This took me about two week partly because I was waiting on parts and partly because I'm just not that good at time management or this kind of work.  I haven't rode it yet so hopefully it will be worth it, but boy is it loud.  I went with the Screamin Eagle b/c I like the slash cut and I figured the stock exhaust was so bad that it wouldn't be that loud.  It is though.  Extremely loud.

What I did:  

Carb rejet.  160 main.  Have 157.5 if that is to much.  Two washers in place of white spacer.  The are less that 1/3 the original thickness.  Be very careful taking those two screws out.  Had a heck of a time getting the carb on and off the bike.  Very tight fit.  I also replaced all the screws with stainless allen.  Haven't yet messed with the idle mixture.  Any way to tell if I'm rich besides pulling the plug?

Intake.  Drop in K&N.  Removed snorkel.  Drilled many holes in the airbox door.

Screamin Eagle II exhaust.  Used a aluimium can as a small shim along with a 1 #3/4 in muffler clamp.  Went on pretty easy but I could not bend the mount on the muffler.  I might have been able to if I tried harder but it didn't look like is was going to work very well like that either.  Instead I bent the muffler bracket down and out just a little.  Then I bent the flat surface to match the muffler mount better.  This lined up the bracket and the mount just at their edges.  Drilled holes in both and bolted on.  Things didn't look much like the how-to's but it works.  Only thing I wondered about it how to tell if I have any exhaust leaks.

New plug.  Standard heat range NGK.  Could not find iridium plug.

Removed sissy bar and rear fender.  Replaced rear blinkers with blinkers from a Honda 929.  That filled one set of holes.  Others were fill with the chrome bolt that held the fender on.  Removed front blinkers.  Can't get the 929 ones on there right now so I am going to go without for a while.  

Removed engine guard.  

Raise front seat 1 in.

Let us know about the #160 main.  I think that might be just a bit rich, especially with a stock header pipe.  If it is you'll see a puff of black smoke in bright sunlight when you crack open the throttle from idle.  You may even smell it.

Why do people drill holes in the airbox door?  I mean, I know what we're trying to do, but why that way?

Oklahoma_Mike wrote on 12/31/69 at 16:00:06:


A few reasons.  First I didn't want to damage the actual airbox and I can get a new door fairly easily.  Second, I don't know how easy water enters the air box but I figured holes rather than having the whole thing off would still provide some barrier to that.  Lastly, I was waiting on my muffler to arrive and got bored.  It was kinda fun.  

I reved the bike up a bit and caught just a hint of fuel smell.

OK, I switched to jet to a 157.5 b/c 160 just sounded like a little much.  First ride I was getting quite a few back fires.  Think I'm going to switch it back to the 160 and see if there is any improvement.  

Bike sounded awesome.  Huge improvement in speed as well.  I only got it up to about 70 but where as before it might take me 1/4 mile with considerable dropoff above 50, this time out I zipped right on up there in less than a block with no hint of the thing slowing down.

No.  Right now it is screwed out 1 3/4 turn from bottoming out.  I mess with it so I'm not sure where it was before I drilled out the plug.  I rode it about 50 miles earlier today with the 160 in.  It was fantastic to ride but the backfires were horrible.  Any time I really got on it even the slightest twitch of letting up on the throttle causes a backfire.  Backfires shifting through the gears at every shift.  I don't feel like I should ride it anymore until I can get it somehow tuned a little better.  Any suggestions would be great.  

Is the header suggestion still relevent?  I was under the assumption that backfires are caused by a lean condition.  Am I oversimplfing things?

Tommorow I was thing about throwing the stock air filter back in just to see how it affected things.  Hopefully I didn't throw it away.

Three full turns out is what I had to set my idle mixture at.  Guess I might need a new pilot.  Just got back from a 90 mile ride.  I had 4 backfires all in the same situation slowing from about 50 coming into towns.

I'm going to size up the pilot and drop my needle just a bit and see how things go, but I am pretty happy with it now.  I'm not sure what kind of washers I have on the needle now but there are two of them that together are just barely less than 1/2 the original spacer.