OK, this just doesn't make sense!

[wa407mpp]

I watched you leave the stop light next to Jim's yesterday, and it sounds to me like you have more then carb. problems, check your timing and pickups you shouldn't have to rev it that high to get it off the line. Also what did you use for carb. cleaner? Was it just a spray can, or did you use a dip? Westbay Auto sells a good dip carb. cleaner,it even comes with a basket. A spray can isn't strong enough to remove the hard varnish, you also need to pull the needle towers out and make sure all of those little holes are all clean, or you won't have any off idle power and when you are up to speed you will have to run more throttle to maintain your speed, and use more gas. As in poor gas mileage.

[AlanB]

Hi Mark,

DON'T dip your carb bodies in cleaner unless they are COMPLETELY stripped; there are some rubber seals on the throttle shafts which will disappear and cause bad air leaks unless they are removed before dipping....

To get the shafts out, the butterflys need removed, and the screws are peened over.......

And if you spray WD/40 on the boots, they will end up hard and cracked........ Any type of silicone spray will do the same job for installation, but will help to soften and preserve the boots.

AlanB

[Ken Talbot]

Originally posted by markjs
How does one adjust that? I didn't see any way when I had them apart.

Down inside the top of the carb slides, there are two small screws that hold a flat plate, which retains the needle in the body of the carb slide. If you have the right carbs, needle height is controlled by a small circlip and five grooves on the body of the needle. Richening or leaning is a simple matter of moving the circlip and reassembling.

If you have the "other carbs", the needle is held in place by a plastic collar near the top of the needle. You can usualy still move the needle up or down in the plastic collar.

[markjs]

Whao people....

First off I have two bikes and no car, and one bike has to go so I can afford a car. I am thinking the Kaw is what I wanna sell, but if someone comes around and wants the XS, then I'd probably consider it. The Kaw is nice with lower miles and will prolly net me more car buying money. So ease back on the assumptions please.

I have thouroghly cleaned the carbs with spay and compressed air (at Jim's shop in fact, and believe you me that's high pressure air!). They had no serious varnish problem or I might have dipped them, but it just wasn't neccessary. They are very clean. This was done with a complete dissassembly.

As for revving too much, part of that is the fact that the muffler on the left is busted off, and part of it is just the way I ride. That thing doesn't need half the revs I give it, but I have so many tickets, that my only joy comes from fast acceleration. I can't speed at all period. One more ticket and I am prolly gonna be suspended. The thing is running quite nicely finally. It will get off the line at low revs no problem, but what fun is that? No matter what I am driving I always come off the line like I am on a drag strip.

Also to consider is that my Kaw needs at least 2500 to get off the line. It runs great but 1st gear is really high and anything under 2K and it lugs badly, so I am way more used to the Kaw since I only just got the XS back on the road.

I realize my hard riding and fast acceleration doesn't help the mileage but I'd really settle for 25MPG. 20MPG no matter how I ride seems ridiculous to me. The plugs were black but as I said I raised the floats to about 1 1/8", and according to my book they were supposed to be 1". So now the plugs are a nice brown color and that's a good sign, but when I raised the floats I had about 1/3 of a tank and I just filled tonight. I won't know what the mileage is until I fill again. As nice as the plugs look now I don't think I will probably need to mess with the slide needles.

The only thing in question now, is how much difference the float adjustment made. I will know in a day or two most likely, but lately I am so broke it may end up being payday before I know, because at $3.30 a gallon it's like $15-$17 to fill that sucker.

[markjs]

I am also not really convinced that the speedometer or odometer is accurate. It could be just that when I ride the Kaw (it feels like a mini bike) I get a whole other perspective, but it seems to me that the XS says I am doing 40 when I am really doing 35, which I suppose if that was the case then my mileage is even worse than I thought.

[wa407mpp]

You can get a ticket for fast take offs too! It's called excessive display of power, even if you don't go over the speed limit. That does explain a lot though.

[TopCatGr58]

I've heard it called

Exhibition of Acceleration, but usually is due to guys burning rubber, loosing traction=loosing control=reckless driving!

As for just accelerating, as long as you don't exceed the speed limit, I haven't had any problems!
T.C.