need some help

[dvashkai]

Alright so i am a new member here, also new to buell, however not new to motorcycles. about 3 weeks ago i bought a 2001 buell blast, not running. I took it home, checked it out, and established it had virtually no compression, (30psi, and 60 with a tablespoon of oil in the cylinder) so off came the head and cylinder, to see what the issue was, and also correct what appeared to be a minor leak from the rocker box to head gasket. once i got it all apart, it was obvious that the bike had run severely lean and the piston had melted, and seized the rings in their lands and wiped aluminum onto the cylinder wall. I believe i located the cause of all of this. the previous owner had put on a white brothers exhaust, that coupled with the factory lean jetting (42/165 on an 01, which i verified is what was in the carb.) as well as the exhaust breaking right before the muffler can, and the P.O. stating he was cruising on the highway at 80, bike started getting louder, and lost power. i believe caused a super lean condition leading to the above. bike has stock airbox, with stock style filter, no mods aside form the exhaust. so i got an oversized piston and ring set, as well as gasket set, from the local HD place, and took the rings piston and cylinder into the machine shop for machining. That done i took it all home, cleaned the parts with ATF, and a white rag untill the rag stopped turning dirty, and assembled per the FSM. i bought a new boot, and sprayed through the jets with carb cleaner. Initially i left the factory jets in, and gave the starter a go, bike started right up, though appeared to idle a bit low, but i could be mistaken, being unfamiliar with this bike. per recommendations from the HD shop and others i got new jets, 45/175 they stated this would be sufficient for the aftermarket exhaust. i have put those in,as well as drilling the mixture plug out, and adjusting to 2.5 turns out, and the bike still starts, but idles way too low now, and it wants to die, and from time to time it will. Might be of note, the muffler can is still detached, so it is just open pipe ending just under the engine, i do not intend to leave it this way, but want to try my best to get it running proper before i spend money on a custom exhaust. my real question is would the open exhaust be causing the low idle? i believe not, but i have run out of ideas as to where to go from here, the bike is ride-able, however it has the low idle, wanting to die issue, and occasional stumble off idle, anyone have any suggestions. I am located in kansas city ks, for reference as to sea level, and environmental factors. any ideas as to what i need to do next would be great. sorry for the long post, and slightly haphazard nature of my relay of information.

 

[vicenzajay]

Perhaps check the auto-enrichener and where it is set....jet-lee has some great photos and a tutorial over on buellridersonline.

Given your setup, and the 45/175 jetting, I would do the airbox mod and make sure the air cleaner is a free-flowing one. Have you messed with the idle adjust screw? I would give that a half turn or so and see if that brings your idle up to snuff (about 1200 rpm if I remember correctly).

Also - have you shimmed your needle?

 

[dvashkai]

Ok, I can check on the adjustment of the enrichener, and are they prone to fail at all or are they fairly durable? I will also do the Airbox mod, I had been intending on doing it later anyhow, so now is as good a time as any, and I'll get a good filter for it as i have not really touched that except removal and install, and to verify it was clean. No I have not yet touched the idle set screw, I will give that a try as well. I have not as of yet shimmed the needle, hardware store here was out of the machined washers, they have ordered some and should be there in a day or so. I'll update once I've completed the recommendations. Thank you very much for the help.

 

[vicenzajay]

I've owned my Blast only 5 years - but I can say that I haven't read of the auto-enrichener being a 'normal' problem with the bikes. The setting, however, can be tricky. Have you joined over on buellridersonline.com yet? I strongly recommend it, as most of the active members there are Blast riders.

I'm hoping your issue is as easy as the idle set screw (i.e. the correct way to set the idle speed is to get the bike good and warm and then adjust the screw until the idle is around 1200 rpm). Perhaps that will get things moving in the right direction...

 

[jetlee]

This is my once-a-month visit here to ban bots.

AE's don't typically go bad, but they aren't always set correctly from the factory or some previoius owner ****ing around with them.

 

[vicenzajay]

Any progress?

 

[dvashkai]

alright sorry for the delay, work has been busy, so i went ahead and shimmed the needle, I'm at 0.049. i also had the exhaust i have welded so I'm not chasing my tail with issues, good to know the AE isnt a common failure. i also followed the adjustment procedure and the airbox mod. havent yet joined buell riders, but will be doing so, seems to be a good site as well. Anyhow at that point i had it running alot better, just a bit low on idle, so i nudged the setscrew for the idle, and all seems well now. Thank you guys so much for your help.

 

[vicenzajay]

That's awesome to hear!

You'll like BOR as a forum as well....good folks and always willing to teach old dogs (read: me) new tricks....