Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

I just had my bike in a workshop for a whole month. They had to do a few bits and pieces to the bike as well as tune it. However I picked the bike up today because the bike still wasn't finished and has not been tuned.

The one problem it had when it went in was that it wouldn't start which, i know, is probably asking for trouble to start with. However I did have the bike running but for some reason it suddenly decided that it wasn't going to run the day before it was due to go to this shop! I had tried to get some new plugs for it prior to taking the bike in however it was a Sunday and no one had plugs to suit.

Anyway, I had enough of ringing and hearing that it still wasn't going, so I picked it up, got it home amd pulled the plugs, put new ones in and guess what...it starts and runs.

You reckon I'm not really really really p1ssed

Now all I want now is to find a place that will dyno it and get it tuned properly without any mucking around.

Any suggestions, please? I really want it done properly and quickly. After 6 months of working on it, I just want to ride the thing soon.

I would recomend chat to Blue12. He had his done and was very happy with it

Tack your mad leaving it at a mechanics for that long, i prefere do it while you wait places and its a shame you arent in brissy or i could recomend a bloke that will not stuff ya around.

You need a working relationship with a mechanic and if you cant get one happening you have to move on well thats how i find them.

I started to believe that it was a real difficult problem to solve so I thought I would give the guy a go.

This is not the first thing thats taken way to long. The first effort was the front forks which took 1 month to do.

Then there is the on going fuel cap saga. I ordered a quick release fuel cap from a company which required up front payment. So far I have waited 10 weeks for the thing.

All I wanted to do was ride the bloody thing.

Tack wrote:I just had my bike in a workshop for a whole month. They had to do a few bits and pieces to the bike as well as tune it. However I picked the bike up today because the bike still wasn't finished and has not been tuned.
.

Brad
try Dynobike in Moorabbin
or maybe even BKwaka


cheers

i can only really suggest places not to take it

[rant]i wont name names but have been told such things as "yeah i couldnt get rid of that lean patch in the top end, its running a little better now tho with the jetkit" .... perhaps said tuner should have tried some of the slightly larger jets that were included with the jetkit he sold me!!!!

or another that told me he couldnt get my old cbr250 to run right because it had low compression in #3 cylinder. funny that, when i tested it myself it was fine. again perhaps the use of different jets might have helped.[/rant]


this is why i have learnt to tune carbies myself.


BK might be worth a shot, dont think they have a dyno tho (not that a dyno is 100% necessary to tune a bike) and dont know how well they would cope with getting a bike with mods to run properly (assuming thats the case with your bike).... perhaps it might be worth getting megacycle in keysborough to have a go at it... the biggest plus with them is that they are not actually bike mechanics! so possibly decent people to deal with (no offence to any bike mechanics). plus they do make aftermarket exhausts so usually know a thing or two about them, and they have a dyno and do very cheap dyno runs. that said, if they do a shit job i take no responsibility


on that note, what kinda bike do you have? and why does it seem to need a tune...

It's a ZXR750. it needs a tune because it has a straight through muffler fitted plus I had to fit a non standard jet kit to the carbies because I couldn't get original needles etc. I don't reckon I should have a blue flame exiting the exhaust all the time

firstly, do you have any air leaks in the exhaust system? (even at the joint from 4-1 to the collector or collector to muffler can have an air leak). That'll take care of the flames out the zhaust.

Secondly, is it a kit designed for the bike i.e. factorypro / dynojet kit, etc?
have you tried stage one then 2 then 3,? (i learned that lesson, always try the smallest one FIRST!).

As per the links to tuning guides, get the thing working on WOT first, does it pop/fart/stagger at WOT, go like a banshee and sound healthy, or does it just rip up there and sound like its struggling/making funny noises (lean)

Then get the float level right, (after tidying up the mess from past owners, i i had to go down 1mm, making my bike a heap leaner than it was previously set) and now it goes thru the range mostly nicely, i think i just have an issue with carby balance, might have to steal my neighbours carbtune again methinks.

but seriously hunt thru the archives and find a link (me and someone else here put links to different mirrors of *very* similar guides), helped me a helluva lot with what symptoms mean what. But firstly, get the exhaust checked out for leaks!

what kinda jet kit is it?


as for stages, basically with just a full system or even just a pipe you will only ever need stage one... you need some pretty wild mods for anything higher


i would have a red hot crack at tuning it yourself ....

open this: http://www.factorypro.com/tech/carbtun.html

read the page and click on "high rpm engines" for a very detailed tuning guide.... you wont find a better one anywhere.


it can be hard to diagnose something as lean or rich by the struggling noise it makes, but its a lot easier to go by temperature... better when cold but worse when warm means rich, shitty when cold but better when warm means lean... it can take a while to get it right tho, but lots of experimenting and you will get there... and most likely do a better job than a bike mechanic who spends 20 minutes on it chucking in the settings he thinks 'should be right' then charging you for 1 hours labour get you in get you out have fun see ya later dont come back


my bike is 95% tuned now, i jsut need to adjust the floats then im done... pretttttty sure they are lean, but i could be wrong.... lucky its pretty easy to adjust floats on the 9R... i might cruise through oakleigh on my test ride, listen out for it

Smitty wrote:

Tack wrote:I just had my bike in a workshop for a whole month. They had to do a few bits and pieces to the bike as well as tune it. However I picked the bike up today because the bike still wasn't finished and has not been tuned.
.

Brad
try Dynobike in Moorabbin
or maybe even BKwaka


cheers

tack, if ur not smitty dont take ur bike to BKwaka, they are cunts, unless u suck their dick

Gavin cosway is a guru with this stuff, but you have to be prepared for the grumpyness. I put up with most of his grumpyness, as he tunes bikes better than any one else I have ever met. Seriously he is a real boffin and has forgotten more shit than most people will ever know!
He has always built my race engines and jetted them, and other riders always comment how slow I am thru the turns, and how fast the bike is down the chute.

Gavin cosway is a guru with this stuff, but you have to be prepared for the grumpyness.

Why??
(and I've known Gavin for a decade and he is just as Strika described)

Good mechanics are hard to find. I do just about all my own work. A horror story from a long time ago concerned a warranty fix on a second bike I had just purchased (about 1985 I think it was). They gave me a 2 month warranty on it and after about 2 weeks I took it back because the front discs were warped and it was pinging it's head off between 3500 and 5000 r.p.m. They hammered the discs straight (wasn't happy at all when I found that out) and the geniuses tried to fix a low r.p.m jetting glitch on a bike with CV carbies by fitting bigger main jets. Needless to say it didn't fix the pinging but it gave me a nice stumble once the revs were up. Went back and asked how they had fixed the jetting, was told how, asked for the original jets and then went home and fixed it myself. Haven't availed myself of a warranty fix on any of the secondhand bikes I have bought since. You don't know what sort of tool is likely to be working on your pride and joy. At least if I f&*k it up I know who to yell at.