Fuel Mixtures, Intake and Exhaust mods

Well I was disassembling my bike tonight in preparation to do the oil mod, which probably should be the first order of business, but I decided to tackle a bunch at once. Upon removing the airbox, I noticed that the front air inlets were pretty small for flowing enough to make 113 HP. Removing them would obviously reduce any possible restriction at the risk of injesting something into the air cleaner. (Really not a big deal to me, it's there to catch debris.)

What effect will this or the exhaust have on the fuel mixtures with the carbs (one would hope it would go leaner! The question is does the bike run too lean to begin with?) I assume that I will need to rejet them to account for any additional airflow. (This is why I love fuel injection, I could remap it quickly.) I know that my chances of finding an exhaust for this bike would be about as easy as finding christmas elves in july, so I may fabricate one that works. I may yet fuel inject the thing... but I really want to try and keep the mods to a minimum or at the very least easily reversable... changing jets is easy, changing back to carbs from fuel injection is not! I have not had the opportunity to put a wide band O2 sensor on the thing, but part of the exhaust project would be to add O2 Bungs.

Anyway any experience or advice would be appreciated.

 

Wow good question. when I had mine back in the day, I did the k-n filter with F1 cans and everything worked just fine, didn't have to mess with jetting luckly as those carbs are a pain to work on IMO as is any V4 setup is, but that airbox mode could yep it breat a little better wouldn't hurt to give it a try. as far as it being lean I'm here in WA at sea level , mine was pretty much spot on after the filter and cans, But I looked at plugs to tell plus seat of the pants told me it was a tad crisper. the real way to get it down now is with a Dyno. Hope that helps, those vf1000s are a kick in the butt.

 

Well today I scored a set of used Yoshimura pipes for $65 plus shipping, I can say that I honestly consider that a gift... Thanks to that guy! They need some TLC but I believe I can bring them back to life.

I'll clean them up weld some O2 bungs on them for A/F readings and have something a little different. I also got all the stainless steel brake, clutch, oil lines run, so the oil mod is now complete.

Speaking of which I looked at the rear cams, while not pitted, they had some wear on the nose, so I think it's good that I caught them when I did. I don't think there is much wear but you could see indications that something bad awaited me down the road a few thousand miles. I believe that if I had allowed the situation to continue that I would have paid dearly for it.

Looks like I will have to seal up the tank, when I tilted it forward the was some leakage near the top of the tank. POR-15 to the rescue I suppose. I'm glad I know how to wrench, I wouldn't have dreamed of buying a bike this old without some knowledge of what I was asking for.

 

Well the surgery is done...

Brakes feel much better.
Clutch is nice an tight.
Oil mod is done.
New plugs, wires, oil, brake fluid.

Quite a bit of work... Those CARBS suck to get back on. I wish I had replaced them this week too. So now, I get to go ride.

Next up new radiators and hopefully next week I can take the stock pipes of for storage and put the new Yoshimura pipes on. The old plugs looked nice and toasty, so I think I will need to jet it up after the pipes.

After my ride, I would swear I picked up a few ponies... It felt like it was pulling harder, but it could just be the additional intake noise. It definately is louder on the induction side. It could be that my butt dyno is right and the reasonably cool air tonight, new plugs, new wires and opening up the intake made a net gain. Who knows.