TOPIC:

"Sherman, set the WABAC machine to 1979!"

I was attending the University of Maine at Orono, as an Anthropology major. The greater Bangor (BANG-gore, not "Banger" like every other city so named) was just entering the Malling of America phase of development.

I was riding a Suzuki GT-380 2-stroke triple that I had picked up cheap at the end of Summer. Studying the engineering aspects of the bike, I was shocked (as are many KZ1300 fans) with the small size of the "snorkel" on the airbox. The cross-sectional area was smaller than that of only two of the three Mikuni carbs.

Unlike the KZ1300, the snorkel was a molded rubber piece that was very easily detached from the airbox without any surgery. I took it out one weekend, and loved the louder intake sound. However, after living with it for a couple weeks, I realized that the bike was actually down on power.

This was also the Golden Age of magazines, and in addition to Car Craft, Hot Rod, and Popular Hot-Rodding (and five more), I was also getting Cycle, Cycle World, and Cycle Guide.

While leafing through one of these, I was intrigued to see that somebody was advertising Mikuni-compatible main jets made out of some kind of plastic. Through the wonders of injection-molding technology, they claimed to offer jets with much closer flow tolerances than machined brass jets, at a lower price. I called every motorcycle dealer within a radius of 20 miles, but none of them had ever heard of these plastic jets, and couldn't even be bothered to keep a complete selection of Mikuni brass jets on hand. The best advice I got was "come on over and we'll see what we can do."

I tried raising the needles without much success, so I sadly went back to the snorkel.

In 2019, I have zero results searching for plastic jets. I seem to recall that they were called something like Uni-Jets, but I could easily be wrong.

Anybody else remember these?
Richard

All I can say is don't touch plastic jets with a bargepole.
They are nowhere near as accurate as brass jets and don't flow the same .
Even plastic jets of the same size didn't flow the same as each other.
That's why they are hard to find.

The kz750 E1 i bought in 2003 had some white plastic jets in the Keihin carbs. As far as i can remember the plastic threads were easy to bugger up. Threw them out and put in brass. Not surprised by zed1015's comment.

I bet they would be entertaining with ethanol.....

Here's a set of plastic 147.5's for you. Never used them back in the day. Not sure how I came to own them. Notice how the heads are all chewed up. Junk!

Mike

Had a couple of bikes with these in, put them straight in the bin and put new brass in, much much better.