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Slide Hammer posted:Wait, are you just using hyperbole here, or is there really a game/application available to put in a GameBoy Color to tune FI computers? This is triggering something in my memory. Aprilia used to tune their SR50’s with a gameboy color and custom cartridge that could connect to the bike. Legendary Italianosity 
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Oct 9, 2023 15:39
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Oct 9, 2023 15:46
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Reminder that auto carbs and bike carbs largely don't exist in the same space. If the bike isn't running an aftermarket intake or pipe you'll have a better time. If the bike has one or maybe two carbs rather than three four or six, you'll have a better time. If you ride the bike at least every couple weeks, you'll have a better time. when loving with bike carbs. change one thing. Ride it. Ride it hot. Take two sets of notes. One cataloging what was changed. One cataloging the outcome. It's ok to revert and go back and forth and mix one setting up a couple times. But catalog this as you go so you do not get lost. If you think it's an ignition problem, it's carburetion. If you think it's carburetion, it's ignition. Honestly this is a lot easier than hex editing roms that run on motorola 64ks that's running an engine. But much like hex editing a rom, there's some background knowledge and artistry involved. Power commanders work by altering sensor values into the ecm. throttle position, map values, etc to fool the ecu into supplying more fuel, ignition advance, etc. This is in the realm of analog electronics for the most part, with maybe some i2c/spi bus fuckery with some of the more advanced map sensors.. Sort of like carbs. Sort of like the rom analogy above.
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Oct 9, 2023 17:17
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My personal anecdotal experience with homebrew efi is that it's actually much harder to deal with than carbs. This isn't a learn to code thing, it's that if you haven't got a dyno in your garage it's basically impossible to work systematically towards improving things. Maybe I'm just dumb but I can tell you that if my project bike had carbs instead of efi it wouldn't have sat not running for the past several years.
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Oct 9, 2023 17:57
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cursedshitbox posted:
It's bizarre that this is basically always true. I've lost track of how many times it's gotten me, even though I know the rule and I know how many times it's gotten me already. Just one of those laws of the universe I guess.
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Oct 9, 2023 18:49
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I’ve always found this quite helpful when dealing with carbs.  Slavvy posted:My personal anecdotal experience with homebrew efi is that it's actually much harder to deal with than carbs. This isn't a learn to code thing, it's that if you haven't got a dyno in your garage it's basically impossible to work systematically towards improving things. Maybe I'm just dumb but I can tell you that if my project bike had carbs instead of efi it wouldn't have sat not running for the past several years. So… when’s the dyno coming?
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Oct 10, 2023 12:37
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A mate has expressed an interest in buying my cb125, when that happens I'll buy a wideband and a cheap laptop and take another tilt at the windmill 
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Oct 10, 2023 17:19
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Slavvy posted:Carbs are cool and good and will put hairs on your chest and make you a man (even if you're a girl) and nothing can match the perfect Bellissimo al dente feel of a well set up carb The suffering is needless and far too much maintenance is required. FI works every time and at least I find it to be just as good.
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Oct 11, 2023 23:34
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Yes but you also got scared off of pirellis because they turned too good
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Oct 12, 2023 00:11
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builds character posted:I’ve always found this quite helpful when dealing with carbs. great newbie thread content right here now if i can only find the trapezoids on my carb
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Oct 12, 2023 02:25
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Slavvy posted:Yes but you also got scared off of pirellis because they turned too good also manual transmissions wrt ice power bands
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Oct 12, 2023 04:40
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Slavvy posted:Yes but you also got scared off of pirellis because they turned too good cursedshitbox posted:also manual transmissions wrt ice power bands Correct on both counts. But the important thing to remember is: Slavvy posted:Yes I.e. FI > Carbs. I keep my bikes on battery tenders, the tyres correctly pressurised, and literally all I have to do is start them and ride away, no matter if they've been sitting for weeks or months! If I wanted a project, I'd buy a ship in a bottle.
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Oct 12, 2023 12:08
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It is one of the biggest advantages that fuel injection has over carbs, for normal people. Excepting throttle response, ease of tuning, serviceability. No more maintenance riding, just riding when you need to. I remember back when my mother gave me her old car, '89 Nissan Maxima, fuel injected, it would sit for weeks until I suddenly needed it, and it would just shudder to life every time. Rust killed it. Fuel injection on bikes might suck later for people who have never used an OBD scanner, especially as they continue to get older and older. But, in the United States, at least, most bikes never even reach that age, toys. They get sold and trickle down to poorer people who are used to servicing their own stuff. The lack of a data port standard across manufacturers is annoying, though.
