The struggle continues...
I put the modified ignition curve in, shown in my last post. And it felt a little better to me at part throttle, but I still didn't want to hold questionable throttle positions too much. There was a 10MPH side wind and every run was high 9s so that's on par. Looking at data showed a few possibilities for changes. EGT at 60MPH is still only just over 1100F with the 145 main jet so that may be able to come down in size. There's about a 200 RPM spread vs 100RPM before from 30-60MPH, so shimming could possibly be changed. Weight may need adjustment, depending on what happens if I do the other changes.
I went with the safer mod and reduced shimming to 0.8mm, from 1.0mm. The first 3 runs felt good. On the last one that I was going to do, RPM dropped around 55MPH or so and I let off immediately. Could just be a CVT thing, but I didn't want to take the chance of blowing it up before the car show that was coming up. TN is no longer a concern because I won't be able to make it unfortunately, so I guess after the car show I can resume risking it more. Hooray. 😒
It did at least do a 2.2 60ft in the wet on that last pass and felt responsive, so I figured that's good enough to ride around a car show because that's pretty much putting around with bursts of throttle or if I take off at a light I'm not running it up to 60. I put a new plug in and took a look in the cylinder with a scope in the process. There is some scuffing/transfer on the pin axis in the cylinder, not on center but nearer the exhaust port. Nothing that would stop me from riding it and I suspect that got when it died and prompted the timing adjustment.
Here's the plug that came out of it. This is from actual riding and not a plug chop, but the smoke ring is more than ample and seems to support the lower EGTs. This was in there with the 150 MJ too, but EGT didn't change much between 150 and 145.
I went to the car show Thursday on the TMAX because I wanted to save T2 for Friday or Saturday. That wasn't great. It was beautiful the whole ride there and back, but the beach was all mist and sprinkles so I stuck it out for maybe 2 hours and left. Can't really enjoy it that way and can't get any good shots of cars with rain on the lens. I did take off enough to get ahead of a Harley at a light and then he jumped it from 25-30MPH rolling a couple of times. Suddenly I wished I was on T2 so I could answer with power wheelies from that speed having under 10% of his displacement.
I took T2 on Friday afternoon/evening and it ran quite well as far as power/performance. It even surprised me and pulled the front up from around a 35MPH roll a couple of times. Normally it will come up till about 30, but sometimes it slips so 25 is a safe bet. I could feel what I believe to be belt slip if I held the throttle open sometimes so I'm not sure exactly what was up there, but it was ready for a good time so I just didn't worry about it and tried not to stay in it long.
Where it didn't fare so well was idle. Idle has historically been an issue for me at the beach. I rarely or never go without having to fiddle with the idle, but not this bad. Ryan experienced that with me on a cool night down there in the past when neither of us could get them to idle well. It's exaggerated by the fact that you often have loud stuff around you so you can't even hear your idle well and that makes me more paranoid. This was a special case though, worse than anything I've experienced.
By the time I got to the end of my third lap (about 3 hours of riding) it wouldn't idle at all. I fiddled with settings, but it either had to rev to 4000RPM to idle or it would die. My first thought was that it seemed like the idle circuit wasn't working at all. I couldn't seem to change anything with the mix screw. Of course I didn't want to remove the carb and work on it there, so I tried raising the needle and changing the plug before giving up and doing what I thought it needed.
A little tailgate inspection revealed the expected... a clogged pilot jet. I had some wire in my tool kit, so I stripped it back and then used a single strand of copper to eventually get the jet cleared out after initially fighting it because the thin wire wanted to bend. Should be good to go now, right? Sort of. It idled as OK as it ever idles at the beach for a bit, but by the time another lap was over it was back to not idling. By then it was 11PM and I had been out there since 5PM so I packed it up rather than pull the carb off and apart again. Of course as I was pulling out of the side street the guy that rides the orange GY6 and likes to race was sitting at the light revving his engine. Then it got tempting, but I didn't wanna unload, repair, ride another lap and then probably need more repair and load it back up.
Saturday was suppose to be a washout with rain, but it looked like the beach may clear out so I took the carb off in the morning to see what's up. The pilot jet was clogged again.
I suspect there may be a couple of things going on. Number one suspect is my nasty carb. At some point I read raving reviews of using Pine Sol as a carb cleaner. Like everything else, I tried it and it made my carb look terrible. It turned dark and corroded. Not sure why my results are so much different. I used it in the ultrasonic cleaner, which others said they do, but maybe it gets too hot or something (my cleaner sometimes seems to ignore settings and just gets hotter and hotter with use).
