So a little background on my girl, when I bought her she was definitely anemic and Troll and some of the other gurus on this forum said I needed to put a jet kit in it which I did and it's been running great ever since. Then last spring I put in a K&N filter and everything still runs great. So here's the question I have, when the thing is cold for about the first couple of minutes especially here in the winter this black crap comes out the exhaust pipes and it looks just like soot. So is that because it's probably rich on the mixture? And is that going to carbon up the whole inside of my engine? After I've run, like I said, 5-10 minutes everything clears out and I don't see any color in the exhaust at all and the thing runs like a champ. Do you think I should I lean it out a little bit or leave it alone? My gut tells me to leave it alone since it runs so good. What say ye?
It's just running a little rich because it's cold. Won't hurt it. If you choose you can run some seafoam in the gas to keep everything clean. I pour a little in my tank a couple times a year. 3-4 oz. I don't measure it just pour some in.
::) Now unlike my learned friend in Western Washington, nor my pal in VA I do not ride in the winter time. I also never did any cab changes on either bike. Now Red is and has been running since date of purchase , Roadhouse exhaust and K&N air filter. Pearl is stock exhaust and K&N air filter.
On Red after a few thousand kms I have never had an issue with power or such, and in the case of the plugs the front is a text book perfect tan colour while the rear is a bit darker. valves have always been well with in specs.
On Pearl I used seafoam as I only bought her in Oct. plugs are also in proper colour spectrum, have not done valves yet.
Now on both bikes I have noticed they are both cold hearted ladies and take a bit to warm up, never noticed any black smoke, yes white at startup, but once up to temp there is no smoke. Now when doing the valve checks the inside of the engine is always really nice and clean no build up of anything.
So wht did this jet kit actually do for the bike?
Before I put in the dyno jet kit the bike was way too lean and it would really never warm up. Actually had to run it with the choke on. It also lacked power. Ever since I put in that jet kit the bike has been running perfectly.
I had the same issue when I bought my 800 in June 2016. It only had 3518 miles on it and I could not figure out why it ran so poorly, even after warming up. I had to keep the choke partially on as well to keep it running smoothly (even then , it really seem to lack any kind of power). After much review on this forum, I jetted the carb and WOW! what a difference. No more long warm ups and super smooth acceleration and plenty of power. added a K&N filter and the Hard Krome pipes with no other changes....Runs out really strong ( I can pretty much hang with my buddy's 2014 Road King except on steep inclines). Plus I pulled all the vacuum crossover crap off to stop the backfiring on deceleration...So...for a lot of us 800 owners, jetting the carb seems to make a huge difference..
Question guys, what size jet did you go with? I currently have 137.5 Main jet. I too live in Washington.
I'm not sure the size of the jet itself. I used the 134 jet--must be the size?--but the kit came with four of them. It also came with a different style needle and recommended drilling the slide for more air flow (provided a drill bit). I also changed the air screw setting from stock, which was 1 1/2 turns out, to 2 turns out. It's supposed to be that a person might have to try a couple of different settings (say for the e-clip on the needle, the size main jet, etc.) to get the sweet spot for your altitude or what, but I got lucky and the first time was perfect. NOTE: I do not have the stock exhaust.
Thanks so much! That is super helpful. I did a little looking up and it seems that different jet manufactures use different numbers for different diameters. Like between Dynojet and Keihin. Even though they are both numbered 134 the actual diameter is larger on the Dynojet jet. Here is a link with a chart that compares different sizes per manufactures. http://www.jetsrus.com/FAQs/FAQ_mikuni_vs_dynojet_vs_keihin_sizes.htm
Very interesting. Thank you for posting that.