Yay! a successful tuning, on a budget.

Ok... just finished tuning my carbs, the "ghetto" way.

I went to Oreilly auto parts.. Got 2 dial-style vacuum gauges. $24.99 x2.
Got a length of clear acrylic hose, for the vacuum lines, 3/16 ID. ~$3
Got some black fuel line to make a quick YICS tool $0.25
Made some RickCoMatic-style vacuum restrictors, so the gauges don't dance so much. $3.00 or so for a pack of vacuum fittings
made a quick bottle-feeding system, so I could set tank out of the way (an empty water bottle with a vacuum fitting epoxied to the bottom, suspended with rope from a garage door hinge )

I set all 4 pilot screws 3 turns out.
Then, I stuffed the YICS passage with a length of fuel line with similar OD to the YICS passage ID.(I cut it just long enough where the bolts compressed it slightly, thus expanding it inside the passage). It's a ghetto way to do it, but it works well enough.
Hooked up my 2 gauges to carbs 1 and 2. Holy crap! about 4 turns clockwise to balance them out.
Then... onto carbs 3 and 4. Not bad here, only about a turn...
Finally, carbs 1 and 4. A minor tweak... at this point the idle became almost perfect.
One more round of fine tuning, and time for a test drive!

Wow, this thing really moves now. I saw an improvement through the entire power band. Idle is 100% better, and it no longer tries to die and does not "hunt". At this point it felt like I could bury the speedo in 5th.

Notes:

1. With YICS passage blocked, the revs seem very slow to drop down after revving the engine. After un-blocking, the idle drops like a rock back to idle speed. Weird.
2. Next time I will have to invest in 2 more gauges to make things easier :-D ...although the process is not too difficult even with just 2.
3. It feels really good to not have to spend $$$ to have someone else do this, but rather invest in a tool that I can use over and over.

all in all, a successful tuning, in my opinion. And not to stir up any sh*t, but tuning with the YICS passage blocked is a hell of a lot easier, and takes less that 1/2 the time (at least for a beginner).

 

It gives me Great Pleasure to award to XJBikes.com Member ...

"Gene"

Official ~~> Double-Oh XJ Status

XJ-Bike Wrencher ... with a "License To Tweak"

Great work, Gene!
It's nice getting Dialed-in ... ain't it???

 

Huzzah! And well twiddled! Bet you couldn't wipe the grin off your face that night when you went to bed!

 

Robert - no kidding! What sucks is that it's raining cats and dogs over here, so I can't ride to work :-( ..guess I'm driving the gas-guzzling monster Crown Vic this morning.

and Rick... uh.. thanks, but I'm not Gene.... I'm Vlad.

still though. you get the MacGyver of the XJ world award, for your line of RickCoMatic(tm) tools :-D

 

I am Gene and I haven't started tweaking yet, but I think I will give a shot at what you have here.

Can't wait to make my idle perfect, and if you say that you notice the imrovement so much I will definitely go for it!

I have to do it now or Rick won't give me the award!

 

I bit the bullet and rode in this morning.... got a little wet, but no big deal.
While idling, the motor sounds like a sewing machine... Gene, I highly recommend giving it a shot. I've not synced a set of carbs in my life until yesterday, but I found it to be very easy.

 

Once you find-out how -- let's say: "Not really that complicated" instead of ... "Easy" ... it is, to do the fine-tuning; you CAN very-easily become obsessive about it.

You morph into a Super-Tweaker, unsatisfied with Sync Vacuum's unless they are causing the dials or mercury columns to pulsate more accurately than the uniform, high leg-kicks of Radio City's Rockette's.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

But ... the associated euphoria, often gets in the way of the fact, that you are tuning-up an Air Cooled Engine.
A lot of people, over the years, who have become "Hipp-mow-tized" by the vibrating needles and tops of columns of mercury; spend too long admiring how pretty they look flickering together ... and let the Engine severely overheat.

They wind-up with perfectly synchronized carbs to go along with their new oil leak from the blown head gasket.

If you think a little kid, all smiles, about to win her first game of "Giant Steps" as she baby-steps it over the line, is crushed and heartbroken when all the other kids yell-out: "She forgot to say 'May-I'" and gets sent all the way back to the Starting Line, to begin all-over, again ...

Imagine a little trickle of oil seeping-out from between number two and number three; leaking-out and falling down on to the hot exhaust header pipe and beginning to smoke.

Don't kick your dog. It wasn't his fault!