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Oct 12, 2023 13:44
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I think my biggest issues with the "no carbs" stance is that it forces you to skip like 95% of the most interesting motorcycle engines
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Oct 12, 2023 17:45
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I ride my carbed bike like twice a month. It sat in a container for three years. cleaned one of its 8 jets and it's fine. I didn't even bother changing its oil when I dug it out. No tender, it's literally running a salvaged ekg monitor backup battery to power the thing. Every single time it lights off as if it were EFI and I can kill the choke which settles it to a low idle within 45 seconds. idk, sucks to suck*. However. Steakandchips posted:But the important thing to remember is: * I realize that my experience is going to be vastly different than most. These days I am more into bicycles than moto anyway which, lol. cursedshitbox fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Oct 12, 2023 |
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Oct 12, 2023 17:47
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Beve Stuscemi posted:I think my biggest issues with the "no carbs" stance is that it forces you to skip like 95% of the most interesting motorcycle engines Yeah this. Very, very few genuinely interesting engines nowadays, especially when you factor what bikes those engines are in cursedshitbox posted:* I realize that my experience is going to be vastly different than most. These days I am more into bicycles than moto anyway which, lol. Hell, same
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Oct 12, 2023 17:54
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Slavvy posted:Yeah this. Very, very few genuinely interesting engines nowadays, especially when you factor what bikes those engines are in yeuuuup. Anything modern has the personality of a toyota camry. Or an electric for that matter. At that point just skip all the chaff and go get a 35lb ebike with a liter ktm's worth of torque and about the same range as current e-motos to rip on. Idk, that isn't for me. I get it that it's for some? I picked working in a velo shop over moto because of it. No modern bike will ever live up even to a boomerang era gixxer or an old rear end carbed sv650, nevermind the litany of historical greats like the vfr400 and such. There are fewer and fewer places willing to deal with non efi motos.
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Oct 12, 2023 18:03
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Love my Vee precisely because it's like a Camry. Zero personality, all utility. It's a commuting appliance for me to get to and from work. Predictable, reliable, always the same. If that bike got stolen or burned down tomorrow, I'd give zero fucks and get something else. It's not always necessary to own a special, temperamental, interesting, whatever bike. I put 5400 miles on it in one year of ownership. 95% of that was commuting. If I'm going somewhere else, it's the Monkey or the dirtbikes for real fun TotalLossBrain fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Oct 12, 2023 |
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Oct 12, 2023 18:14
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Carbs don't magically gum up and get dirty. As long as you ride it for a couple dozen kilometers each month, the fuel won't gum up and it'll start perfectly fine each time. Let them sit, and they'll have a risk of gumming up, but that's kinda user error (just like me starting the Yamaha every couple of weeks sending the already worn out spark plugs over the edge, instead of actually riding it up to temperature, because it was before that whole brake thing i fixed last year). Carbs are great for daily drivers, less so for garage queens. But for commuting a carb'd bike would be perfect, if you commute at least a couple times in winter. It's not a bad idea to get them looked over every 5 years or so, just like you have other things that occasionally need maintenance. I agree that not every bike needs to be exciting, but i do want exciting bikes to be available on the market. Imho the 2018ish Ducati Monster is not super exciting to ride (though it's really purdy) but it makes it incredibly nice to ride and just glide through the scenery. Comfy, gentle engine, corners very predictably. But it'd be a great commuter bike. The Duke 890r or whatever it was, was VERY exciting. LimaBiker fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Oct 12, 2023 |
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Oct 12, 2023 18:14
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cursedshitbox posted:No modern bike will ever live up even to a boomerang era gixxer or an old rear end carbed sv650, nevermind the litany of historical greats like the vfr400 and such. There are fewer and fewer places willing to deal with non efi motos. The 600 and 750 gixxers you can buy on the showroom floor today are identical to what they were 10 years ago and are barely different from what they were 20 years ago
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Oct 12, 2023 18:19
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i used to have a moped from the 70s and cleaning the carb was kinda fun and meditative doing countless plug chops to try and diagnose all of its problems (that I caused with aftermarket parts) was not yin/yang kind of thing
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Oct 12, 2023 18:43
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metallicaeg posted:The 600 and 750 gixxers you can buy on the showroom floor today are identical to what they were 10 years ago and are barely different from what they were 20 years ago These specifically are bikes that haven't changed for 20 years because lol Suzuki but they're very much in that minority in that regard. And I'd argue not particularly interesting, just an excellent tool for a job. Random modern bikes I think are somewhat interesting: mt09, R1, v4 Aprilia, super duke, streetfighter, t7, zx4
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Oct 12, 2023 18:48
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The boomerang gixxer also ended in 1995, almost 30 years ago. The SRAD era of gsxr is mostly unchanged, yes. Slavvy posted:Random modern bikes I think are somewhat interesting: mt09, R1, v4 Aprilia, super duke, streetfighter, t7, zx4 I would be up for trying any of those out. A sicko part of me wants to build a bug eye r1 for long distance touring but lollmao i'd rather do it on a bicycle at this point.
