This is How I Learn... Everything

I'm sure it hasn't escaped my one reader, who ever that is, that my motorcycle is at the core of this blog. It wasn't meant to be that way, but the two came into my life at about the same time, so there it is. If this blog goes on long enough, that may change, but until then...

I've been struggling with getting my carburetor tuned properly. Since wrapping the exhaust pipes and removing the airbox, there have been issues. Mileage has decreased significantly, there has been "popping" in the exhaust when I throttle down, power at first seemed to increase, but has since declined, power does not increase smoothly as I throttle up... I could probably go on, but those are the main things.

So I've been approaching it from different directions. Trying different tuning approaches from various sources, some solved some issues, but increased others. Nothing seemed to solve them all, which proper tuning should do. I initially looked at all the issues from the perspective of how they related to the air-fuel mix, but when that continued to yield unsatisfactory results, I changed my approach.

Last week, I took one obvious symptom, the popping, and searched to see what other issues it might arise from. It turns out, it could also result from a poor seal between the cylinders and the exhaust pipes. Since I've removed the pipes several times and never replaced the gaskets (they're supposed to be replaced every time! opps!) I ordered new ones. (BTW, exhaust is closely related to the air-fuel mix, so this would be a contributing factor that needed to be fixed in order to get tuning corrected.)

They arrived today, so I set out to replaced the old ones... Only there weren't any. Apparently, I either lost them without noticing (unlikely) or the previous owner didn't replaced them when they put after-market pipes on the bike. Whatever. I put the new gaskets in, and the popping stopped. So I tuned the carburetor following the factory recommended procedure, using a new digital tachometer I also bought (my bike does not have one of its own) and got better performance immediately.

But now there's another problem... maybe. When my initial problems began, one mechanic suggested increasing the main jet size, so I did. It didn't make sense at the time, but I knew less then. Now I know that that may be the cause of my reduced fuel economy, So I have to go back, remove the carb and reinstall the smaller jet.

All this trial and error is annoying, but I realize its also the way I tend to approach and learn everything I do. I jump in, tear things apart, fuck with what's working, generally mess it up, and try to get it back into equilibrium, only different from how it started. Its messy and time consuming, and I tend to go over somethings dozens of times. But in the end, I understand them, and know things I wouldn't have if I hadn't been so messy about it.

I've never been one to just accept what I'm told, I need to know why. If I wanted to be a mechanic professionally, I would got to school for it, and dig very deep into the how and why of all these things. I'm not going pro, so the time and money for school aren't in the cards. But, I am giving myself a useful education on this particular subject, and it will be followed by another.

I did this with carpentry, with bartending, with writing, working on my car (fuel injected, not carbureted, or I'd already know this stuff), and with scores of other things in my life. If you were to study my relationships, you probably see that the numerous long and short term relationships also fall into that pattern (not on purpose, but still probably true).

This is how I learn -- by doing. By getting dirty, and making it real and tangible, not theory.

(Love) I Hope Its Not Finished Yet.

I’ve always envied the guys who can get laid easily, you know, the rock stars, the assholes, the Hank Moody’s of life.  We all want to be that guy, I want to be that guy. But its not who I am, and as much as I wish it was, I’m also grateful for not being that guy, because I’m a different kind of guy.

I’m the guy that girls fall in love with. Not every girl, grant you, but over the years, some genuinely amazing girls, and women, have fallen in love with me, and I with them. All of them, without exception, have been the type of girls, and woman, that many men would kill to be with. Some (more than I’d like to admit) have been young, some have been smart, some have been girls-next-door, some have been wild-ones, some have been MILFs, some have gone on to great success, some lead interesting lives that will one day be the stuff of legends.

I honestly cannot say what it is about me that causes this. I’m terrible at picking up women. I cannot see a woman a bar, or store or on the street and strike up a conversation. I’m not wealthy or connected or a sharp dresser. Yet, every so often I meet someone, usually because they approach me, and it happens – we start dating, the sex is great, then it becomes more, and boom! Love.