 

I agree with you, Rick... There is a fine line between perfection and obsession. However, my goal was not to uber-tweak my motor, but to simply get it running right so I can ride it. These carbs were originally synced with 3 perforated diaphragms, one with 2 holes in it... which is also why I'm hesitant to let the shop do it - THEY built those carbs.

I also have a big shop fan... 3 foot diameter sooo..... I don't think overheating is a problem.

 

I'm not too worried about all the "Regular Contributors" ... I just want to make sure the caution appear in the Thread ...

That way ... somebody who's got just enough rope don't hang themselves.

Actually, I think its been great watching the number of people who have had-it with bringing their bike "In-someplace" decide to go-after tuning-up their own bike ... and, ... some -- having NEVER done a project like this before ... wind-up getting it done -- themselves -- with better results than the "Other people" they depended upon in the past.

I salute them.
I'm elated that so many of the recent Posts have been: "I got it running" type Posts ... rather than those who throw-up their hands and give-up.

 

What would the possibility of posting play-by-play pics of how to do this for us total newbs?

 

That's in the works.

I should be getting a set of Carbs to overhaul in the next day or so ... I'm trying to get the camera and lighting worked-out.

But ... if I look at the carbs and they are in a condition that I can "Turn them around" to the customer -- quickly ... I need to get them done without delay and get a bike on-the-road!

 

is there a link on step by step instructions on how to do this ??

 

Too bad that you live so far away! I have the cameras and lights since besides working on computers I also do wedding pics on the weekends.

 

Congrats at a job well done.

Please don't take offense, but I have a suggestion for Gene. JC Whitney sells a dial type 4 gauge vacuum syncer for about $50. Includes all the hoses and restricters you need. Plan ahead and order one up.

 

Thank you for the tip. I looked on the website and I am not able to find them, though...

The price is right.

 

http://www.carparts.com/autoparts/ItemB ... 0000234595

Is this it? Part number ZX888813T?

For 50 bucks I would buy it right away, but 75...

Is the price right? I don't know how long I am going to stay in this country and I don't want to buy a whole bunch of tools to have to sell them cheap. I already have way too many!

What do you guys think? Is there any place to rent this things?

 

none taken Let's consider this as another step in the "budget" direction. I really didn't shop around much for the gauges, I just got tired of my bike running like hammered dog sh*t, and decided to do something about it.

Got a linky for that gauge set?..

 

I scraped up the last 2 vacuum gauges yesterday when I did a favour for a guy at a local compressor shop where I used to work. I bought 4 1/4" NPT X 1/8" barb fittings. I already have some 1/4" vinyl tubing, but it looks like I really need 3/8" tubing (or was it 3/16"??), so sad. I figured I'd need some sort of snubber inline with the gauges as well to keep the needle movements reasonable. The idle on my bike is just awful now, with a random miss and severe loping. It really needs a sync, and probably a valve adjustment, but I'm going for a smooth idle for now. I'm trying to figure out a way to block the YICS passage. I was wondering if foam ear plugs rammed into the passage to the correct depths would work? If the fan is big enough it probably wouldn't get too hot. I can borrow a couple of big floor fans from work.

As you can tell, I had no success in selling the bike. I might just keep it and turn it into the ultimate sport tourer. We'll see. I'll never get my money back out of it now anyway.

 

foam ear plugs might get gooey, with heat and gasoline and all....

see if you can find a piece of rubber fuel line that fits snugly (but not too snugly, or you'll have a hard time getting it back out!) through the YICS passage. cut it just long enough where you can shove it through and put the other screw in a few turns by hand.. then put a few turns more turns on it with a wrench, squeezing together so it makes the piece of fuel line expand inside... fuel line is usually made of some pretty tough rubber, that is both heat and fuel resistant. when you're done, take both screws out, and push the rubber hose out with a wooden dowel or something similar non-metal... so you won't scratch the inside of the YICS passage.

...or use any other of various great DIY YICS tool designs that are scattered about this site :-D

 

You might try visiting some Motorcycle Dealerships and ask the Lead Tech if he has Gauges he'd like to sell.

The Full-face four-pack went obsolete when the Merc-Sticks came along.

The Merc-Sticks are very slowly getting phased-out buy Morgan and the Stainless steel floating slugs.

You might get lucky and get set ... cheap.

 

'DOH! That is the one. I wonder if they were on sale when I bought mine.....

 

I'm going to ask a (probably really) stupid question. Why do you want to tune your bike? Moreover what are the vaccuum gauges and restrictors for? I also see this YICS tool, it looks like a rod to me...