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Oct 12, 2023 18:53
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metallicaeg posted:The 600 and 750 gixxers you can buy on the showroom floor today are identical to what they were 10 years ago and are barely different from what they were 20 years ago Right, and to get to the actually interesting gixxers, you need to go back to the oil cooled ones, which also necessitate going back to carbs.
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Oct 12, 2023 18:54
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I'm so confused about what makes a bike interesting other than "it was cool when I was younger/getting into bikes" but let me just suggest to everyone that... TotalLossBrain posted:dirtbikes for real fun
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Oct 12, 2023 20:39
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Alright apparently we're now calling virtually anything made after the Clinton years boring and uninteresting, while forgetting that in those past decades, most bikes on the road were "uninteresting" with a few gems here and there - same as it is today.
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Oct 12, 2023 20:48
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builds character posted:I'm so confused about what makes a bike interesting other than "it was cool when I was younger/getting into bikes" but let me just suggest to everyone that... When I was younger and getting into bikes most bikes were already efi What makes a bike interesting? Different for everyone, for me it's having a bike I both enjoy riding with some amount of engaging dynamic character, and something I like looking at and feel good about For example I am completely unmoved by the street triple, it has lame styling and it's very plain to ride, just does the job with little fuss, like most japanese bikes But I would very much want a brutale 675. On paper it's give or take the exactly same as the triumph, but it feels like a GP bike with a million horsepower to ride, shaking it's head angrily and snapping into the turns, the engine feels properly savage and when you get a flow on everything responds just-so. And it's quite pleasing to look at One is interesting and one isn't. This being the newbie thread: don't buy either of these bikes if you value your body and/or wallet
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Oct 12, 2023 20:50
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Slavvy posted:When I was younger and getting into bikes most bikes were already efi Surprising on the striple but also fair enough.
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Oct 12, 2023 20:55
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I'll add that if you want to improve your riding, a well balanced bike that does the job with little fuss is exactly what you need. If you want to work on skills and understanding bike dynamics you need something boring and predictable matched to your level at that moment ie a 300, a 650 twin, a 600SS, a straightforward literbike. The last thing you want is character and unexpected surprises, you need a bike that basically disappears under you and does exactly what you want, basically controlling that variable so you can play around with technique Once you have a certain level of understanding and skill and muscle memory you can actually appreciate bikes like the hypermotard or whatever, because they make doing the thing a much more fun experience above and beyond just doing everything right and not crashing. If you already know what you're trying to do and want to be playful or push your limits in a real way, bikes with a deliberate character are usually better, because they have an overall bias in one direction instead of being a generic all-rounder, and actively reward riding them like you're supposed to, which creates a virtuous feedback loop. So like a hyper is an absolute beast for backing it in and being a maniac in low speed turns, not very good at other stuff. An r6 is a smooth corner speed weapon, still unequalled, with few other talents to speak of. Specialist tools vs all purpose. Most of the character really just flows out of necessity and a development process focused on achieving a particular effect sought by the test team, instead of meeting the demands of a statistically generic rider.
