Guide for Setting Idle + Vacuum Syncing + Color Tuning?

Searching hasn't led me to a good guide for these processes, can anyone point one out for me? I'm approaching that point in my carb rebuild + tuneup process and want to make sure I do it right.

 

Bench Sync the Carbs to the #3 Carb using a very thin Feeler medium.
3X5 Card Strip
Resume Paper
35mm Film Strips
3-In. Long 1/4-In. Wide.

ColorTune for Idle with Throttles Closed.
The ColorTuning Method is a HUGE Time Saver.

Once the Plant will Idle on-its-own, ... supplemental Richness will solve Off-Idle Hesitation.
Not much.
2~8 Degrees.
On a stopwatch, ... 15-seconds is a quarter-turn.
Supplemental Richness is 5-seconds (+/- 2 sec).

Non-YICS Plants: Vacuum Sync below 2-grand.
YICS Plants: Block YICS Passage before Vac Syncing.

(After Valves are checked or adjusted)

 

Ok, so as I understand it - When colortuning I'm supposed to back out the idle richness screw until I see orange, then go back in until it turns 'bunsen blue'. The problem is that on my first cylinder backing out the screw takes me to white, and no matter how far in I go I can only get blue, even when the screw is bottomed out.

The colortune manual says this means I have a clog somewhere, but I -just- cleaned these carbs and did a damn thorough job - tore everything down and went through 3 bottles of carb cleaner getting every nook, cranny and hole spotless.

So three questions - is backing the screw out supposed to get me to orange? Why would I get to white doing that?

Do I have to get orange at some point?

Blue is from bottomed out until a full 3 turns out for me, that seems like a wide range, right?

 

I get the Blue.
Then, I tweak it a bit Richer beyond the Blue.

 

I get that, and I've read a number of your posts about doing just that so I'm totally on board, but it doesn't really answer the questions I'm running into.

 

ARE YOUR VALVES IN SPEC?

Did you wet-set the float levels?

Have you done a running vacuum sync, with YICS blocked?

Unless the answers to ALL OF THE ABOVE are "yes" then you're not ready to be trying to ColorTune.

Those three items (in that order) have to come first.

 

try this..might help...http://www.xjbikes.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=2132.html

 

and this..

 

Carb Rebuild + Clean
Wet Set Floats, they're all in spec now
Checked the butterfly's for a bench sync but they were already set correctly.
Valves checked & shims replace to bring them all into spec.
Running vacuum sync w/ YICs blocked (and learned that those yics blocker seals start melting -really- quickly).

I'm going through the steps all in order and taking my time with each one, just trying to get this one figured out.

 

Anyone have thoughts on why I might not be able to get to orange or run into this themselves? This is my first colortune so I don't know what's normal.

 

The Pilot Fuel Passages may need a Power-flush.

I pull the Pilot Fuel Jet and the Mixture Screw, Spring, Washer and O-ring.
Using a Bubble Syringe, ... I flush UP through the Vacant Fuel Jet Orifice blocking the Mixture Screw Bore with a finger.

Then, blocking the Mixture Orifices, ... Flush the Passage from the AIR Jet through the Fuel Jet.

Followed by Air Jet through the Mixture Holes through the Air Jet blocking the Fuel Jet.

After you Flush, ... SWAP Pilot Fuel Jets to see if the ColorTuning changes after a Swap.

 

I flushed those passages very well when I had the carbs apart, and further when I checked the other 3 cylinders I had the same experience with each one - a wide range of blue with white when I backed the screw way out. I ended up adjusting them to 2.5 turns out, making sure they were all blue, re-checking my vacuum sync and calling it good for now.

What I suspect is that the engine wasn't running at a full idle at that point - the bike takes a bit to warm up and be happy, but the yics tool starts melting after around 2 minutes of run-time. I had the idle adjusted to 1k - 1100, but after getting everything back together and going for a 10 minute test ride my idle was up to 1500 and I had to turn it back down. My thought is that maybe without the engine warmed up the colortune wasn't reading correctly.