Anyone got a second to answer some stupid questions?

 

No such thing as a stupid question. Why do you want to tune your bike? Because it runs like crap! Some of us unlucky riders got bikes from PO that messed with stuff they shouldn't. To put it all back to the PROPER running condition, you need to tune the bike in. From there, you can IMPROVE how the bike runs by tuning. If you are happy with how your bike runs and it is setup to not explode (ie: running really lean) then you never need tune it.

The vacuum gauges and restrictors are used to measure the vacuum present at each carb. The idea is to balance the vacuum across all four carbs so that everything is equal allowing each cylinder to have the same air fuel mixture. On YICS engines, there is an air passageway that connects all four of the carbs together - this is supposed to allow the vacuum to balance itself out across the carbs. To accurately measure the vacuum at each carb, the YICS tool is needed to isolate each carb - it is just a rod but it has some other stuff on it to isolate the passageway.

Hope this helps. If I missed anything, one of the other guys will be along to fill in the gaps.

 

Thanks for the response and explanation, also the fact about the passageway between the carbs.

I was hoping that was why you wanted to tune your bikes. I was fortunate enough to get a bike which AFAIK doesn't need any tuning. Though it cost me a bit more than average, it's worth it to me!

 

I guess there might be a Gray Area ... but, I guess there's basically two kinds of people that ride:

Them who ... "Set it and forget it!"

We who ... "Tweak on Sunday after Church ... 'cause no matter how good it's runnin'; there's something in our blood that just ain't gonna be happy until we've played with it some more ... and, get-off fine tuning!"

We are the kind of guy's who usually can't find our Driver's License ... 'cause they're someplace in our wallets behind our "Tweaker's Licenses!"

 

Just to resurrect a dead thread real quick...

I did the same thing as a previous poster; went to the JC Whitney site, didn't find it, followed the aforementioned link, and the kit came right up.

What I also did is go to the Harbor Freight site to see what they had. Lo and behold, they have a nearly identical pressure/vacuum gauge for about $13 a crack. Multiply that by 4 and you get $52. Mounting them? Hell, I'll use double-sided tape and a piece of 2x4 if I have to. :wink:

If I can't get my carbs sniffed, at least I can get them balanced.

 

Well ... not to belabor a point.

You only need:

1 Gauge ...
A few feet of Vacuum Line
1 Home-brew, easy-as-pie to make, vacuum line restrictor ... and,
4 Golf Tee's ...

And you can sync ALL-4 of them Carbs "Right-on-the-money"

Piece 'O Cake!

 

True, but for the $50, you can get the whole kit (4 nice gauges mounted) from JC, including the restrictors and extender tubes (for you folks without the port built into the manifold). Why go through the hassle of jumping from port to port? It is nice to be able to whiz through and see all 4 indications simultaniously! I think you get a better picture of what is going on when you make adjustments. Just MHO.

 

(snippage)

Yep... I remember your how-to. Interesting stuff. If one has only one gauge, then it would come in very handy. As I have none, I may as well get four and be done with it.

Current price on that is $75, as previously mentioned. While I most assuredly lack your and Rick's hands-on experience, in my not-so-humble opinion, I have to agree wholeheartedly that four gauges are better than one.

 

You're not-so-humbly and wholeheartedly absolutely wrong!
Go ask a High School Science teacher. Maybe there's one or two in the Forum.

The instant you introduce the second and subsequent GAUGES for a procedure requiring accuracy -- the results are suspect.
Plus, you wouldn't be able to buy, 4 Vacuum Gauges, of sufficient accuracy to have the test results verified, for only 70-Bucks at JC Whitney.

What if one or two of the gauges are off. They are gauges ... not columns of Mercury.

Before the advent of mulit-guage and columns of mercury ... One gauge WAS the way the job got done.

I'd be very happy to demonstrate how accurately a 4-Pack can be synced with a single gauge.
All four Carbs would be pulling exactly the SAME vacuum.

We just wouldn't be able to get-all-giddy seeing the same reading on four separate gauges.

The multi-gauge / card sticks don't provide additional accuracy ... they were invented to reduce the time it takes getting the procedure done.

You're wrong!
I don't mind that you have your own opinion; and your opinion is wrong.

What bothers me more than you being wrong ... is the fact that you don't know that you are.

 

Slight problem with your reasoning, big fella. If one is using one gauge, the other three vacuum ports are plugged. On the one cylinder that's being measured... how is the gauge any different than a plug? The only difference is that now you can see how much vacuum is being drawn. If you were putting multiple gauges on a single cylinder, you might have a point; however, you're putting one gauge per cylinder.

