Hello Gentlemen,
I have a 1999 500, last year I installed the S&B air filter and free flowing exhaust. As part of this I moved up from the stock jetting (Main 110, Pilot 25, needle clip on last but one on the richer side) to the following jet sizes (Main 115, Pilot 30, needle clip on the lat groove on the richer side). I ran with this setting for a while to understand how the bike was performing and while it ran fine, I realized that sometimes
a) when the bike starts from stationery on a slight incline, I have very little power,
b) When the temp drops I find the engine response very sluggish.
To remediate this I moved the Pilot jet from 30 to 32.5 and left the rest of the jetting same and noticed the following:
a) I feel the engine runs better with the new pilot size.
b) still have the issue of loss of power on starting from stationary on an incline.
c) bike has better response when cold temps than before but still not satisfactory.
So I now have the following Q's:
a) Should I go up another level on the Pilot? (35?)
b) Should I go up on the main jet to 117.5 ?
c) Should I go up on the needle jet the next size up from stock?
A lot of people I spoke to said usually you don't have to change the needle jet at all although that seems counter-intuitive to me as most of the riding is 1/4 to 3/4 throttle. Help me understand why this is the case.
I live at 4000 feet above sea level.
Hitchcocks has the following recommendations, although not sure for what altitude:
Standard stock: M: 110, NJ: O8, PJ: 25, Slide: 3
S&B air filter with open silencer: M: 125, NJ: P2, PJ: 30, Slide: 2.5
Thanks for the help!