during my initial testing. It did happen one other time on a ride but it quickly went away, so I'm not too worried. I think what is going on is the bubble is getting trapped in the fuel line... I think it will be OK.

The last concern is with the Vortex. I'm getting a lot of kick back when starting. With all the problems with the Procomm CDI, I am concerned that my spag may be taking a beating. I also have a small backfire when shutting the bike down. I ran 87 octane this weekend and I'm thinking that the advance may just be too much. I'm going to run 91 next weekend, and see what happens. I also may have the Vortex programmed with the stock curve for starting and stopping the engine.

I also did some small stuff to the old girl that I really liked. The first was the ESR temp guage. Really nice when tuning the carb, and just for basic info on how hot she was running. It was warm like I said so I was interested in keeping tabs on temp. The other thing I did was wrap the header with exhaust wrap. Its the cloth looking stuff that you may have seen on old hotrods. Man that stuff is great... I can touch my exhaust while hot. It keeps the headers cooler, and also when the fan kicks on the hot air that normally blows right on my legs is not as bad... still not great but deffinetly not bad.

The last stuff I did was all for looks. I mostly did some house cleaning on parts I had purchased during previous seasons, and now was ready to get rid of. AC racing propeg nerfs were the first to go... I got the IMS pegs... very nice. The AC nerfs had nice wide pegs as well but they rattled so badly that It was near unbearable... my buddies could hear the rattles while we were riding. I also got rid of the extra trail tech lights, because after a bad spill last year during a night ride I have no interest in riding after dark. Thats beer drinking time[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]... Last, I took off the radiator scoops... I may put them back on, but I wanted to get a base temp reading so I could see how much they really do.

Well thats about it for now... I'll be back out next weekend, and I can't wait.

Late.

 

FH -

My $0.02

1. Run Premium only with the additional advance provided by the Vortex.

2. A stiff thumb pull is usually an indicator that the metering rod is slightly lean. How is your temperature and what do your plugs look like after you putt around at under half throttle for awhile?

3. If your metering rod is a touch lean, your powerjet might be acting lean because it isn't compensating enough for your lean metering rod causing the bike to cut out at the top-end. Does that make any sense?[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-blush.gif[/img]

4. If your metering rod is spot on after a plug check after a long, low speed run, go a little richer with your power jet and see if the problem gets worse or better. If worse, then go the other way.

5. If your metering rod is spot on, it will just be a matter of getting used to the thumb pull. A 48mm carb has such an enormous thumb throw, you will need a thumb that is about 9" long to go WOT if you put a throttle extension on that Moose thumb throttle, lol.

Good Luck, Man.

 

Hey Im glad you got to go ride, dangit I wanted to go!! But DSnut is right, my thoughts as soon as you make any changes to the quad Exhault Carb, CDI you should run 91 prem just for pretection, plus Doug were Big Dawgs, so are motors are already under load LOL.