Ok, I did make some progress on the 360 today, as well as some progress on eating a pie and potato salad and so on...
As you may remember from last week's episode of "As the stator turns," the springs on the advancer are shot. I could buy them for $9 each from MikesXS, but those ones we know to be too long and require modification. So, I hopped on the 650 (the only running bike, heh), and went to the hardware store.
I dug through 8 bins of springs, and didn't find a damn thing close to what I needed. On a desperate hunch based on a hondatwins forum post, I went into the lawnmower parts aisle, and found this:
Why did I get this mess of stuff? Why for the one advancer spring included in it:
Would you look at that? Well, I bought two kits for $7.50 each. I rationalized it by knowing we could use the spark plugs in lawnmowers and such, but still, ouch! Cheaper than an Ebay advancer or MikesXS, however.
I reinstalled the advancer and points plate, and statically and dynamically timed the bike. The bike seems to like to be advanced a few degrees at idle - anyone else notice that their 360 likes a bit of advance from the TF / F mark? I was able to time both cylinders very well, but I know with points they'll be out of whack next week, heh.
In any case, the amusing part of these new springs is that I get almost no advance till 3000 RPMs, when it hits like a phone book! VTEC just kicked in yo, and that's pretty accurate. Made me grin on the test rides around the neighborhood. This is kind of a goofy half assed hack, but maybe the springs will loosen up with time. Also, I need a seat cover that has more grip or I am going to slide my ass off the back of this thing when it pulls these shenanigans!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_09a3uw1ls
It wasn't all milk and honey, however. I noticed that even though the right side was sparking, I had no heat in the exhaust pipe. I pulled the float bowl, and son of a piece of crap, the needle was sticking in its seat. The damn cheap ass seat had jammed up again! I pulled out the seat and reinstalled the original one and went to eat. After dinner I came out to the barn to find the bike sitting in a puddle of gas. The right side carb overflow was peeing, then stopping for a couple of seconds, then peeing, and then stopping, and so on. Turns out the original seat is "deeper" than the aftermarket replacement, meaning the float height had to be readjusted. Sigh.
This was the battle I fought for the rest of the afternoon, with the right cylinder flooding intermittently and causing hard starting followed by a fog of
war high octane. I'm going to buy new needles and seats, as well as new float pins and probably new floats, as this is getting stupid. I swear, every time I touch this bike it costs me $15.
Anyway, happy fourth everyone and enjoy celebrating the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it!