The other thought was that the beach air may not help. I assume it's moisture content in the air, but when I'm at the beach I've noticed that I get what can be a gooey bubble gum pink residue in the carb. The pics don't do it justice. When at the beach and disassembling it, it's even lighter colored and thicker. At home I normally just have some fuel residue that looks like fuel, but there it's thickened and my carb/intake breathe vapors when opened up.
So, I assumed that either the carb has some corrosion or something in there that is making it's way into the jet or some other sort of debris that may not normally be an issue is able to stick in the tiny pilot orifice with the beach air... or both. Remember that I have done test rides as well as cylinder and belt break in rides since this carb has been back on and have not experienced this at home.
Here's what my carb looks like inside since Pine Sol. The outside looks roughly fine so another thought is maybe interacting with 2T oil or residue could have something to do with the Pine Sol trouble.
When I drained the bowl, I noticed a bunch of sediment. It's not in the fuel prior to the carb, so that is telling me that it's either from the carb or getting into the carb some way aside from the fuel system. Since it was in the bowl, I wouldn't think it would be through the air filter so that made me wonder if it's possible that something is kicked up into the vent hose. Doesn't sound likely either.
I tried to use white vinegar to help with corrosion. I didn't have much around, but just enough to cover the bowl and let me turn the carb occasionally to do the whole body.
I stuck that in the ultrasonic cleaner for about 2 hours, only running the cleaner about an hour and otherwise just soaking. Then I went over it with brass brushes and brass wheels. Not a fantastic looking result, but much improved.
I put it back together and then swapped to a 38 pilot jet from 33 because my mix screw has to be out quite a bit. Then it idled well. Time to pack up and head back to the beach because the weather was indeed better than expected there. All weekend has been on the chilly side in the upper 50s to low 60s, but Fri and Sat nights were comfortable for cruising with gear.
I made it all of 10 minutes before it wouldn't idle again. I found myself constantly revving it at red lights so I pulled over and again it would idle at 4000RPM or not at all. I didn't feel like getting heckled while trying to kickstart it at some point or having it rev that high all of the time so I turned around and got back to the truck as quickly as I could.
I didn't see any point of working on it again and loaded it up. Basically I drove 3 hours round trip to ride for maybe 20 minutes... half of which was not enjoyable. Talk about a crappy reason to go home... I could do power wheelies and screw around fine anytime I was moving... I just couldn't sit still.
At home, I'm not even sure if I can solve this. If I'm correct that the beach air that gets gooey in the carb is a factor then it may not do it again here. Not that I ever want it to clog the jet again, but I'd rather sort it out before the next time at the beach.
Oh, and just to add to the fun that I've been having lately... The camera that I use for everything other than riding has had a lot of movement in the part that hold the lens, and it's supposed to be rigid. When I did the footage of me talking in the last vid for the TMAX it was going in and out of focus and screwed up a lot of footage so I felt like I had to do something about it. I looked online and there are screws deep inside of the camera so it has to be disassembled quite a bit.
I got to one part, removing some ribbon cables, and watched a video online because one didn't seem to work like all of the others. In the video, the dude started to pry at it with a screwdriver and then the video quickly cut to the next scene. For sure that means it's harder than he wanted to show, but I tried to pop it off with a screwdriver and the pins came out of the main board. ^(%^&!!! There goes that camera. A main board is $200 on AliExpress (only source I see) and I found one used on eBay for $375 all included where the guy says he bought it for vacation, took a few pics and now doesn't want the camera anymore. Comes with a cheaper lens than I have, but different so maybe of some value as well. I paid $750 with my nicer lens and it's $500 with the one he had when new so I bought the used one. I'll probably sell mine not working with just the camera for whatever I can get out of it. Don't think it's worth a $200 motherboard and selling it working given what I just bought a whole setup for. Absolutely everything has been turning to crap lately. Even my left hand/wrist that I had carpal tunnel surgery on in December is now still hurting and actually more than it was for a bit. Allegedly it's back to 100% for many people by 6 months, which just happens to be today. It doesn't go numb easily, so that parts working... it just has pain that I never had before.
EDIT : Oh, I did forget one bright side. The Milwaukee M18 drill battery worked beyond my expectation at the car show. I carried 2 5Ah and 2 8Ah with me. I started off with the 5Ah, figuring I could get 1 or 2 laps out of it. After lap 1 it showed 4of4 bars. Lap 2's end brought it to 3 bars. After too much time adjusting idle and such before lap 3 it was down to 2 bars. At the end of lap 3 it was still at 2 bars, but I swapped it out. Not sure how low they will safely run, but it was at 17.89V. That's right around 3 hours of riding. I never used my actual headlight at night, just the halo, because it's all lit up around the beach so I just need people to see me and the halo does put some light on the road in front of me.
