sdhynds

Nice work - Going thru a lot of the same stuff on my bike. I admire your patience and restraint as I have wanted to pick mine and and toss it in the dumpster several times as well

nice - thanks for everything - I'll let you know how it progresses.

Having more issues - Long story short last year I thought I was having problems with the petcock and just installed a shut off valve in line to keep fuel from getting in and flooding it out. I left it on the other day and went to start it up and what appears to be a mixture of fuel and oil came out of the breather filter on the crankcase. My father-in-law's father (who happens to be quite an engineer) told my father something about the float needle or needle jet or something he couldn't quite remember but it didn't seat right and allowed fuel to bypass into the crankcase. I'm waiting for a reply to see exactly what he said so i can get in there figure out what I need to do to get it fixed. (I have a feeling its been part of the problem forever) in the meantime i have an oil change to do. I haven't changed the pilot jets - what do you recommend? I plan to go to 130's or 132.5's (whatever i can find 2 of first) in both sides and go to straight pipes. How did you make yours? All one new piece or did you cut the muffler off and then fabricate the rest to the existing header? Also I see there is a piece of pipe that connects the 2 sides? what is that for/is it necessary if I go to straight pipes? thanks

Breif history - First time I had a 142 and a 125 in and cruised around the block a few times and then rode a few miles down the highway. when i slowed down it died and could hardly get it started again. It acted like it was flooded and had to open the throttle all the way to get it to start and then it would take a few seconds before it reved up. It was a miracle I made it home, had to keep reves way to keep it from dying. Found the needle jets to be loose when I got them apart again. I went back to the stock jets (125 and 115) and had better luck but seemed to struggle in the high rpm. No popping but some surging. I went to the 132.5 and 125 and it got better. I played with the air fuel mixture screws and went a little richer and it seemed to not change much. going to go a little leaner and see what happens. I'm thinking in the future I'd like to do something to the exhaust. I like the look of your straight pipes with the heat tape. I'm on a tight budget currently but thinking that wouldn't be too bad. Also I did not sync the carbs but thinking I should. Don't know what to do so I'd have to take it somewhere I guess. I put new plugs in before starting it for the first time this year but haven't looked at them. I'll check them out and see.

Pod Filters are installed. Been playing around with tuning and still haven't gotten it right exactly. Currently I have 132.5 and 125 in the mains. It starts right up (which is nice, because last year not really the case) Seems to idle nice and is good on take off. It seems to struggle at higher rpm esp in the higher gears. In first it will rev up to red line and in second it seems to have a lot of pop and then just get harder to climb at 8,000 and by third it'll rev to 6 or 7 ish and i can hold it wide open and it just won't rev any higher. My speedo is broken so I don't really know how fast I'm going nor do I have enough experience on this bike to know what it was really like beforehand. I'm guessing the mixture isn't right and thinking perhaps I'm a little lean and thus struggling at the higher end but not sure. Any help would be great. Also wondering if perhaps I need to change the exhaust as I have more flow capacity coming in with the pods but perhaps nowhere to go with it?

I have an 82 xs400 maxim - (don't know what the difference is if any for the carbs) I have found jets for mine on ebay. They are Mikuni Carbs. Search for - Mikuni Main Jet N100/604 - here is a link to a 130 (recommended to me by another guy on a different thread for running pod filters) http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/NEW-MIKUNI-MAIN-JET-N100-604-VM-HS-HSR-TM-CV-XS-H1-130_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem588671488fQQitemZ380212693135QQptZMotorcyclesQ5fPartsQ5fAccessories I haven't got mine done yet but hopefully by this weekend.

I have an 82 xs400 maxim and am in the middle of converting to pod filters and re-jetting, but am by no means an expert. Here is what I know so far and maybe it will be of assistance. The manual that I have indicates the jet sizes are 127.5 for the left hand and 117.5 for the right hand. My bike had 125 and 115's in it. You can find them very cheap ebay and so I have got bigger ones to play around with. I will see how it affects the mixture with the new air filters. I started a thread a week or 2 ago and another guy said he was running 130's but was thinking about going bigger yet. I am waiting on filters to ship but will have more details in a week or so. Hope this gives you somewhere to start.

pretty much what i was thinking, but the look on my brother-in-law's face when I said I was going to get out the sawzall made me think twice, esp because I'll have to find a place for the battery - I like your box and thats exactly where I was thinking it should go. It'll be a bit before I get it all back together but I'll put up some pics when I do. thanks for the help and the pics!

I found the little breather filter on mikes lol

Thanks so much for the pics a replies. I finally got my hands on it last night - jets were 115 and 125 and I found a 142 and 130 I think I'll try first and see what happens. Any suggestions on how to get that air box out of there? Sawzall? I was hesitant to hack it apart but also don't want to take the whole bike apart to get out something to throw away. What did you do with the breather tube? I can see in the pic from mike's that there is a red thing on the end of the hose - can i just buy a little filter to attach there? Sorry for all the dumb questions this is my first bike and already been a fun learning experience. I'll put up some pictures in a bit (a little embarassed at the moment haha)

I have an 82 xs400 maxim I bought last year and have struggled with it since. Long story short - rusty gas tank - sealed with kreem - worked well - cleaned carbs - cleaned carbs again - cleaned carbs again - you get the idea. It had run really strong when I can get it started and keep it going but I have more issues when it sits longer. Being that I'm on a tight budget (and the carbs I have found are few and far between and expensive) I am going to try to replace the jets as the rest of the carb looks pretty good. I want to get rid of the rediculously inefficient looking airbox set up and put some pod filters on. I know this affects air fuel mixture which I'm pretty sure was never correct to begin with (and might explain some of the trouble starting/rough idle problems I have experienced.) I know there could be many other problems present but this seems like a good/cheap place to start my trial and error process. Stock jet sizes are 127.5 and 117.5. Anyone have any ideas here? If you have any experience with this let me know what kind of filters, jet sizes, adjustments to air/fuel mixture etc.

I am looking to do the same thing with my 82 - did you end up rejetting or stick with those sizes? How does it run?