starting to get frustrating with tuning

[TDodge7]

i've been messing with the tuning on by bike for a while now . i had the pilots adjusted just about as well as one can by ear , all plugs were greyish tan , but me being the obsessive freak that i am bought a colortune . with the colortune i tuned all the carbs to a nice blue , which got me a lean condition with popping just off idle . so i colortuned again and this time adjusted until the blue was more greenish and hints of yellow were showing up which is what i assume "the emergence of yellow" meant in the tech tip . the bike felt fine when you rode it but the idle sounded kind of lopey and erratic . i pulled the plugs to find #4 a little whiter than i like , #3 a hair richer than i was aiming for , #2 even darker than the last , and #4 was straight up black . now i swear i got all 4 cylinders the same color , yet the plugs showed they weren't . so today i try to do it by ear again since i got it so well before , i adjusted it as best as i could but now if i'm going thru a parking lot or whatever when i pull the clutch and let off the gas the idle drops lower than usual and then comes back , also the bike stalled on me at a stop sign which it never does (when it died there was a high pitch electrical buzzing sound until i turned off the key , once i turned it back on it was gone) now my battery is getting low from all the idling trying to tune this stupid thing .

if you made it thru that then here's the questions
#1 what could have possible been making that buzzing noise when i stalled ? it sounded like it was coming from the right side of the bike , and stopped when i turned off the key , once the key was back on it wasn't there .

#2 why is it that when i colortuned all cylinders to the "emergence of yellow" i had 4 differently colored plugs , cylinder 1 was very rich , cylinder 4 was kinda lean , 3&4 were in the middle .


sorry for all the posts on tuning , i'm just starting to get very frustrated with this bike , i've been working on it all summer without doing any riding , and now that i'm finally close it's being stubborn .winter isn't not far away and i still don't have a bike i would call reliable .

[bikerphil]

2 things that can buzz down on the right side, flasher relay or solenoid.

Clean your plugs off and adjust the idle screws in or out. The blackest plug, try turning in a half turn, the whitest, out half turn, etc. Sometimes the colortune plug doesn't fire properly and will give you a false reading. I usually get the mixture close with the colortune, then fine tune by ear and by reading plugs. HTH

[DGXSER]

I have to agree with Phil. I have a fellow member here that has a colortune and he is a magician wiht these machines really. he basically has tuned enough with his colortune plug that he knows where to get it. I think he goes to full yellow then turns the screw in 1/4 turn or so.

The colortune plug is not the same as firing with your plug, it will be a different burn with your regular plugs and therefore you will need to read the plugs and make minor adjustments. however, I think the colortune does a great job of getting you in the park and even in the right corner of the park.

After you tune, be sure to resynch as well. It can change the synch.

[Ken Talbot]

You did not mention it in your post so I have to ask. Did you also re-sync after each time you played with the pilot screws?

[TDodge7]

i re-synced after the first colortune , but there's been so many little adjustments that i haven't been re-syncing after every little adjustment . i wouldn't think the sync would change just by messing with the pilots , i was under the assumption that all the synching did was to make sure all the butterflys in the carbs were even so no carbs are leading eachother . i've got it adjusted to the point where the plugs are kind of a greyish white , tho i tend to aim for a tanish color so i think they could stand to be richened up a bit , cylinder #1 was the worst , being completely black , but it's starting to clean up . i'm going to run it like this tomorrow and see how they look , once i have an idea of how it's running i'll adjust from there cylinder by cylinder i guess. i've also unplugged my headlight for now , all this idling with the lights on has severely drained my battery , and with my front brakes being warped i can't really take it out on the street , so i'm stuck testing by putting around the neighborhood and idling . i'm just not very patient i guess , and i constantly second guess my work , probably also doesn't help that i'm trying to get a 30 year old motorcycle to run as smooth as a f1 car which probably isn't going to happen . i tend to obsess with this stuff which tends to get me angry .