I'm out of control! :)

Ok,

Today I put in the Boyesen Rad valve that I picked up a few weeks ago... I was finally getting around to cleaning the air filter after the 3 day trip to Pismo, and while I had the airbox completely out of the bike and the Carbeurator was just hanging out there with a rag in the venturi, I decided it was time.

Before that I swapped out the stock pipe and silencer for an FMF desert rev pipe and FMF TC2 silencer... *** edited this part to correct an error, thanks for spotting Jamin! ***

Before that I replaced the stock bars with some pro-tapers and put some Ascerbis Rally pro hand guards on...

My wife constantly makes fun of me because I take the Shop manual to bed with me and pour over details into the late night

This 220 is my first motorcycle and I'm having almost as big a blast working on it and getting it to run better, than I do riding it! LoL!

My latest experiment revolved around the theory that the stock bike was running pretty rich from the factory, So if you put a performance pipe and silencer on a bike and modded the airbox lid, it would breath easier and thus run a little lean (from the KDXOnly tech tips)... and since the Boyesen manual and KDXOnly tech tips said that the addition of the RAD valve would often require going 1-2 steps leaner for the pilot and main jets, that SHOULD in addition to the pipe and silencer and airbox mod, cancel each other out... and so the stock jetting would be right in the ball park for perfect jetting PIpe and silencer makes it lean, RAD valve makes it rich)

Before the RAD installation, my bike was indeed running rich, going by the loud "Crackling" sound and hesitation below 1/3 throttle and the healthy cloud behind me while on the main jet along with the black plugs confirmed this further.

After putting in the Boyesen unit, throttle response was SMOOOOOTH and pulled strongly and evenly from 1/4 to WOT... Actually, I didn't expect a significant change in power from the valve, but there IS! Perhaps it was more because the jetting was now closer to optimal, but it just put this uncontrollable grin on my face as I was test riding up and down my court. This was much to the amusement of my neighbors who are convinced I am having a mid life crises hahaha! I tell them that I need to have my crisis quick before I die!

Having the carb out and looking it over and how simple it actually is, I'm convince that carb tuning is less a mechanical skill and more an art form Filled with intuition, "feel" and Mojo :)

Anyhow... this was my first semi serious project on the bike and I'm gratified the bike actually got BETTER! Now for the rider to get better... and now for a quick trip to Carnegie to do a plug chop and confirm I'm alright for jetting...

Thanks for listening to me blabber! I'm just excited (and a bit nervous) that the bike is getting stronger and stronger and I'm not :eek:

Feanor

Hey Jamin!

I got a little confused there in the text of my original message, and meant that I got what "acts" like a rev pipe on the 220, but is actually a torque pipe on the 200 :) The pipe I got was the "Desert" rev pipe. I got the info from KDXOnly and if I remember correctly, CDave was saying that the rev pipe on the 220 is actually the torque pipe on the 200 or something like that. Anyways I do remember that for the 220 the torque pipe "woods" gives more bottom end and still runs flat at the top, and that the Rev "Desert" pipe gave something all throughout the power curve, and it does! :) Sorry for the confusion...

Oh, and have you tried the FMF Turbine Core 2 silencer? On my 220 the extra sound is coming not from the silencer, but the ringing through the pipe... Other than that the bike is exactly the same sound level... Its probably why they say as far as performance is concerned, a Turbine Core 2 is not a very large bang for the buck. To keep the sound levels down, the probably just employ a slightly different design that ends up with "slightly" less backpressure... Its probably in the regime of "every little thing counts" more than the "Wow!" category :)

Have a good one!

Feanor