So not much in the way of progress to report right now, Ive been riding the 500 every chance I can get which is a bit sporadic considering the daily rain showers Colorado has been getting these last couple of weeks. I reached the 500 mile ring break in point so Im now able to give the bike the beans and see what it can do, which is not as much as I was hoping. It appears I have more tuning to do to ring out every last drop of performance I can. I attempted to do the ton on a long straight section of highway but the bike reaches it's limit at 90mph which is faster than Ill need it to go but I'd like to hit 100mph once just to put the notch in my belt. Im going to order some smaller idle jets because the plugs and cylinders get pretty wet and carbon fouled at this altitude when I idle for any length of time, and I have a theory that even at speed a little fuel goes through the slow jets contributing to the richness of the mixture because the mains are now much smaller than stock.
Ive also been on the look out for a new exhaust as the current 4into2 sounds just a little too choperish and doesn't make that smooth four cylinder sound that I want. Ideally I'de like to find a stock 4into4 and I was a day late on the one RiverFever had for sale, but the cost of a stock exhaust is somewhat prohibitive so Ive been knocking around the idea of getting a 4into1. Im hesitant to get one as most of the 4int1's I see for sale require them to be removed to change the oil filter which isn't the end of the world, but what Im most worried about is that it might contact the stock fender when braking or going over bumps. I like the look and the price of the lossa engineering exhaust as the stainless steal one comes in at $500, but I'd like to see what other people have to say about it.
I also did another tune up today (valve lash and carb sync) and discovered a few problems. Firstly I installed Honda 5.5mm fuel line (which is excellent much better than 1/4in or clear plastic fuel line) while at the same time eliminating the in line fuel filters I had been using. The inline filters were causing just enough of a restriction to keep my carb bowls from over filling with the stock 22mm float height and the stronger sprung aftermarket needle valves. Now without the restriction of the filters my carbs piss fuel out of the drain tubes while at idle, so I need to pull the rack of carbs and find a float height that will keep the carbs happy. Secondly sometimes at idle I would here a momentary popping noise that I thought was just excess pressure coming out the vent tube, it turned out to be my #1 spark plug wire shorting to ground occasionally while idling. I attempted a shade tree fix with electrical tape and bicycle inner tube but that only worsened the problem. It's an easy enough fix and more than likely caused by the brass pin I used to replace the old wires with being pushed through the plug wire shielding, Ill just have to redo that plug wire when I get around to setting the float heights.
Besides those momentary hick ups the 500 is running beautifully and the top end is bone dry and doesn't leak a drop of oil.