Eventually, it ends, usually badly, because I attract women who don’t do gray areas. There is either love or loathing, and not much in between. At first, I either feel grateful to get out, or totally heartbroken, then, over time, be it days or years – and it has been both on different occasions – I settle into acceptance and forgiveness.

I miss all of them, on any given day. Each is special to me, and brought something unique to my life. Then I feel lonely and wonder if that lightening will ever strike again. Sometimes it takes years, during which I just float between long periods of enforced chastity and casual sex. During those times I wonder if I’ve finally gotten too old, to jades, too whatever to ever be loved like that again.

I console myself with the thought that I have probably been in love and loved deeply, by more of the most amazing women than any man has a right to hope for in his life time. If it never happens again, then I should still count myself lucky, because I have had more of the best in life that money cannot buy, than almost anyone.

It is a poor consolation when I’m lonely. Perhaps when I’m truly old, in some distant time, it will be enough. Maybe then I will regale younger people with my stories of romance. But not yet. Now it feels lonely to not be loved in that special way by someone I love back.

I never know when or where it will find me next, except to say it will not find me at home, alone with my cat, on my couch, writing or reading or watching TV. Yet when I go out, to a bar or shopping or wherever I may go, with the vague or specific hope of finding that next great love, I always come back home empty and unfulfilled.

Until the time that I don’t. The time I least expected it – and I hope the last of those times has not passed, not yet. I don’t feel like I’m finished. Not yet.

Detoxing Life

When you've been around the sun enough times, you start to notice patterns. If you're the kind of person who considers one's only life, you probably notice them in your own behavior. I certainly have begun to.

Recently, my relationship with my best friend has blown up in my face. After being inseparable for a couple years, a single incident ballooned into a seething mass of text messaged blaming me for everything from the death of Christ to the election of Trump. To which, my emotional response was to shut down and walk away.

Its not unknown to me that my friend has been quite toxic for sometime. Having faced some personal hardships over the past couple years, they turned inward with guilt and self-loathing. I have forgiven much of their behavior for sometime, but there is a limit, and when the overblown and unwarranted blame and recriminations were directed full force at me, I decided it was time to let of the friendship.

To be honest, I've felt for sometime the friendship was one sided. They were getting more out of it than I was. I was supportive and understanding and consistent in as their life spiraled out of control. While they... Well, they spiraled out of control. I was there source of stability, and I got very little in return, except this feeling of nobility for being that source when everyone else around them was everything but.

Then I began to see the bigger picture. This is something I do. Something I've done for as long as I can recall. I pick up strays. They always seem to fun, exciting, interesting people and we become great friends, or lovers (the first ones I can clearly identify where early girlfriends) and over time their neuroses come out until the  relationship become toxic and I bail.

I feel guilty about bailing, after all, we have history. More importantly, I've allowed them to become dependent on me, they count on me. I'm also an enabler. My constant forgiveness of their flaws allows them to justify their behaviors. I make them worse.

I've done this my whole life. Its a pattern that takes years to play out sometimes, so it can be hard to recognize, but now I have. I'm not really sure how to stop it, since I don't really see the signs early on, but I'm aware now.

As much as I feel guilty about leaving these people behind, I have to accept that in the end they are hurting me. They drain me, the abuse me, they take me for granted, and they occupy a place in my life that could better be filled with healthy relationships.

I like to think I never completely cut anyone out of my life, that if they got better, maybe some therapy or something, I would welcome them back. But the truth is, I don't know, because either none have exercised their demons or those who have hold a grudge against me for leaving or for being their enabler and simply don't want me around. Either way, these breaks seem to last (I'm not dead, and I'm eternally hopeful that I'm wrong, so I say "seem to".)

Now that it is done, I hope to fill the void left by healthier reciprocal relationships. I'll let you know how that goes.

Writing

I've written a screenplay.

It feels good to say that. What I've written is the first complete draft of a story that  I've been trying to write for literally years. Now, finally, its written, from beginning to end.

And its total crap.

I don't mean to say I wrote a terrible story. I like my story, but it isn't done, its still forming.

