Okay gang, a little help here:
I finally got out and did the plug chops, I got 5 new plugs, marked throttle positions on my accelerator and handle grip, and set out to take some readings. I wish I had taken pictures, I even wanted to do a video of the chops themselves, but i had to squeeze this in on a busy week.
I am jetting for more-or-less at sea level. My daily riding takes me from 1900-2400ft in elevation. Been a while since I was up at 4,000ft and up. Spring temps here are around 60F in the morning and mid 90sF in the afternoon. I have an Ace air canister and an opened up Harley Davidson exhaust silencer and stock Micarb.
The outcome was that the Idle produced a plug that looks a little rich, was brown, but almost turning black. Even on a cool (48F) morning I do not need the enrichener to get her started. I take this to mean that the Pilot Jet (27.5) is about perfect, erring on the safe side of running rich. At warm idle around 800rpm she sits strong, can almost measure the beats with a watch.
The 1/4-1/2 produced a color close to dark toast but not black. This made me the happiest because this is where I ride most of the time thumping through town and from my experience is exactly where the color should be. The Needle Jet (P2 on middle clip) seems to be the right mix and the transition from the pilot circuit to the needle circuit looks to be good.
The 1/2 to 3/4 produced similar results with the transition from the Needle Jet circuit to the Main Jet (127.5 from 110) circuit.
Full Throttle produced a sooty plug. Running off of the Main Jet (127.5) the plug comes out covered in soot. This is my only problem with my current jetting. The bike pulls VERY well to about 50MPH, at this point, and at full throttle, you can feel the top end approaching. I understand all to well the limitations of these older bikes with the 4speed and my weight and all, so I know that this is where I would normally feel a falling off of the torque curve. I feel though, it may somehow be effected by the gradual fouling of the plug.
Mind you I DO NOT do full throttle runs. Doing these plug chops is the most I've ever run this bike at WOT. I'm not looking for tons of power at the high end, I just want to get the mix sorted out.
In my thinking, I could simply step down on the Main Jet. Knowing the Main Jet feeds the Needle Jet circuit, would it be safe to assume that I could simply lower the clip on the P2 once a smaller Main Jet is introduced to keep the good mix I currently have going in the most used throttle positions (1/4-3/4)?
Here is my One Ride video, the only video I have with the current setup on carb, intake and silencer, in case listening to it helps some of you that diagnose by ear.
http://youtu.be/pNgMbi88ZJk I use a high definition microphone in the saddle bag to capture the sound of the bike instead of the wind-blown camera mic. The video is 15min long, after the kick start at the beginning jumping to almost anywhere in it should get you an idea of what it sounds like.
Thanks in advance