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Posts Tagged ‘Carburetors’

Carburetor servicing or tuning makes sure that all the parts are in working condition. There are several reasons why a carburetor may stop functioning or may not function to its full capacity, including gasoline resins or dust particles clogging the carburetor jets, gumming up of the throttles and stickiness of the choke valves. Carburetor parts are controlled by springs that may become worn out over time, which will affect the functioning of the carburetor. Tuning the carburetor from time to time will prevent its complete breakdown.

Tuning may involve replacing some of the parts that are available as carburetor kits. Tuning a carburetor ensures that the engine is in good working condition. Carburetors are affected by several conditions like unfavorable climate, different types of fuel, the terrain, and the type of riding. There is not time limit for carburetor tuning; it should be done whenever the ride was dusty or when the roads are muddy.

Carburetor tuning starts with pressure washing the bike, especially at the bottom where roost and oil is likely to accumulate. The sub-frame can be removed for better access. A look at the vent hoses would reveal any melting or clogging that might cause the engine to bog. Check the cable for any frays or kinks. Sometimes the rubber dust cover may be torn and may need replacement. Check the float bowl, jet baffle, float, airscrew, and the fuel inlet needle. Ensure that all these are in working condition, free of dust. Next, check the bell mouth of the carburetor to see that there is no clogging at the two holes at the bottom.

Flush the passage after dismantling the carburetor. This can be done by a can of brake or carburetor cleaner that is available in any automobile parts store. While spraying the cleaner, ensure that it flows out the pilot and the air passage in the bell mouth. Next, spray it through the tiny passage between the venture and the intake spigot. This will open any clogging along the passages, thus ensuring free flow of gasoline and air. Lastly, flush the slides bore and slide.

Jetting is the process of adjusting or changing the air or fuel jets. Before jetting, look for crankcase air leaks, crankcase oil leaks, coolant-system leaks, carbon-seized exhaust valves, blown silences, broken reed-valve petals, weak spark, clogged carburetor vent hoses, too low or too high carburetor float level, and worn carburetor fuel-inlet needle. There are certain things to be taken into consideration before jetting, including the air temperature, humidity, altitude, track conditions, fuel, and load. There are three types of carburetor tuning gauges including Relative-air-density (RAD) gauges, Air-fuel (AF) ratio meters and Exhaust-gas-temperature (EGT) gauges.

In the olden days, car tuning mostly consisted of adjusting carburetors and ignition to keep the engine running optimally. You also had to keep an eye on the spark plugs and various engine fluids, and make sure to keep things lubricated. More serious tuning included performance car parts such as headers, exhausts or perhaps a bigger carburetor or engine. These still play a role today, but almost everything else has changed. Computers control our cars now, and they have become the primary key to performance. Automotive computers, often called Electronic Control Units or ECUs, manage every aspect of a vehicles running and performance, from determining when exactly spark plugs should fire, to providing the data for the boost display of a turbo motor, all the way to luxury car tuning amenities such as turning lights on or off and adjusting rear view mirrors.

How do Electronic Control Units work? To begin with, they are both the same and very different from the desktop and notebook computers we use in our lives. They are the same insofar as they are computers with CPUs and memory and the programming needed to do a variety of tasks. They are different in that they have no displays or hard drives or keyboards. Most ECUs consist of a system board housed in a small metal box that’s usually mounted either in the engine compartment or under the dash. ECUs are designed to do just one thing – running your car – and they do have to do that reliably and without fail for many years. ECUs must boot up instantly when you turn on the ignition of your car; they must manage fueling, ignition, cams of an engine whose camshaft may rotate up to 9,000 times a minute; they must handle emission control and various other systems that require instant changes several times a second; they must monitor dozens of sensors located throughout the vehicle; and they must do all that in temperatures ranging from blazing hot to ice cold and while rattled around on bumpy road day after day, month after month.

Given all that, you’d imagine that ECUs are totally closed systems, black boxes that you can neither adjust nor fix should they break down. Wrong. ECUs have become the focal point of engine tuning, both for domestics and imports. If you look at any catalog for luxury performance car parts you’ll find various products that affect the running of the ECU either via reprogrammed chips or circuitry that intercepts and modifies signals to and from the ECU. Be it Volkswagen parts, Audi parts, BMW parts, Mercedes parts or other luxury car parts, chances are that the performance tuning section includes ECU tuning products.

What can ECU tuning do for your vehicle? Just about everything. If you add performance hardware such as headers, exhaust, a turbo, or a supercharger, ECU tuning makes sure that spark and cam timing and the air-fuel ratio are adjusted properly so you get optimal performance and reliability from your modified engine. Depending on your modifications, ECU tuning may also include injection and boost display and control, changing rev limiters, launch control, automatic transmission shift points and torque converter settings, as well as monitoring various functions. Amazingly, unlike traditional modifications, ECU tuning can be undone within minutes. It is truly 21st century style tuning.