So, since I could never figure out the slight popping on idle that my bike had, I decided to just park it until I could have some time to sort it all out as I knew whatever was wrong couldn’t be good for the bike. Frankly I was sick of tearing the bike apart, pulling the carbs, reassembling it just to see that what I adjusted made no difference. Not to mention my pride was getting stomped on as I'm very good with carbs and can usually iron out any kind of issue in just a short bit regardless or what kind of engine/carb it happens to be.

Last night as I was making dinner, a thought occurred to me. What if I had a couple of the plug wires crossed? So after dinner, I took off the side access panels and took a peek. *@(&#!!!!! Somehow I managed to have 3 of the 4 wires crossed. I have no idea how I did that. I must have been smoking some bad crack at some point. I mean, they are numbered and everything. I wanted to punch myself in the face. What is surprising is that the bike ran at all, let alone it actually ran pretty good. I had 3 in 1, 2 in 3 and 1 in 2. Unbelievable. Once I got over the realization that I’m an idiot, I put them in their proper places and took the bike for a rip around the block. Holy crap what a difference. I was in 1st and just as I was passing 6k and coming up to the power band, I cracked it open. The front wheel came off the ground about a foot. Also, before, starting on a steep hill used to be a little laborious. I repeatedly did that last night, I took off like it was no issue at all.

So, this morning I rode it to work. I took a side road. I hit 105 in 4th and it still was pulling way hard but I ran out of road. :-)

It still has a little something wrong at about 1/8th-1/4th throttle while riding it. But I plan on resyncing the carbs now that they are firing in the proper order. J

 

You're not a moron because you figured it out. I don't care how long you've been wrenching, sometimes those little things will happen. You walked away from it, realized it, then fixed it - that's how you do it!


Have you ever watched BikerLive? One of the guys last week couldn't get the bike started. They started talking about timing, wiring, etc - until they realized they forgot to add gasoline. The week before that, a guy was kicking the bike to the point to where he was out of breath and working up a sweat. He then realized he hadn't turned on the ignition.

And these guys call themselves "Pro's".

 

Thanks man. That makes a person feel somewhat better. At least there were no TV cameras on me. :-)