I didn’t think that starvation was the issue because I had set the float level the first time I changed the jets. I made a little gauge this time to set the levels (to 14mm per Factory Pro) and found that when I checked my previous work I had them set too low – basically keeping the fuel levels too low. This was just what I’d hoped to find!

I reset the float levels and changed the main jets to 155′s and the pilot jets to 42.5′s. After reassembling everything I took the bike for a ride. I could not get it to stutter and the mid-range power seems improved. I’m gonna leave it alone a while and see how it goes.

Now I did notice that once I got home the idle seemed to be too high, about 2000 rpms. I blipped the throttle a couple of times and it seemed to settle down a bit but I’m not sure where this is coming from. Oh well, I’ll keep an eye on it and see what happens.

I adjusted the needle up Sunday afternoon (while it rained) and it appears that this wasn’t what the bike wanted. During my ride last night the top-end power seemed to be there but at about 3/4 throttle there was obvious stuttering. So tonight I’m gonna move the needle back down and decrease the pilot jet to a 40 (from a 42.5), and try that.

On the other hand though it was nice to get to take a ride, however short, just to hear and feel the bike running.  She’s a good old girl.

According to the Factory Pro information that came with the jet kit, I set the air/fuel mix at 3.5 turns out and the jet needle at the middle slot. I may play around with those settings to see where it needs to be but the bike behaves very well and I’m generally happy with where I am.

I called Factory Pro back yesterday afternoon and spoke with the technician again about the condition of the plugs and asked his advice. These guys are great. He told me that they don’t recommend tuning a bike by the plug condition/color. He basically told me to follow their directions and start by finding the jet that ran best at wide-open-throttle. I had some questions about how to do this because honestly I’m not prepared to rip down the highway at 120 mph just to find the best jet. He reminded me that these carburetors are about throttle position not speed and that I need not get put in jail performing this procedure. He also reminded me that it will not damage the bike to rev it to 7 or 8,000 rpms. He said they actually like it.

I went back to work on the bike and removed the #155 main jet and replaced it with a #145. That made a difference. Previously I would experience a fouled plug on full throttle acceleration. Backing down to the #145 allows me to rev the bike to full throttle and not foul a plug so I think that was a good move. Also I changed the stiffer diaphragm springs to the thinner ones and that also helped the transition from part to full throttle. The thinner springs seem to make the power delivery smoother, almost like the stiffer ones held to a point then abruptly dumped fuel and the bike took off.

So where does that leave me. Well after last nights ride I checked the plugs and they seem to be leaner than before so I think I’m on the right track. The power feels pretty good and the idle is very smooth. I am a little concerned that the plugs are still sooty and there seems to be a dead spot in the mid-range but I might have imagined that. The bike seemed to pull the front tire off the ground a little when I blasted down the on-ramp, but I can’t be too sure – I was a little scared, to be honest – but it does accelerate pretty well. And the bike ran smoothly through the whole ride and that’s what I’m looking for.

If you should need to do this just be careful about removing the float bowl covers as the floats are fragile and there is a small vent tube that you have to work around. Once the bowl cover is removed then you ease the floats out and sit them aside. On the back of the carburetor there is a rubber diaphragm. Carefully remove the two screws and the diaphragm cover. Slide the diaphragm and jet needle out and sit it aside. Back on the front of the carburetor look for the needle jets which are held in place with a brass nut and spacer. Loosen the nut and remove it and the spacer. When you do this the jet subassembly (I have no idea what it is actually called) will be loose and you should be able to remoive it. CAREFULLY push the needle jet toward the rear of the motorcycle and it should slide out. You will note that there is a slot on the side of the needle jet that corresponds to a small brass pin pressed into the housing just below where you removed the nut and spacer. Simply slide the new needle jet in place and reassemble the whole thing.

It is important to note that during all this you should never need to force anything. It all comes apart very easily. If not you missed something so be cautious. Also when you reinstall the jet and get ready to tighten the brass nut use VERY LITTLE FORCE. It should only be snug. While I was very fortunate and everything went well, I have heard horror stories about cracking that brass nut and spacer. Remember, very little force. Did I mention that you should be careful?

So how does it run? Great! It is not exaggeration to say it is like a new bike. Previously the bike ran rich and would not cruise at the 20-40 mph range. Now it just rumbles right along with hardly a miss. When you are easing through parking lots or in town it runs so smoothly it seems downright civilized. Then you hit the backroads and it roll that throttle and it roars to life. This bike has Leo Vince carbon slip-ons, K&N filter and the airbox has been cut away. The result is a great roaring sounds when you roll the throttle.

