I Love S&S carbs. Ran a bunch of different ones including Weber, but the S&S is just so simple to use and tune. It’s performance benefits are so good. I won’t run anything else.
My shovel has had the same G now since 2002. My Road King has An E and My Springer is currently using a bored out G. I’ll soon be running an S&S D on it.
Far left is a stock zero modifications that I keep as a spare. The center G is now a 1.86 Ventura in the center at the tightest point. The far right is the D.
My shovel G is also bored to 1.84 and has a shaved throttle shaft and two air bleeds. The thunderjet orifice is also plugged and sodar’d smooth (and will remain so). I also have two E carbs. One given to me with two thunderjets and the other is stock and on my Road King. I’ve ran in the past a D, a couple B’s, Del-orto, Weber, S&S Dual throat, typhoon and a couple Mikuni’s.
Last edited by Rains2much; 08-09-2024 at 01:43 PM.
CV is a versatile carb just needing the emission tune removed, perfect for stock engines, it can work well for cammed engines plus has the ability to support 100 hp engines. Mikuni's add crisp throttle response that gives your throttle blippers carpal tunnel issues, it's barndoor design is marvelous but need to be prepared for the famous slide rattle at idle. It was mentioned no knock offs, my current big cube has a bored R1 being flawlessly streetable for 8 plus years.
Have ran these carbs monitoring with a digital Wego 3.
CV is highly tunable with precision noticing crossovers are consistent and air idle screw adjustment stays in the idle area, throttle whack is slower due to the diaphragm design but trimming the spring pressure helps, CV accelerator pump puts a heavy hit of fuel in during throttle roll on cleaning up quickly with no adjustability possibly because being lean from the factory masking roll on detonation in hot weather. Yost kit, contoured stock slide, cutting the spring down supplied 100+ hp
Had a Mikuni 45 on the Evo, currently 42 on the Shovel, out of the box they are rich to cover a wide variety of engines, you'll hear fuel milage suffers but highly tunable. Noticed the air idle screw changed the low jet afr's close to the needle take over for cruise afr's, adds a little more difficulty getting idle afr's and low speed afr's correct. Safe to say the Mikuni design is more of a performance carb over a CV with crisp throttle response and consistent crossovers. Joe Minton milage kit is a great base to start a tune.
Big cube had a R1 on it, S&S let the patent run out and yes the Chicom's copied it adding T-jet provisions to it, had it in hand during the rebuild, it works. Big cube guru John Sachs wanted it with head porting, bored the throat adding a T-jet setting it up. Cannot relate tuning a big cube compared to common Evo, different creature wanting fuel past normal afr numbers. The Super G clone performs flawlessly with street manors on a monster, they do what the S&S design is known for putting fuel in with a simple design.
If wondering a warmed up Evo street tuning with a Wego3 runs good @ 13.2 wot and 13.8 cruise seeming to accelerate better than normal 14.2 but uses more fuel. Those numbers on a 10.8-1 big cube strangled it, ended up 13.2 cruise and 12.6 wot having to load up idle afr due to leaning out with the throttle shut slowing down pulling air backwards thru a 3" baffle on a Dragula, severe carb pop was present until giving it what it wanted.
On carbs, all 3 will work on a common street engine, just need to know how to tune each
Last edited by 1997bagger; 08-10-2024 at 08:33 AM.
Just a heads up… the Ultima R1 may no longer be able to be bored out. They likely have changed something in recent years. I read on forums that John Sachs bored them out.. John has done several heads for me in the past so I reached out.. drove over and took him an R1. He called back a few days later and said the holes no longer line up and he couldn’t bore it out. So I drove back exchanging a S&S G that he did bore out for me. So keep in mind you might not be able to any more. I’ll also say it’s a little tough to tune or at minimum see real potential of most 113” up with only a G or R1. Boring it out to say 1.85 really makes a big difference in tuning them when larger. Forget velocity… those were arguments for 96-103 engines but at 113-135 it really needs bored… and truthfully I have it on good authority that at 127 the bored G isn’t enough for full potential compared to a D. I don’t know that from experiance yet… but I will be dyno’ing my 127 with a bored G and a D and for me at that point, whatever the result it will be fact. Will a 127 run on a bored G.. sure but will it have even better street manners and a good 5-6 hp more with a D? I’m being told it does.
I’ll also share not every G can be bored out to the same degree.. my shovel one is bored to 1.84 and that was a s big as they could take it. My Springers G John bored to 1.86. So there is “some” differences in them. I know a lot of guys cry velocity and would rather have a slightly small carb to a slightly big carb.. I’m in the camp of slightly too big. First off. No secret I’m a HotRod drag race kinda street rider. I don’t care about riding two up on a 1200 lbs bike passing a semi in 5th gear. I’d rather have a little extra air and fuel to cool the motor and re-coup the power and pass the potential of the smaller carb above 4000 rpm. A E with two Thunder jets didn’t run as well or as fast as my bored out G on my 12:1 93” shovel. And as far as street manners… I saw zero difference.
Before someone thinks the E with two T-jets must have been tuned wrong.. I spent an entire season trying to make the E run as well as the bored G. Gary from S&S Harley came out and tried tuning it and two dyno operators messed with it. It was inferior period to the none t-jet stock G that was bored out and that was only 93” of motor.
Everyone has become too obsessed with racing in School zones and caring about how much power they make at rpm’s that are harder on their crank & rod barrings down practcly at idle. To each there own but nobody ever beat anybody at 2500 rpm.
I know I know… tangent. I’m well meaning and a snappy dresser though.
Here’s the Bored out Shovel’s G with shaved throttle shaft. They say it picks up cfm shaved.
Last edited by Rains2much; 08-10-2024 at 01:15 PM.
If the Ultima Carbs, are as High Quality as their Triple Trees...They should Keep 'em in China!!!!!
Tho folks do Brag about the Chiwanese Ignition stuff...I simply Won't.. If I cannot afford quality ****...I'll let er Sit!!!
Cheap Crap is for Rice!!!!
Pretty sure Ultima Carbs are made in the US. I prefer S&S carbs. Ultima makes really nice cases, rods, cranks and heads.. all machined here in the us. That’s well documented. Check out their 100,000 square foot Missouri plant. There are pictures of the raw hunks of aluminum being turned into cases and cylinders on pages 2-8 of their catalog. Perhaps some of their stuff comes raw here and then is machined in the US. Is S&S all completely made here? I’d do some checking.. pretty hard to buy anything 100% American made anymore.
I’ve now blue printed and assembled two 127 ultimas. Both had really nice parts. Both were pretty close to prefect before any auxiliary machining. As good as any S&S. Truthfully.. sorry but I prefer Ultima parts even if price was no issue.
Last edited by Rains2much; 08-10-2024 at 09:36 PM.
The CV carb is a decent choice. I had the opportunity to put a pre-owned, "lightly used" S&S shorty Super E on my 80 ci EVO 24 years and a couple of hundred thousand miles ago.
( DAMN...where does time go, huh..??) Still have that carb on the replacement motor that was installed about 12 yrs back. I'm happy with it, for my kind of riding.
Happy enough to not feel like pulling it and laying out a bunch of $$$ "just because". I have a bad feeling about the Mikuni. Might be totally unfair and I'll admit it. A good friend put one on his bike ( similar vintage EVO to mine) waaayyyy back, years ago. From that moment on...poor Larry always seemed to be fiddling with it, tweaking, "can't get it right"...whatever. Might have just been Larry but ever since I've had no interest in getting one to find out.
WHATEVER you decide....get the REAL deal, stay the hell away from knockoffs.
08-09-2024, 01:24 PM
