Possible quick carb cleaning on Vmax ER?

I just got back from a quick drive on the groomed trails. I wanted to get a really good plug reading to see how lean it actually is. It's bad, real bad. Plugs are dry and very white now. I'm not happy. I really don't know what went wrong. Honestly, the only change that was made was installing the reed spacers. Also, I shimmed the rear motor mounts to avoid having the centre carb bowl hit the steering column. The plugs are so white that I don't think that needle lifting will be enough. But why is this happening? I know the carbs are clean and everything else is stock. It wasn't like this before I took the carbs apart. What could have gone wrong? All plugs are equally lean, so it's not like one main jet is clogged or something. This is really stressing me out cause all my buddies are out having a blast and I'm stuck home with terrible white plugs. I'll post pics of the white plugs in the morning. But, I'm pretty tempted to take the reed spacers out and see if it goes back to normal. Can I re use those reed gaskets? Maybe with a little motoseal or ultra copper? The spacer kit came with cardboardish style gaskets. The orginal gaskets I removed were steel. If I was to re use, which ones should I go with? Please help! Thanx.
 

Terrence R said:
I just don't know what to do now. Is the idle hang normal? Plus, maybe this sled was running lean before I even bought. I checked the plugs and they seemed fine on the day I bought it. But it was very warm out and I couldn't get any good revs past 4k cause there was obviously no snow. What should I do? Do u think lifting my needle will solve it? Or should I be taking the whole thing apart again?
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This could be part of your problem, you never knew how it ran before you bought it. Relax and start from the top. You know your running lean (pics of plugs will help) so don't run anymore till you get it figured out. Pull the carbs back off and clean again ( pia I know) but pay very close attention to every passage and jet. Write the numbers on jets down. Clutch side carb is #1 PTO, #2 center, #3 mag. This is very important so we can make sure jetting is stock. Reed spacers or the notch make no difference in jetting but for this take them off and reuse metal gaskets and a little copper spray. Also take a little light ore one of those flex lights and stick it in plug hole and tell us what you see. This is piston wash and also very important. Can you do a compression test? Or at least hold thumb over plug hole while someone pulls the engine over and feel the resistance ( trying to feel if equal). Someone else mentioned it but make sure you take air box all apart when putting back together soy your sure the boots are seated good. Also where is your oil pump adjustment at? Too much oil and not enough gas can cause a lean condition also. But start with carbs. and work way down. Pull needles and check position also. Keep at it and keep posting
 
take the top of the airbox off. pull out the guts. then with a mirror in the airbox confirm that all 3 boots are properly on the carbs. there is a small lip inside the intake boots that should be flush against the carb mouth.
 
All boots are well sealed and on the whole way. No gaps or air leaks what so ever. Compression is on the high side of 130 psi ( about 132ish ) in all 3 cylinders. I've been looking down the cylinders at the pistons. They originally had a light lair of moist carbon. They now look very dry with little metal flake marks ( not pitting or loose metal pieces, just little dots of exposed metal from it being lean. Don't worry I won't be running it anymore like that. Don't wanna risk any pitting or a burn down. I never touched the oil pump, but the op said that he had it slightly higher than usual. I felt the cable tension from the oil line and there's no slack at all. So it def getting oil ( lots of smoke).

So, what's in these for stock needles and at what position is stock? I remember going to look at raising the needles and gave up quick as first screw on that sync rode wouldn't turn out for me. Just seems like I'm ganna run into problems by opening that can of worms. But I guess that I got to. All this is bugging me though cause I know it wasn't like this before I put those reed spacers on. And yes, I'm positive that there's no air leaks. All 3 cylinders are burning lean. Terribly lean now.

Also, I noticed that there's no guts in my air box. Just a plastic divider separating the top from the bottom half of the box. But like I said, plugs were wet and nice before, so I don't think that would be the cause.

Also, I'm guessing that I'm ganna have to wait a day for the sealant to cure on the gaskets before I can start the sled back up?
 
