76 KZ900a semi restoration

Goalieguy35 wrote: www.amazon.com/RC-2222-Universal-Chrome-...&keywords=Kn+Rc-2222 found these on amazon tomolu5 are these same ones you got on your mikunis?

yep! So, a little update, I had her out and about over the weekend, and to start things off, Saturday I had it sitting at the top of my driveway, 3 people(hippies actually!) Stopped to ask if it was for sale! I took it out to run errands, and every where I stopped people were asking about it! I walked out of the hardware store and some lady was talking pictures of it! Struck up quite a few. conversations too. My wife really liked riding on it too, she liked how comfy it is, that's pretty much a green light for me to throw some more money at it :woohoo:

thanks for feed back! i just bought them waiting your confirmation! Glad you got good looks and comments on the bike! that always helps motivate a project!

So I got a little wrench and saddle time in tonight, Staying true to my "change 1 thing at a time" concept(new to me) I stepped my pilot jets up from the stock 17.5, to a 20. I put it all back together< set the air screws at 1&3/8 turns out, and went for a ride. aside from the fact that it would not idle reliably, the entire bottom half of the rpm/throttle range was happy. Smooth and powerful up to four or five thousand rpm, still somewhat smooth after that, just low on power. She smells a bit rich at idle, and will give a "poof" of smoke when reved, but she seems smoothest right now, and I am pretty happy with that. now I just need to mess with the main jets, I think if I fatten that up to a 117.5, maybe a 120, I should be good, although my needle may need to move once in relation to a new jet. I am kind of tryin to tune from the bottom of the rpm band up. I dont know if this is the right way to go or not, but I am closer than I have ever been. I have some photos to upload, maybe tomorrow, got some pics of the car too, even took a video, but it didnt come out.

bring on the pics :evil: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



leon

So I got a little more shop time in last night, I tried out a set of 117.5 main jets, not much change. Next I tried a set of 120's, This was a BIG improvement on top end, The best Ive ever had it running. I noticed that it still tailed off on power at about 7k rpm, and as much as I didnt feel like pulling the bowls AGAIN, I did. I screwed in a set of 122.5's, and this sucker RIPS! pulls strong all the way to redline, atleast within 500 rpm. I think its FINALLY just about right. The Only thing I may do is experiment with the needle setting, but only after putting some miles on and reading the plugs after some driving on the needle. I suspect it may settle in between clip settings, but thats nothing a washer of the proper thickness cant handle. For some unknown F*%*^* reason I cannot get this POS computer to upload my spark plug pics, or any others! I will have to take a crack after work

Hi Tom, how's the bike been running with the current jetting (20 pilots and 122.5 mains)? I have the same exact bike, but with a Kerker 4 to 1 and pods. Been running 20 pilots and 118 mains for the last year or so. I had different results with anything larger than 118's. Here is what happened. Three weeks ago after a ride I forgot to turn off the petcock and I noticed one of my carbs was shooting fuel out the overflow. So I decided to take them apart to clean lap the valve seats and valve needles. While I had the rack off, I figured I would readjust the floats. I have always felt I had them set to high and was getting oil/fuel mix below the carbs. Not much but after a ride I would see it. Figured that level was marginally too high while bike is running. But the mistake I made was besides changing the float level and then changing the 118 mains to 120's at the same time. Bad mistake, always make one change at a time as you noted. I did this cause I had some popping on decel since the weather turned hot. I did a very small test and wasn't too happy but had 75 mile ride to Orlando planned and had to leave it that way. The day of the trip I started off knowing it wasn't perfect. Fist time I hit a road with a 60 mph limit the bike would surge back and not cruise consistent. Not too bad but noticeable. Worse part is if I tried cracking the throttle at top gear, there was not response. Top end was gone. Would take for ever to reach 70 or higher. But made the 150 mi round trip without incident other than running badly. So finally got to get at it this last couple days. Took the rack off and reset my floats and went back to 118's. Fount all four plugs fowled. I do believe some of the floats were so low that the fuel wasn't keeping up. Acceleration wasn't horrible (sitting from start the fuel would have time fill the bowls before accelerating). Anyhow, setting the floats and going back to the 118's did the trick. Good acceleration going through the gears and even cracking the throttle in top gear on the highway. Checked one of the plugs after the ride (had replaced the fouled plug with an old set I had laying around) and it is black as usual; black base ring and tanish strap and porcelain look OK. I'm at 1 1/2 on the air mixtures. I am going to throw some new plugs in there and set the mixture at 2 turns out to see if the base ring lightens up shade. But good power. These KZ900 run a little rich. But I may even try going back to 115's on the mains. That is what it had before changing the 4-2 Mac's to the Kerker 4-1's. Interested how yours is doing? I will keep you posted if I make any further changes.

Oh, And I finally got around to fabricating a crude carburetor brace.

My 28 year old son and I are starting on my 76, after a 21 year delay.

Been riding a 2008 FZ1 the last year.

I had the carbs rebuilt last year. Bought a battery at Autozone yesterday. Next Saturday driving to the Auburn, CA Fair grounds for an All japanese Show and Swap meet. Pulling off the funky air-shocks on the front and back, so need replacements, new front fork top cap bolts and fuel petcock rebuilt kit. Will have to find new wheels someday. My spokes are very rusty.

Will install the carbs and test all the the electrical soon. It has 90,000 on it. It has not been fired since before I bought it in 91. (at least the tank and carbs no longer smell like varnish)

We will post photos as we go.

