I've never been inside the carb (which is already supposedly jetted for the hypercharger and cobra longs). The plugs (Iridiums) are bone white, I'm getting a bad pause when I crack open the throttle (gentle wind open is fine). No soot in pipes. Needs quite a bit of choke. PMS is 3 turns.

Everything so far says "Lean", yet I'm getting really crappy gas mileage.

My question is this: Is the transition between pilot and needle the problem? and what am I looking for on the needle? Before I go in there I need to know which way is rich and which is lean.

You're going to have to get inside the carb and see what you have in there. A good way to tell if the carb has been jetted, is look to see if the float bowl screws have been changed out to allen heads. You'll need to check out the needle also to see what groove it's set on along with washer/s locations. 3 turns out is getting a little far out on the PMS screw- for me personally. (you don't want it vibrating out on you) After you find out what you've got, Let us know, and I'm sure Erbman or Curt will be there to assist. Good luck.And

First, before anyone can really suggest anything, we need to know what's in the carb now.

But it does sound lean and too lean is as bad on mileage as too rich. And too lean causes high temps in the cylinder.

And to answer your needle question... First groove from the blunt end is leanest and it gets richer the further down you go with the clip. Most of us are on the 3rd or 4th groove.

Keggyhander wrote:
I've never been inside the carb (which is already supposedly jetted for the hypercharger and cobra longs). The plugs (Iridiums) are bone white, I'm getting a bad pause when I crack open the throttle (gentle wind open is fine). No soot in pipes. Needs quite a bit of choke. PMS is 3 turns.

Everything so far says "Lean", yet I'm getting really crappy gas mileage.

My question is this: Is the transition between pilot and needle the problem? and what am I looking for on the needle? Before I go in there I need to know which way is rich and which is lean.


Chech the acc pump.

Good advice so far check and see what ya got and find out you elevation where you live and maybe we can give you some advice.

Thanks, but I can't provide all the information just yet. The float bowl screws are butchered (by previous owner) and I'm not going to be able to remove the carb just yet, so details of the the jets will have to wait.

The needle (Dynojet) was set on third groove with 2 washers under the spacer. I removed one washer and put the clip on the fourth groove, effectively increasing it from 3.5 to 4. Upon warming it up and taking it around the block I noticed that handfuls of throttle were now much crisper from low speed and low revs.

I got it back on the drive and grabbed a fast handful of throttle - No bogging occurred. My next step was to wind in the PMS until a change in idle was heard. I then backed it out one quarter turn.

I might get the carb off next week, and check the plugs again.

Oh, and I'm virtually at sea level.

Sounds like your headed in the right direction. You can turn the PMS in until it stumbles and the turn it out until it does the same thing counting the number of turns between the stumbles. Slowly turn it back in until you find the highest RPM that can be had by turning the PMS. That should be your sweat spot for the PMS re-adjust you idle so that you are at 850-900 RPM. When the bike cools count the number of turns in on the PMS until it is lightly seated the return to that number of turns out. From that point on you can always return the screw to that spot if you change it. You can use a small pair of vise grips to remove the bowel screws when it comes time. You can buy SS Allan head screws at Home Depot to put back in it.

And your allen head screws will be M4-.70x10

Cheers, I can get those from the maintenance dept. at work.