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show us some pics of whats in your airbox. Gutted airboxes can cause a bunch of problems with jetting, inconsistency being one of them. You don't need to remove the set screws on the main shaft to change the needle settings. You just remove the 2 allen screws connecting the linkage to the slides. then slide the linkage off the arms, rotate 90 degrees and you can pull the linkage out past the arms. you can then slide out the needles and do your adjustments.
 
Just got the sled off the truck. Drove it in the garage. Gave a few 5500 revs along the way like kid throwing a tantrom LOL. Now my plugs look perfect. WTF? Here's a pick of a plug now. And here's some pics of my air box. I'm going up the road to grab my bros sled stand so I can get the sled warmed up and give it a couple WOT pumps to see what it reads.
 

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Oh year another funning thing that came out if this was now that putting all my viper back to stock oil settings my idle hangs are gone? Not sure if related or not?
 
It just so happens that there are 2 recent threads with good pics of piston wash.
first this one shows a rich piston http://www.totallyamaha.net/forums/...ad-off-to-check-the-wash-What-is-the-verdict-!

then this one shows wash that is pretty spot on. the only thing is the piston crowns look dry. they should have a slightly wet sheen to them. but if this was sitting a while before he pulled the head and took these pics the fuel could have just dried up. http://www.totallyamaha.net/forums/...ad-off-to-check-the-wash-What-is-the-verdict-!

You can look at your piston wash without pulling the heads. if you pull the plugs and rotate the engine so the piston is all the way down you can look through the plug hole with a bright light and see the wash on the carb side of the pistons. this tells more of whats going on than the plug readings alone. to do this right you need to run the sled a good distance in each carb circuit, kill the sled, check the plugs and wash then repeat in the next circuit. you want to check at 1/4 throttle, half throttle to 3/4 throttle, and full throttle. Then you'll know how each circuit is running (pilot, needles, mains) and what to do about it.
 
super1c said:
Is that your plug?? If so dont look too bad to me or am i missing somthing. GUYS??
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Yes. That's a pic from this morning from after I drove it in the garage. Lastnight the plugs were Snow White. It doesn't make any sense to me. I just put it up on the stand and held revs at different rpms, I also gave it some real good wot revs and held them for a couple seconds. The plugs are now showing that whitish ridge and are dry. This is seriously stressing me out. Is that on/off switch that bolts to the air box that has coolant in it also the fuel switch? I just ran it with the switch both ways and there was no change.
 
You cant get accurate plug and wash readings on the stand. You also need to check each carb circuit individually like I described above in order to get readings for each circuit. Otherwise you have no idea which jet needs adjustment. How did you go about doing your carb cleaning? did you follow one of the write-ups in the tech section? Sorry if you posted this earlier I can't remember every post I read. I ask because i'm starting to wonder about your float adjustments or float needle and seat condition. But you really need to do the readings the right way and describe the piston wash as best you can at each reading and post the plug pics for each reading. It will make it a lot easier for guys to steer you in the right direction. right now the descriptions are all over the place with the wrong testing procedures.
 
Terrence R said:
I don't understand why I wouldn't be able to get a good reading on the stand. Why is that?

I didn't touch the float adjustment at all.
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That switch is for the heated carbs, turns coolant on/off. Does nothing in reguards to on/off with fuel. Based on look of plug I think your fine in the idle circuit. You cannot read plugs on a stand as it takes 99% of the load off the engine, if you did tune it to run on a stand it surely would not be good for real world riding. So now we need to figure which (maybe more then one) circuit you are lean on.
 
I'm putting it all back together, again. I didn't find anything. I'm ganna rip it around the yard to see how it's burning then. If it's still lean, I'll be removing the only thing that I changed about the sled, the reed spacers. Doesn't make any sense does it? Oh well, nothing else I can try. Plugs looked great before I cleaned carbs and put spacers in. Again, I really don't think the carbs are the issue. Nothing was changed in them. All cylinders burning the same. I'm going Insane trying to figure this out.
 
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