From day one here at BSD we started setting up carburetors of the bikes of the time that had end-cans fitted, and so on. Most of what we do now is to the same effect it’s just via the ECU and a remap rather than a box full of jets.
But occasionally now we get a carb’d bike in to sort, as quite a few owners are looking back with rose tinted spectacles and acquiring what they either had and sold, or wanted and couldn’t have back in the day…
They’re usually cheap but also have been stood awhile and the fuel’s rotten in the carbs. And the owner has read on the internet that you can get a kit to sort it out and so on. Now the customer of this VTR was not quite in that camp but he had a kit and wanted us to bolt it in.
Over the years we’ve sorted a lot of these bikes out just by using normal jets and adjusting slightly what was already there. In many cases it was only an end-can or filter causing problems anyway and these kits are £85-90 a time so you end up with a load of stuff that’s not needed.
If you have carbs that needed sorting don’t panic – we’ve been there a hundred times over and can fix pretty much any problem without the need to invest in a kit you don’t need most of. And we quite enjoy it!
A blast from the past, with its carbs nicely sorted…