Okay...sorry for the slow response, but with the tapatalk not working, I only get in front of a computer every so often. The engines running changed with the weather, and I have been tinkering almost non stop with it. It was running kind of choppy, and surging(sort of). My most recent attempts to remedy the situation were to do a "coil mod" and harness clean up, replacing any "plugs" in the ignition circuit with shrink tube and solder. I decide to try the coil mod after reading up on wired georges site, and my meter read 7 volts at the coils.




This mod did smooth things out a little, and it seems to run a little better, I also verified the timing and tweaked the float levels(clear tube), but have not ran it yet. The last notable improvement I saw was from raising the needle to one pos. higher than stock. my idle jumped up to 3500 when i first fired it, but it bogs like its somewhat lean, and backing the air screw out about 4 turns seems to help that(current jetting that screw is normally about 2.5 turns). so my thoughts are to go back to a 120 main, stock positon on the needle, and try a #22 pilot, one at a time of course. I wont know if the pilot helps till they get here though. I also found the #4 spark plug with WAY too much gap. and, just to really throw a wrench in there, I picked up a spare set of slides cheap on fleabay, and had .0030" taken off the bottom, once it get it dialed in, I will try them, supposedly improves low end carberation, who knows? I have been quite happy with the avon roadrider tires I put on, more pics of that to follow. Thanks for the advice on that tri! here is one photo I snapped at a gas stop last sunday

Okay, so I got her out friday night, Put a bout 60 miles on, and had some issues(wanna see my surprised face!) The long and winding road has led me to stock pilot, 120 main, and the needle clip in between #2&#3(made a washer, and it is one half position LEANER than stock. I also have a spare set of throttle slides in there than I took .0030" off of the bottom, (there was a write up in the performance supplement of my clymers book on this mod). The shorter slides did seem to improve bottom end response, but I would not have done this if it wasn't a spare set. The only real issue that I am having is right where the throttle cracks open it stumbles, and I have determined that it is gas fowling #4. I tend to think I have a faulty needle valve, so I ordered four new one from z1enterprises today. The other suspicion I have is that my needle jet is in terrible condition, I didnt even know they came out till just recently, and apparently something has galded them up bad, so...replacements are on the way also. I may have to measure them when they get here, in case I ever need to have new ones made. Thoughts?

Tomolu5 wrote: Okay, so I got her out friday night, Put a bout 60 miles on, and had some issues(wanna see my surprised face!) The long and winding road has led me to stock pilot, 120 main, and the needle clip in between #2&#3(made a washer, and it is one half position LEANER than stock. I also have a spare set of throttle slides in there than I took .0030" off of the bottom, (there was a write up in the performance supplement of my clymers book on this mod). The shorter slides did seem to improve bottom end response, but I would not have done this if it wasn't a spare set. The only real issue that I am having is right where the throttle cracks open it stumbles, and I have determined that it is gas fowling #4. I tend to think I have a faulty needle valve, so I ordered four new one from z1enterprises today. The other suspicion I have is that my needle jet is in terrible condition, I didnt even know they came out till just recently, and apparently something has galded them up bad, so...replacements are on the way also. I may have to measure them when they get here, in case I ever need to have new ones made. Thoughts?

Here is some insight of where mine is at right now. After making sure that my float levels were spot on (I used a level to make sure the carburetors were level in both axis. Because I noticed the leaned forward on my home made carb rack which would give me a false reading on my floats). Then I went back to 118's from the 122's on the mains and stayed at 20's on the pilots with 1 1/2 turn on the air mixtures. The bike runs very strong in all ranges. I did WOT with the first couple of gears and the rpm's climbed right up there with good acceleration. From top gear at 60, I can crack the throttle a bit and can get up to 75 or 80 mph or more with no hesitation and it pulls well. So that is all very good. All the problems I had before are gone. Performance is very good. Now for the bad, I get popping sometimes on deceleration. But very infrequent. At idle, I can hear a slight rumbling. I could go a little richer on the air mixture and it may take care of it. But I suspect that if I go up one more size to 22's on the pilots it will take care off the popping and allow me to go leaner with the air mixture screws. But I'm in now rush to try. The bike is a blast to ride the way it is right now. If you are fowling plugs, I would say you are still to rich on the mains. And the fact that you said you are getting some surging at when at a constant highway speed that is an indicator that your mains are too rich. Why not try the 118's?

Joe, Im fairly confident in the 120 mains, I tried the 117.5 mains, and It ran ok, but was pretty flat for power up top. The main jet really only affects the last 1/4 or so of throttle opening, although it will alter the needle ratio slightly(according to my reading). But with the 120 mains, I have great power up top,and the plugs read great when a full throttle chop is done. The only real issue im having is the rough transition from idle to 1/8th throttle, and the gas fouling my #4 plug. I am thinking that a leaking needle valve is causing my turmoil, I just cant figure why it never makes the overflow(not clogged). I should be getting the goods on thursday, so I will be going from there. Who knows, once the needles are replaced, and float hieght set, maybe she will settle in on the 117.5 jets. The only thing I know for sure is that when I finally do get these god forsaken carbs dialed in, I will come across the deal of a lifetime on a set of 29 smoothies the next day!

stupid question. some VM26 have also a FUEL screw underneath that should be set at about 1.25 turns open. does your set have them? strangely, never heard you mention it and your three turns at the air screws (?) make it sound like something is wrong.... VM26 are supposedly one of the easiest carbs to set up...