hey yall

been taking apart my carb to inspect the possibilities of remedying a situation I posted here: https://www.hdforums.com/forum/sport...-throttle.html

I guess my carb is the california style with all the air cleaning hardware and few extra bits. it looks like the previous owner got inside and already drilled out the cap above this screw (see photo). In my Suzuki carb the cap covered an Air/ Fuel mixture screw. Is it the same on this carb? Does anybody know how many turns out it should be? At the moment it is 2.5 turns out from being all the way in. The bike (2001 Sportster 1200S) currently has stock baffled pipes as well as a set of baffleless slash cut loud pipes, HD make.
Main jet is 195, slow jet is 45, there is one shim on the needle.

 

I think that sucker is getting way too much fuel. At maximum I would go 45 slow and 175 main on those jets. Start the mixture screw at two full turns out and adjust by 1/8 turns from there. Set your idle up a bit if necessary to keep it running initially.

 

If I were tuning it, I would get rid of the shim on the needle. That probably isn't needed. Then I leave in the 45/195 combo of jets and set the mixture at 2 turns out.

That will get you enough so you can ride it to warm it up. Then you need to follow the procedure found HERE

For reference, the stock jetting on the 49 state 2001 XL1200S is 42/195. The main jet should be fine because they are usually set overly rich from the factory anyway, and the 42-->45 you have is good for a stage 1.

 

do you think it was rejetted to 45 for the loud pipes? or is the 45 stock on the california model, with all others being 42?
today i pretty much replaced everything in the carb that isnt metal, and now the bike turns over, but the engine doesnt start. so im confused. when all the **** parts were in, it started.
ill start with removing the shim, back to 2 turns and see what happens from there.
gotta charge this battery now...

 

Hook up the vacuum line to the petcock !

 

Listen to Scuba, not me regarding jet size … I was thinking 883.

FYI – Getting the mixture / idle adjusted properly may take time. I’ve had my Sporty back together for months and I still tinker with the carb settings.

 

Read the stuff at the link Scuba posted there's some realyl good easy to understand info there that will help

 

so ive rebuilt the carb and replaced all four spark plugs. the bike starts now, but only when the throttle is pulled minimally. any further than a smidge and the engine wont start but turns over, back it down to a smidge and it fires up. only it wont stay running without the choke fully pulled. this to me means that its probably not getting enough fuel, would that be correct? need to adjust that idle screw and the a/f mixture...?

 

I agree with getting rid of the shim. The jet sizes should be fine, and 2 turns to 2.5 is a good place to start.

Here are a couple of good articles:

http://www.harley-performance.com/ha...arburetor.html

http://www.harley-performance.com/ha...r-jetting.html

 

cool, ill get rid of the shim now.
i just took it for a test run. after adjusting the idle screw, i found a happy idle place (around 800rpm...good?)

i still am having acceleration issues (need to pin the throttle to keep the bike from dying when taking off from stopped position) and i can still kill the engine by effectively timing short throttle bursts. after a quick small throttle pull the engine lulls and then picks back up. check out the video here for reference (see 0:46-47 - listen for the lull, and then dies at 1:22) (this is my bike: https://vimeo.com/46781576)

im surprised at how much fuel from the accelerator pump bounces off of the butterfly valve back out to where the air cleaner would be. i have no reference...is this normal? this video was from before i rebuilt the carb, but im having the same issue.