I was here about six months ago and made a post about the 1983 750 I bought, and I had mentioned how I was going to spend some time working on it, well, I've made some progress, but it feels like two steps forward and one step back.
The bike is running alright... I did a lot of cleaning and I had the carburetors apart for cleaning, it had a somewhat rough idle before the cleaning and is about the same now, I visually balanced them and checked for clogs. I was actually surprised to see the carbs were very clean to begin with, since the rest of it was less than spotless. It's all stock except for a MAC exhaust, 4-into-1, no jetting or anything done, the plugs are a bit black, but I would have thought the exhaust swap would have made it more lean. Initially the cam chains were very noisy, I was able to quiet them down substantially by adjusting the rear set, however, while attempting to do the front one... I did the unthinkable and stripped the pinch bolt! I've since managed to keep it in place with a clever bit of rigging but it will need rethreading, I'm hoping to do that soon. So, the bike runs, and I've actually trusted it enough to put over 500 kilometers on it since I started riding it a couple of weeks ago. I'm not concerned with too much, aside from some small tuning perhaps and getting the front tensioner pinch bolt looked after. The main question I have, is about engine performance. I can tell you right now that it's average MPG is 45, the low was 38 and the high was 53. So in those terms, to me that seems like great mileage, which in turn suggests that the engine is running fairly well. Despite the MPG readings, in 5th gear at about 70 MPH the engine is revving between 5,000 and 5,500. If I roll on the throttle, it just doesn't really go anywhere, acceleration is quite slow. I've actually had the throttle wide open and the bike, in 5th, doesn't respond much. In lower gears though it really picks up, but I find if I want to do any passing, I pretty much have no choice but to knock it down one or two gears from 5th to get it responsive enough to pass. So what I'd like to know is what kind of feel I should be getting in 5th at normal highway speeds, is there a potential performance problem? Or do these bikes get "sluggish" in 5th around there? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers?hl=en.