If I had any advice for anyone that might be experiencing problems with low-speed running or overall richness it would be to carefully examine the needle jets. If in doubt, replace them. Oh and don’t order them from Ducati, like I did. Order them from Chris at CA-Cycleworks.com. They are much cheaper ($50 pair vs. $86 pair) and delivery is faster. Also the folks there are great to work with.

The schedule was 6-10 on Friday evening and 7:45AM to 6PM on Saturday and Sunday. The facility has a small classroom building that was very comfortable with and adjoining “garage” for the bikes we would use. Most bikes were 250cc Hondas, Kawasakis, and Yamahas. The only exceptions I could see were a single Buell and a Suzuki DR 200. I rode the Suzuki since I was the tallest in the group.

Friday night was all classroom work. The MSF furnishes a handbook that covers all the things a beginning rider might need to know. The subjects covered included safety equipment, pre-ride inspection, riding in traffic, riding in groups, lane placement and avoidance scenarios. It was all pretty commonsense stuff to me, but I have ridden a little before prior to attending. Also since I commute 115 miles round trip to and from work, I tend toward very defensive driving anyway. Also there were videos that reinforced key concepts covered in the handbooks as well.

Saturday was all on the bikes. We began by practicing our pre-ride inspections. MSF provides mnemonics to aid the students in remembering the steps necessary to perform the steps required. We then sat on our bikes and cranked them (which proved harder than you’d think for some people). Next up we began to actually move around using the engine to pull us along – a process referred to as “power walking”. Basically you just just ease the clutch out and walk the bike along for a short distance. We did this a few times then began to actually ride them back and forth across the parking lot. Here’s where it got ugly a couple of times. Some of the attendees had never ridden and this showed a bit. A couple of people had very jerky starts and stops. I wasn’t sure at this point if they would make it but they did.

Without going through the whole day suffice it to say that we went from “power walking” to riding in a sort of formation around the parking lot, weaving around cones. The structure of the class, as you might expect, was to teach a skill and another and another to create a task that combine several skills into one exercise. It was very well done.

Sunday was more of the same. Riding slowly through cones, performing u-turns in a confined space, swerving to avoid obstacles, emergency stops, etc. In the late afternoon we began the actual riding tests. The first test involved a double u-turn within a 20′ by 40′ box. This was the hardest for me. Not surprisingly riding at speed isn’t difficult, it’s the slow speed stuff that catches people out and is responsible for more dropped bikes than anything else. After you perform this slow speed maneuver you are to accelerate out the other end of the box through two cones and swerve to the right (in our case) through another set of cones and then stop. The instructors give you the thumbs-up and you move to the next area and dismount.

The next test was two turns. The first was a simple 90 degree then a decreasing radius 135 degree turn that simulates a freeway on-ramp. Not to difficult if you followed the directions you were taught earlier. The last test was  a simple straight line emergency stop. You just took off and when you passed through a set of cones you were to stop as quickly as possible using the front and rear brakes as well as downshifting to first before stopping with your left foot down. Much easier than it might sound.

Everyone in the class passed these tests. I was deducted 3 points for not stopping soon enough but I attribute that to the light-weight bike and the fact that I was traveling about 30 mph when I crossed through the cones! I got a little carried away with that I admit. There was one perfect score. A guy named James did it all perfectly. I was happy for him but a bit let-down that I had lost 3 points. By the way you were allowed to lose 20 points before failure. The instructors told us that the only thing that would disqualify us were intentional unsafe acts (read wheelies) or dropping our bike. Only one person dropped their bike but it was when she was parked and thus they let it slide. It was the right thing to do.

After we put the bikes up we moved to the classroom to take a 50 question written exam. This was all pretty easy. And again everyone passed easily. I’m proud to say I was one of the ones who made a 100.

There has been some talk on the news lately that North Carolina may start to require this class to get your motorcycle endorsement. I think that’s a great idea. If you can ride already, it’ll be easy. If you have never ridden before it won’t be easy, but you can do it and you need to do it. I learned quite a bit more than I thought I would and highly recommend it to everyone. There were 12 people in our class and only 4 of us had ridden before. I watched eight people who began scared to death of motorcycles and at the end of class they made controlled turns, swerved, stopped and showed that they’d be ok on roads that didn’t have too much traffic. They needed to practice what we learned in class, but then don’t we all?

My new Sargent Cycle seat arrived yesterday! This seat is a thing of beauty (pics to come). It is wide and flat. That’s good because the factory seat seems to have a peak in it that is just unbearable for more than 100 miles. My longest trip so far was 152 miles and my butt was killing me when I made it home. I do need to work on my seat latch though. The new seat fits snugly to the frame and since the previous owner chopped the tail off the seat latch was kind of a botch job to begin with. I’m thinking I can surely engineer something to replace it. Again I’ll post some pictures when I can.