With three other gauges plugged in, as far as the carbs are concerned, all of the vacuum ports are still plugged. As for one affecting the other... isn't the YICS tool supposed to PREVENT that? I rather thought the whole idea of the YICS tool was to isolate the individual carbs.

Added bonus: you say using four gauges is wrong, wrong, wrong. I gather that Robert is a knowledgeable person here; he is also suggesting using four gauges. Are you saying he's "wrong and doesn't know that he is"?

If the point of your post was to piss me off... you're close to succeeding. If that happens, you can guarantee that I'll give less and less credibility to anything you post.

I'll leave you with a quote from the animated film 'Rock 'n' Rule':

"We all have our own illusions; far be it from me to take away yours."

 

Since you are unwilling to accept MY explination ... I'll leave it open for discussion and see what some of the others think about your logic concerning measuring vacuum.

Inserting the YICS Tool ... IS ... what makes it possible to obtain an accurate Vacuum reading from ONE individual Cylinder to the next. The Vacuum drawn at each of the Manifold Testing Connections is the vacuum on that hole.

Covered with the Plug or attached to a Measuring Device ... it's the same amount of vacuum.

I'll repeat what i said about Multiple Source Testing Devices.

They weren't invented because using them is far more accurate.

They were only invented to save someone some time. Save time.

If I thought that a Gang-of-four gauges was good enough to synchronize the many I've done ... there'd be a set hanging next to my toolbox where the MotionPro mercury CarbSticks are hanging now.

I was content doing the job with ONE Gauge for a long, long time.
There is NO reason that others can't be just as content doing their Carbs with ONE Gauge; too.

It just takes a little longer to obtain the accurate results!

 

My point exactly. We're in complete agreement here.

I wouldn't say the accuracy is increased; the accuracy per gauge should be the same.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Do you use the mercury sticks? I'm guessing not. If you do, what is the difference between using those and the vacuum gauges? Oh, wait -- the mercury sticks *are* vacuum gauges. They merely use a different method of measuring vacuum. As does every single homemade manometer out there.

I'm reading something into that, but I'll refrain from commenting on it.

 

My learned amigo, you are correct. The introduction of additional gauges does not improve accuracy. It does provide the additional speed to finish the job which equates to more/sooner riding! And for what we are doing, the accuracy of these gauges is MORE than sufficient. One simply needs to zero them out to start with and carry on. Not that difficult. True, in the quest for perfection, 0.1 hg can be seen as "unbalanced, but compared to what? I have not noticed any appreciable change on bikes with a slight (such as 0.1 in/hg) offset between manifold vacuum.
Yes, the price of those gauges has gone up just a bit hasn't it? I caught mine on sale 15 years ago, my appologies. They do sell the basic kit for a little less if you don't want all the bells and whistles. But I would spring for the delux kit for the expanded capabilities.

 

I don't think we need to discuss this any further if you don't concede that Columns of Mercury ARE NOT Gauges.

Apples <~~> Oranges.

How do you like them apples?

 

Rick is correct:

Every instrument (I won't debate whether mercury sticks are a gauge) has some inaccuracy.

Accuracy is not important for syncing the carbs, repatibility is.

By using one gauge on each carb you get repatibility.

By using four gauges you get four different inaccuarcies so by default you will have some variation between the carbs.

The mercury sticks are one instrument and repeatable across the columns. There are however four scales so there is some potential for error there.

At the end of the day I'll join Robert. Unless you have a majorly screwed up gauge the four gage set up is quick and good enough for most of us.

If you're like Rick, and cannot sleep well unless you absolutely know that it is tweaked to the maximum point humanly possible you should use a manometer or a single vacuum gauge.

Of course, you could use the 4 gauge setup to get them "close" fast, and then use one gauge to do the Rickomatic final tweak to perfection.

 

I'll meet you guys in the middle: how about 2 gauges? :-D

Cheaper than four, faster than one.
First do 3 & 4, then 1 & 2, then combination of the two banks...

one advantage that I see in using 4 gauges is that theoretically you don't need the YICS tool, since you can monitor all four carbs at the same time, and you also save time by not having to keep swapping gauges and plugs (that engine is pretty warm by now!). Doing sync with 1 gauge and no YICS tool is a royal pain in the ass.. adjust one, and the other 3 wander off like a herd of cats.

an advantage to using 1 gauge is that you _know_ your readings will be accurate, since you don't have to worry about multiple gauges being calibrated to each other (I bought 2 brand new gauges, and they did have a discrepancy between them). Also, 1 is cheaper than 4.

