NGWClub®, Inc.

Yep, me too.

Where is that "like" button when I want it?

sunnbobb wrote:Where is that "like" button when I want it?

randakk wrote:This thread has some tempting "bait."

But, it's not nearly tempting enough for me. Anyone wanting me to weigh in will have to try much, much harder

After 12+ years, I'm nearly immune to these threads now

Yes but you could teach classes on self control some of us should be court ordered to attend!!!!

Whiskerfish wrote:
Yes but you could teach classes on self control some of us should be court ordered to attend!!!!

Maybe. But, PLEASE ...let's keep the courts out of this!

i'm a little confused. here's a fellow who has done a conversion on his bike and has reported it here in an enthusiastic way. i know it's been done before , but he is reporting HIS experiences. for anyone to suggest he is being baited , may be exaggerating his own importance a wee bit. i see no baiting here, just a carb conversion.
sometimes i just don't get it.....

It's a long story. Very titillating, but a long story. Keep it on the thread. I like reading about everyone's experiments. Sometimes they go against traditional wisdom, but that's half the fun.

ericheath wrote:It's a long story. Very titillating, but a long story. Keep it on the thread. I like reading about everyone's experiments. Sometimes they go against traditional wisdom, but that's half the fun.

He, he, You said titillating!

Yeah, sometimes I'm still 10 years old.

Very long story with years and years and years of aggravation. I will touch on it here.

Yes there are guys out there doing legitimate engineering and development but 95% of this has been done a dozen times or more and in the long run proven inferior. The thing that upsets most of us "purists" as we have been labeled is the very public and one sided misinformation campaign. I can not count the amount of times I have read boasts about a how a single Carb setup is superior to all the OEM setups. The OEM system is pure junk and nobody in the world can make them work. Well the are a few thousand of us here on this site alone that they work just fine for. I personally have well over 100,000 miles in the last 10 years on OEM carbs. My 78 runs all day getting 45 mpg and my 75 pulls so hard I get scared and shut it down about 130 mph. I would be willing to bet that 95 of the top 100 posters on this site are running OEM crabs. Some of us have been around the block once or twice.

The problem is the Newby's buy all this propaganda because they don't know any better. They come up with a barn find bike and immediately realize they are in over their head with the carbs and read about a miracle cure. Take this one pill and all your worries will go away. So they go out and spend countless hours and hundreds of dollars setting up a single Carb system that is not engineered or thought out or tested or designed to even a tenth of the degree that Honda did when they built the original design. If they are able to follow it through to completion and get it installed it almost never runs as advertised, and even if it did they have nothing to compare it against so they think it is great.


Yes there are single Carb setups out there that work.
Yes there are single carb setups out there that are easier to rebuild than the OEM setup.
Yes there are single carb setups out there that can compete on fuel economy
Yes there are single carb setups out there that can perform decently at idle.
Yes there are single carb setups out there that are relatively easy to build and install.
Yes there are single carb setups out there that will pull to the redline.
Yes there are single carb setups out there that cost less than rebuilding the OEM Rack.
Yes there are single carb setups out there that make the same or more power.
Yes there are single carb setups that do not have icing problems

BUT To the best of my knowledge the system does not exist that can do all of those things and that is where the misinformation comes in.

I can think of a half dozen guys in the last decade that tried to make a business out of selling a replacement for the OEM system and they all lost money and closed up shop. There is a reason for that. Some even lost money that belonged to other people in the course of their failures.

I have no problem with folks experimenting and sharing that information. That is what this place is about. Sharing ideas and knowledge and experience is what makes this a fantastic place to hang out. But way too often only one piece of the puzzle is presented at a time and it make things look a lot better than they really are.

That is the misinformation that upsets us "purists" and gives us an attitude. That is part of the reason we are so skeptical regarding the wild claims. We have heard them all before. Many Many times.

Before NGW there was the Backyard SIG and they spent years and years working on this before giving up. Yes Someday the exact right combination may be found. But there are legitimate challenges with making a single carb setup do all the things it needs to do in this application. I personally hold high hopes for what I see with the EFI guys. But the issue there is the expense. I really believe that is the best alternative but it would require an investment of much more than most of us have in the entire machine.

I do not believe any of us here want to shut down people working on the development of alternate carburation. I would not have started this forum devoted to it if I wanted that. But we do get tired of people bashing the OEM setup and presenting something we know as inferior for a replacement. According to what I read in some of these posts I should just go out to the shop and take all my OEM racks and throw them into the trash as they are not good for anything. I get real tired of reading that.

Enthusiasm about building something new is fantastic. And any builder should be enthusiastic about figuring out how to make something work or make it better. But we also want to make sure it is presented in a realistic light. Alternate carburation for these bikes should be pursued as a fun challenge to experiment and learn from. To continuously present it as an improvement over the OEM Setup is wrong.

Yep, what he said.

And the crowd cheered!!

I agree that the OEM rack is "complicated" but it's still the best solution. Single or dual throat carb solutions are fun and inventive but once you learn how to deal with the stock carbs, they work great.

Opinions are like butts. We've all got one...some are just bigger and noisier than others.

We've seen some odd carb arrangements here, they've all been good. Some probably run better (or at least different) than others, but what the heck, if you feel like playing, play.

My own "spin them suckers around" was pretty weird, but my first place has to go to the twin solexs facing forwards. I can't remember who did that but it had a pretty high bizarre factor going for it. Very steam punk.