We made it though and once there began to look things over to see if I could see what the problem might be. Nothing was obvious. I checked the plugs and they were sooty black, as usual. I noticed that after a recent oil change the oil level seemed to be a bit high so I drained some of that out just in case. No luck. It still ran rough but seemed to be improving as long as I didn’t get after it too much. I ended up running out of daylight and since she’s pretty loud I try not to be running up and down my street – common courtesy you know.

So since I bought this bike last month it has run rich. I thought the two might be connected so I contacted the previous owner and asked him about it, hoping he might be able to provide some insight. He said that all of the tuning had been done in Chicago and that it had always run rich down here. I can’t accept this. Chicago sits at roughly 600 feet above sea level and my house is 874 feet above sea level so its not that big of a difference. As far as relative humidity, CityRating.com says that Charlotte and Chicago are very, very similar in average relative humidity, so that’s not it. I suspect that someone hasn’t taken the trouble to get this bike tuned properly. And while it is a pain to do, I’m gonna give it a go.

The bike came with a DynoJet kit which had been installed and the unused parts were included in the sale. Not knowing who did the work or if they knew what they were doing, I decided to order a Factory Pro jet kit and install it myself. Luckily it was my afternoon off and while I was finishing the center stand install (thanks Erik), the UPS guy arrived with my new Factory Pro kit. Excellent!

So I carefully removed the carburetors and disassembled one of them. After looking it over thoroughly and comparing the contents of the Factory Pro kit to what was installed I disassembled the other one as well. I found a couple of things that might be clues. One of the main jets was improperly installed. Basically the jet has an o-ring that seals it so that fuel is forced through the hole in the jet itself. One jet had the o-ring rolled up so that it would be possible for fuel to be forced around the hole and thus improperly regulated. Long shot but, you never know.

The other thing I found was that on of the pilot air/fuel mixture screws was corroded so badly that it couldn’t be adjusted. After very carefully grinding away with a tiny cutter on my Dremel tool, I was able to save the screw. I filed it down and remade the slot for the screwdriver and reinstalled it. I installed a combination of smaller main fuel and air jets and adjusted the float levels to 14mm (recommended by Factory Pro) and reassembled everything. I set the air/fuel screws at 4 turns out and decide to wait until the next day to continue troubleshooting.

Late yesterday afternoon I took the bike for a test ride and it seemed worse than before. It bogged down and had no power. When I got it home I pulled the plugs and the front (horizontal) cylinder was not only black, but wet. The top cylinder was just very sooty. I adjusted the air/fuel screws back in to two turns out and will test again tonight when I get home, cross your fingers!

On my way there I took the back roads. It was Saturday morining and people were out working in their yards. Cutting grass and planting flowers. There were tillers and weed whackers running. The roads would sometimes have grass clippings scattered out into my lane – this always makes me nervous. Obviously my fear is that I’ll hit those juicy blades of grass and lose control. But then again I’m only putting along and the bike has never even offered to step out.

These roads twist and roll along like a silk ribbon tossed across rumpled bed covers. Climbing and diving through familiar territory that is made new when seen through the visor of a motorcycle helmet. This is one huge appeal of motorcycling to me.

After watching Long Way Round I yearn for adventure. Not necessarily an around-the-world-holy-hell-you-want-me-to-eat-what! adventure, but more of a renewing of familiar routines kind of adventure. The kind of thing where riding to the coffee shop for an overpriced but delicious latte seems interesting. So far it’s working.

After breakfast I rode another few miles to South Mountain State Park. I used to fly fish here and have always found it to be a very pretty place. I found that once I was here I didn’t want to leave the bike. The park was pretty crowded and I was paranoid that someone would steal my expensive gear so I walked around a few minutes to stretch my legs and then decided to leave.

Next up was Black Bear Landing on Lake James. This is a beautiful, clear, deep mountain lake fed by the Catawba and Linville rivers.  The Catawba side of the lake is fairly well developed and typical of lakes in North Carolina. The Linville side however is a jewel. Surrounded by state park land it has few houses and beautiful views of Hawksbill Mountain at the head of the Linville Gorge.

I spent a few minutes here again stretching my legs and resting my tired butt (can’t wait for the Sargent seat). While checking in with my wife I realized that my iPhone was dangerously low on battery life. This was a problem. I was using that phone as something of a safety net if things went badly. So with it low on charge and my butt and hands killing me I headed home – the long way.

It was a good day. My farthest ride so far and no problems. What more could I ask?

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