To summarize: If you can afford it (or care to), 4 will make the sync job go fast, but if money is tight, 1 or 2 will do just as well.

Mercury sticks are by definition gauges, because they... uhh... gauge vacuum. But... they do not behave like coil-type gauges. They require less volume to get an accurate reading, which may affect accuracy in some cases. Mercury gauges do not need calibration. They're calibrated for life. Conventional gauges may change over time (granted, very long time).

there. it's all a matter of preference... and dollars... and how obsessed you are with precision

Side note:

Here's one weird thing I observed about tuning my carbs:

When my carbs were a bit out of sync, my motor idled like sh*t. But... It seemed to have more torque, especially from low to mid band.

When I synced the carbs and made all 4 carbs exactly equal, the bike idled like a swiss watch, but the power band changed, and I did not have quite as much power taking off. I think that it's possible that by having the carbs strategically out of sync, you could get a bit more oomph out of your 20+ year old beast. :-D

 

If you work-out a couple of the kinks ... you could do a good Stand-up Routine; I think.

If you Sync a YICS Bike without the Tool ... You're in the Ballpark.
But, you don't know in what City' nor American or National League.

Strategically out-of-sync is the ... (Don't go there, Rick ... relax ... calm-down ... let somebody else handle that ... there you go. Breathe!)

Just try:
All-four-the-same Sync
Pilot Screws on the hairy-edge of almost too Rich.

I promise you it will run better than some-other "Strategy"

 

You're going to have to take that up with the nice people at Merriam-Webster dictionary, I'm afraid. See item 2b.


Variant(s):
also gage \ˈgāj\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
Middle English gauge, from Anglo-French
Date:
15th century

1 a: a measurement (as of linear dimension) according to some standard or system: as (1): the distance between the rails of a railroad (2): the size of a shotgun barrel's inner diameter nominally expressed as the number of lead balls each just fitting that diameter required to make a pound <a 12-gauge shotgun> (3): the thickness of a thin material (as sheet metal or plastic film) (4): the diameter of a slender object (as wire or a hypodermic needle) (5): the fineness of a knitted fabric expressed by the number of loops per unit width b: dimensions, size c: measure 1 <surveys are a gauge of public sentiment>

2: an instrument for or a means of measuring or testing: as a: an instrument for measuring a dimension or for testing mechanical accuracy b: an instrument with a graduated scale or dialect for measuring or indicating quantity

3: relative position of a ship with reference to another ship and the wind

4: a function introduced into a field equation to produce a convenient form of the equation but having no observable physical consequences

-----------

Given the definition listed in 2b, mercury sticks with a graduated scale for measuring a given amount of vacuum are indeed gauges. Sorry to burst your bubble.

As a side note, right after I reignited this thread (let the flamewar commence!), I ran out and got the four vacuum/pressure gauges from Harbor Freight. Tomorrow, I take them for a spin.

 

Stereomind - Well said. I completely agree

Rick - I'll agree you should have the YICS ports blocked or your just getting a mid-range ball park sync. I will however disagree with you on the mercury sticks. A manometer is measuring hg just like a vacuum gauge. The sticks can properly be referred to as gauges as they to provide the observer with real time visual confimation of vacuum magnitude. But here is the trick, if the lines are not verified with a standard, the sticks are no less useful than ones that are. As Stereomind pointed out, its about the repeatability and comparison to another like device. I'll agree with you that the sticks offer a better opportunity for a better (reads: precise) balance but I'm not in any hurry to purchase (or make) another set. Perhaps I ought to just to get the knats-wazzoo precision you are famous for. Of course it goes without saying that one has to ensure that the level of fluid used MUST be EXACTLY the same in each tube to ensure precise comparison. This in mind, your suggestion of the use of a single gauge is appropriate (if your of a mind to have the most perfect tweak). I agree with you in your efforts to get the bulls eye. However, for most folks, the 4 gauge setup is the quick and easy method that will yield acceptable results. I'll try your method next time I am tweaking to see what the difference will be following the single gauge effort.

Schmuckaholic - Go get 'em!

 

Ok, now I'll throw another one in.

Mercury is very dense so the colums will vary relatively little for a given vacuum change. A less dense medium would allow larger fluctuations - thus better readings.

Anyone for a 30 foot manometer with baby oil in it?

 

Eeek! Can you imagine the scene the HOA would throw about that one sticking out of my garage???