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Oct 12, 2023 21:09
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metallicaeg posted:Alright apparently we're now calling virtually anything made after the Clinton years boring and uninteresting, while forgetting that in those past decades, most bikes on the road were "uninteresting" with a few gems here and there - same as it is today. No, we’re saying “no carbed bikes”, which eliminates every single two stroke bike ever, as an example. It’s not hard to imagine a cool bike you’re missing out on by being afraid of carbs However, there probably is also an argument to be made about Clinton era bikes because it’s precisely around the time of the advent of EFI in bikes, and the standardization around inline-4’s and twins and is exactly the era where things got boring because they got the same across manufacturers
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Oct 13, 2023 00:11
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The 90's were an unmatched cornucopia of crazy poo poo because of the intersecting trajectories of mechanical technology, tyre technology, an enormous boom in the market and the explosive popularity of world superbike and the resulting technological trickle down. Manufacturers were trying all sorts of crazy deranged stuff and there was enough leeway and profitability to be able to gamble and risk losing on bikes people might not want to buy. After the GFC that stopped being the case. Now every bike has to platform share to some extent, every engine design has to be the fiscally safest option with guaranteed ROI, everything you can't visually see has to be cost pared down to the bone. Bikes are much more like cars now than they ever have been before - you get the same basic mechanical package with 2-3 different styling flavours and the whole thing is built like a four quadrants summer blockbuster.
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Oct 13, 2023 01:17
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sure but also my Bonneville is very pretty and has a warranty I truly love my ‘23 T120 and see any expansion as excuses to buy smaller, specialized, less responsible bikes. I don’t feel bad about going EFI and modern for my “main” bike but I definitely have a growing awareness of what I want out of second and third and fifth bikes. The likelihood I’m asking about a carb I’m rebuilding on some beat up dirt bike in 2 years is probably very high. But my Bonneville will be parked in the background and it’ll be what I ride to go buy new tools I didn’t know I needed at Harbor Freight. I don’t think it’s bad for newbies to make those kinds of “EFI only” or “ABS only” decisions until they know what’s up and what weirdness they like. Me of 6 months ago wanted very different things from me with even that much more experience under my belt.
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Oct 13, 2023 01:36
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Yeah definitely, it's worth reemphasizing that if you're learning a second hand japanese appliance is the only kind of bike worth considering
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Oct 13, 2023 01:56
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my little 350 has carbs and it never ran totally right from the day i rebuilt it. it was okay though because i also didn't really know any better. then many years later, with much more experience under my belt, i rebuilt the carbs properly and it's been rock solid and reliable ever since, despite being a 50+ year old design. you just gotta know how to set them up.
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Oct 13, 2023 04:45
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If you're in the newbie thread and contemplating carbs, isn't the right answer typically "factory setup"?
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Oct 13, 2023 05:24
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It is. But it's also poo poo like "just replace the goddamn pilot jets, i know you think you cleaned them out really well, but they're 50 years old and still hosed enough to make the idle wander forever, just buy new ones jesus h christ"
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Oct 13, 2023 05:28
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Sagebrush posted:It is. But it's also poo poo like "just replace the goddamn pilot jets, i know you think you cleaned them out really well, but they're 50 years old and still hosed enough to make the idle wander forever, just buy new ones jesus h christ" Yeah, really it's this. 1. probably don't mess with a bike with more than two carbs, 2. just factory rebuild kit, 3. google it because sometimes there's a common problem that has an interesting solution. On 3, my beta 390 had, iirc a mikuni of some variety and anyway it bogged when you hammered on the throttle like if you were racing coming out of a corner which wasn't a great characteristic. Slow application was OK but you couldn't just hammer down (even smoothly) and go. So it turned out that the resolution was to put a little o-ring around the lever that engages the accelerator pump because for reasons that I've now forgotten it didn't engage quickly. There were other solutions too but that one was cheap and easy and worked. You just had to remember to replace it every two years. But it was a good example of something that was super simple, I absolutely never would have figured out on my own and was also fairly common knowledge. Anyway, all this EFI vs. carbs things for beginners reminds me of when I bought my savana and I was hemming and hawing about ford vs. chevy for months when the real answer was "hey maybe just buy whichever one that isn't a rusty piece of poo poo?"
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Oct 13, 2023 16:22
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I had a 20 year old KTM 250 for a couple of years and while that bike had plenty of problems, the carb always worked great. It was rare to not have it start on the 3rd kick at most when cold, even in winter
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Oct 13, 2023 17:46
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I remember it totally blew my mind when I realised my CBR600FX had 4 carbs. I loved that bike.
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Oct 13, 2023 17:50
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I started my F11 250 for the first time in 5 years last month. Carb had evaporated completely dry, and the tank has a worrying amount of rust in it. 3rd kick. The tide has solidly turned against carbs here it seems, so I’m not gonna have the argument, but I just don’t have the problems with them that others claim they do.
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Oct 13, 2023 18:22
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