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Posted by CDNRatMan
- June 30, 2016, 18:57:03 PM I have only made the following changes on my bike, had a Roadhouse exhaust when I bought it, I got rid of the stock air filter, and put a K&N air filter in its place.
Since I have had the bike it has been cold blooded, every morning I need to choke it a bit to get it to start and idle nice, about 2 mins and it is running at correct idle and speed. Never need to choke the rest of the day.
That being said on cold days in the lower 50*F range and if left for a long time then yes I might need to choke it, but never for long and that is no different than my H-D when i had it. Just seems the Drifter is a tad colder hearted. Otherwise it runs like a really smooth swiss watch.
Posted by Tfrank59
- June 30, 2016, 18:51:02 PMwell now that we're in the full swing of Summer I have played with the idle and got it right around a thousand RPMs when hot. after what you said about guys who lower their idle I'm a little worried when it's cold and it wants to run at about 700 till she warms up - what I do there is keep the choke/enricher on longer. definitely don't want to starve her of oil
Posted by CDNRatMan
- June 22, 2016, 20:07:56 PM Interesting question and something the local mechanic told me and I trust him with his work. He told me the rpm's should be as the book said 1000+/- 50, and he said that the fools that idle down their bikes to sound like a H-D and have that patato/patato, sound will ruin their engines, in that the engine cannot get oil up to the top of the engine. The Kawasaki engine needs to run at the correct idle to work properly.
As for the idle acting erratically as you said not sure.
Posted by Tfrank59
- June 22, 2016, 17:37:23 PMNow that I have a little electronic tach on my bike I can see RPMs. the manual says it should idle between 950-1050 (~1000), unless it's a California bike and then it should be 1250-1350. My bike was a Cali bike but I desmogged it; should I now go for 1000 Rs for my idle speed? My other question, if your idle sort of creeps up over say a few days (of course after it's fully warmed up), is that a sign of a vacuum leak or something? for the past couple of weeks it's been idling around 1200 but today it wouldn't come down from 1300-1350, so at a red light I ended up reaching down there and lowering it. It wasn't the throttle cable or anything like that, so don't know what's up with that. Thanks.