[REKen]

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to introduce myself.  I'm located in the Washington, DC area and just got my bike (a 1987 rebuilt ex-Indian military 350cc) shipped from India, titled, registered, and tagged in the US.  Now that the weather is getting nice and the bike is now street legal for me to ride, I wanted to add some additional performance features to make it safer on the highway (or safer in general) and get more power and speed.  So far, I've added a K&N pod filter to my VM24 Mikarb, upjetted to a 105 main and 27.5 idle, installed a boyer bransden digital ignition, twist on external oil filter, and tachometer.  While the bike works, i have had some hiccups along the road and I was wondering if anyone had any tips on the following:

-Boyer ignition doesn't make it easier for me to kick over the bike (my points ignition was more reliable).  On my first test ride, a loose ground wire caused the bike to cut in and out of power forcing me to drift over to the side of the road, retighten the connection (it was grounded to the negative of my battery) and painstakingly kick the bike for minutes before getting the engine to turn over. I'm hoping this is related to the grounding wire/battery connection being loose, but does anyone have any tips on kick starting the bike?  I kick it until a get compression, hit the decompression lever and press down the kick starter an inch or two (enough for me to hear a wheezing sound), return the lever, and kick...... and nothing.. try again...5 minutes later... try again.. engine finally turns over. 

-At 3/4 to full throttle traveling around 45/50 mph the engine sputters and jerks a little, cuts out, and dies.  I'm not sure if this is related to the boyer, or an overly rich/lean main/needle jet.  Has anyone configured a Mikcarb VM24 with a K&N filter and can advise me on the jet sizes?  More particularly, am I too rich or too lean, or is it some other problem? 

-Bike idles around 2000 rpms.  When I'm stopped at traffic lights, the RPM drops and threatens to stall out.  I've become accustomed to this and just roll back a little on throttle to keep the RPM from sinking too low.  Is this an idle jet issue, or an air screw issue?  How can I adjust it to prevent it from stalling out at traffic lights (i can't for the life of me get it in neutral unless the engine is off).

In addition to all this, i was looking for more information on converting my engine to a fireball.  Given that I have a 350cc engine, can anyone recommend somebody that can bore out the bottom end?  Has anyone done this?

Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice/tips/words of wisdom.  My fiance tells me that every time i go to work on my bike, I fix something and then break something else.  This may be true, but I enjoy working on the bike... I just wish I could spend more time riding it without worrying about getting rear ended on the highway... 

[ace.cafe]

Hi,
It sounds like you mostly just need to get a handle on tuning it. The high idle and dying at stop lights is usually related to carb tuning issues. The dying at large throttle openings could be several different issues, but I'd check to make sure it has full fuel flow from the petcock all the way into the carb. Limited fuel flow can give that symptom.

Since you are in DC, Chumma will be able to do the Fireball conversion. He's in NJ, and does our bottom end builds, so he'll be able to advise you about converting your 350 crankcase. It involves more than just boring the barrel hole. The head stud locations need to be moved to fit the larger stud pattern of the 500, and there are a few other issues involved.

I can get you in touch with him if you PM or email me.

[AgentX]

Ken, sorry to hear the electronic ignition has been giving trouble...had been hoping it'd help clear up the issues it seems to have exacerbated.  (Mine just showed up in the mail.)

Will catch you in DC in July.  Hope things are ironed out by then.

[REKen]

Thanks Tom.  I fiddled with the air screws, and i seemed to have found the right setting/mixture to stabilize the idle/low gear RPMs.  I also realized that my clutch cable had too much slack in it so I tightened it up.  I am now able to find neutral while in gear (as opposed to only when stalled).  I haven't managed to take the bike at higher speeds, so i haven't figured out the 3/4 to full throttle issues.  I did notice that when I pulled back on the throttle quickly when in neutral, the engine skipped a beat.  I checked the fuel filter and the the flow from the petcock and there doesn't seem to be any blockages.  There is a lot of rust in the tank and I"m thinking that may be problematic at some point.  In the meantime, I'm thinking about lowering the clip position on the needle jet or increasing the main jet to a 110 to richen the mixture at higher speeds.

Thanks for sending Chumma's info.  I'll contact him re: the crank case. 

Mike,
The boyer is working better now.  I think it was the loose ground wire that caused the inconsistency.  It's a lot easier to start up now (though I do get some pretty strong kick back at times).  You should be able to install it before you return stateside.  It'll take you less than an hour for a quick and dirty job.  I'll see you in July. 

I've attached a pic of my bike for those interested.

[AgentX]

Mike,
The boyer is working better now.  I think it was the loose ground wire that caused the inconsistency.  It's a lot easier to start up now (though I do get some pretty strong kick back at times).  You should be able to install it before you return stateside.  It'll take you less than an hour for a quick and dirty job.  I'll see you in July. 

Yeah, I'm probably going to do another full re-wire of the bike to include adding the ignition, now that I have some experience wiring and have a better plan worked out.  My last job was pretty good and neat except the power distribution after the ignition switch is a rat's nest, bodged-up job that is really embarassing behind the headlight.

Got a new seat unit which I will mount with a hidden tray underneath for all the electrics including the ignition box, and some "bus boards" for power distribution and ground consolidation that should keep everything neat and all the circuits very simple.  Also putting on a big tachometer and switching to a mini speedo.

I still might throw the Boyer into the current setup just to try it out before I get onto the bigger job, though.

If you're getting kickback on startup, is it possible you're still a little over-advanced?  Maybe when you set it at TDC it was just a hair off.  You can rotate the Boyer stator plate to alter the timing, correct?  Might be worth a little experiment.

(Your pic's just showing a red X for me when I try to expand the thumbnail, by the way.)

[REKen]

Thanks. I'll play with the stator plate and see if that helps with the kick back.  Regarding wiring, I'm not sure how they wired up my bike.  From what i've traced out it seems to be in line with the newer ES schematics, but when I tried hooking the horn to the purple and red/yellow cable coming down from the headlight case, the horn starts blaring without pressing the horn button. Any idea why? 

Here's the pic i posted in the last post.

[AgentX]

when I tried hooking the horn to the purple and red/yellow cable coming down from the headlight case, the horn starts blaring without pressing the horn button. Any idea why? 

Well, I have no idea about other bikes' wiring, since my old one with modified stock harness was incomprehensibly chopped up, and I just did a new diagram of my own design to replace it.  So I can't say what color is what on anyone else's bike.

But if the horn sounds, it's because current is passing through the horn unit to ground.  The bar switch is what makes the connection to ground when it's pressed  (grounds at the bar).  So it looks like however you tried re-wiring it, you bypassed this switch and created a direct route from the horn to ground. 

Did the horn sound when the key was turned off?  If so, you bypassed the ignition key switch as well.