central minnesota xj750 owner looking for fellow wrench turners to lend an opinion/hand

Hello all!

(If you want to skip the first post into and all that jazz, scroll down a bit )

I've been up and down alot of this forum, eating up info like crazy. This is my first post, but I'm well aquainted with this site, search engine, and most of the noob mistakes ( I won't claim all haha). I absolutely love this forum, and all the info and people in it!

I have a pair of 1982 xj750j maxims aquired seperatly, but both recently. One was the previous owners bobber project, and the other was a friend of said previous owners chopper project. I'm focusing on the bobber at the moment. The bobber was running (and still is, sort of, I suppose) but I learned the valuable lesson about not touching something that ain't broke. The hardtailed choppers engine is scattered across my workbench, but the bootleg frame is a story for another day.

So down to the nitty gritty. I'm hoping there are members around here that are willing to meet up. My bike is currently not running well and not mobile, so the hope is someone's down to come around, bullshit, have a beer and share their knowledge and insight to help fix my mistake, but I'm willing to travel wherever, bike not included ha.

The issue:
Last week I thought it d be a cool idea to try messing with the carb sync settings to see if I could make her run better. She has pods, so I know it's next to a lost cause. 125 main, 40 pilot ( I know recommended pilot should be bigger). Also, PO took and threw out the mufflers. So I'm running the headers to stock 4 into 2 setup. Best part, is that after first carb cleaning and sync, she was running pretty damn good.
I know, shouldn't have messed with it.

But with all the hours I put in after f***ing with it, I cannot get it to run decent. I've pulled carbs, reset with a bench sync and got her running poorly like 3 different times, but cannot dial it In and get her road worthy. Hunting idle, feels and sounds lean, crappy throttle response and jerky cruise.

Unless I effed something up somewhere, I know she can run decent at best. Just can't get back there. I've done plenty of research, should be easy as pie if you analyze and synthesize ideas, right? If so, I'm alot dumber than I thought( possible).

Clearances are damn near wonderful, minus one tight exhaust on the cylinder carb boot the PO took the vacuum line from the stock petcock off and left the vacuum leak for whoknowshowlong.
Carbs need a rebuld, but the fact is it ran great in the condition it was on my begginers luck round.

Anyway, point of the story, is it d be nice to see some local xj owners and get some knowledge face to face. Love yall on the Internet, but everyone has their learning styles. Figured I should say that before I get flamed for not trying color tune plugs and co2 analyzers lol. Yall won't beleive when I'm saying I'm nickel amd diming these things together, but that's an expense I'd rather not spend lol and old school ftw haha
So flame away

 

Look at the plug color. It is sometimes necessary to revisit the idle mixture following a carb synch.

 

I'm in St Paul and I have a set of carb sync vacuum gauges

 

Welcome aboard.

Gary H.

 

Welcome to the family

 

There was a guy up in St Cloud named PainterD not sure if he is around but you could PM him.

 

I appreciate the offer, but I have a quad set. I've been messing around without the yics tool thus far. I'm aware chacal sells em, gotta save up and get my hands on one. This is the first time I've worked on anything mechanically, honestly haha. Fixing up my car at the same time as well, fund allocating isn't a fun game

 

Also, thanks for that lead, but he hasn't been around in a couple of years and has a full inbox, regardless haha

 

It has been stated by many experienced tuners that the yics tool is not needed. Several of the most respected members here swear that they are unnecessary. If budget is an issue, skip the yics tool.