My whole life, I've loved movies. Human beings tell stories, fictions, to entertain, but also to teach, to share moral ideals and greater truths about life. When you tell us this is right or this is wrong, we nod our heads and say, "ok, sure," but it doesn't really sink in. When we experience those things, we truly know what is right and what it wrong.

Stories allow us to experience without actually doing. Our brains are wired in such a way that imagining something is as powerful as living through something. So, story allows us to share deeper truths in life in a visceral way that we truly can learn and grow from.

Movies and TV are only the latest way which people have developed to share stories. The greatest stories still are with us from eons past. Ancient myths, plays, ballads -- the best ones survive.

People complain that there's a lot of junk TV and terrible movies, that "its not like when I was young." Well it is. There are more channels now, and more theaters with more screens, and more ways to distribute a movie or TV show. The total volume of media produced has increased, and a lot of it is bad, and will be forgotten. But that has always been true. We just don't remember that from our childhood, because those stories didn't stick.

Shakespeare wasn't the only playwright of his time. He was just better, so his plays survived and are passed down. Homer wasn't the only story telling poet of his time, but he was one of the best, and his stories contain universal truths, so his are passed down. Long after we are dead and gone, most of the stories produced today will be forgotten too, including mine. Some will be remembered and retold, they were among the best.

About 5 years ago, I tried my hand at acting. I took classes, I auditioned, I worked as an extra for money and to see behind the scenes how movies were made. I even got cast in a few no-budget short films I'm too embarrassed to watch. Along the way I read scripts.

I'd tried writing at various times through out my life. I'd been told I was pretty good, that I had an interesting voice.  But I never succeeded in writing anything more than a few pages long. I didn't know how. I've had a certain story floating around my head since I was about 15 or 16 years old. Its still there (it isn't the one I wrote this time). But I couldn't seem to make writing a novel work for me, I didn't know how.

Scripts, they made sense to me. I knew movies inside and out, so I could read a script and see how it would play out on the screen. The format worked for me. So I began writing again, confident that this new format would allow me to express the stories in my head.

My first serious attempt got me about halfway finished before I doubled back and started rewriting. Eventually, it fizzled because I couldn't get to the end, I kept doubling back to the beginning. The idea stayed in my head. A few others have grown along side it, and a few months ago I began trying again, only to find myself doing the same thing. My script has been a quarter to half written a dozen times.

Finally, I learned an important new thing: Just write it.

My habit of doubling back, fixing and rewriting and editing before I was done was stopping me form finishing. I was judging the work before the story was complete. So I buckled down a week ago and started writing, for three hours a day. I didn't got back and read what I wrote, or think "does that work?" "What if this happened instead?" I just let it stay as is and kept moving forward with the story.

Some interesting things happened when I did that. I thought I knew my story so well, then I'd write a scene I never imagined and it fit and expressed an idea better than any other way I'd planned. Characters started saying thing I didn't expect them to, because they stopped being me, they became their own people with their own voices.

Last night I finished my first full draft of the story, from beginning to end.

It isn't ready for the light of day. Its rough, it needs to be rewritten, it has lots of problems, which is why I say its crap. But the entire idea, the whole plot is there now. More than I've ever managed before. So now I am confident that I will in fact finish it. It may not be great art, but it will be my art and it will be complete.

Then I will move on to the next one, and the one after that. There are at least four in my head now waiting to be be written. But right now, this morning I can truly say, I have written a screenplay. And that feels pretty damned good.

My Rules for a Fulfilling LIfe

"So what do you do when you get to that point in life where you don't have anything to live for anymore. Or you feel like you have no purpose, except to go to work?"

That's the question a friend of  mine asked on Facebook the other day, and it struck me, not because I feel that way, but because I don't. In fact, I had to think really hard to remember a time when I did feel that way. Which made me wonder why I don't feel that way, because I know its a common thing for a lot of people.

Years and years ago, when I became a single father, I decided to make being present as a father my priority, over making more money to give my child a "better" life. At the time, I was struggling to survive on $250 a week with a kid. I told my employer I would not work past 5pm or on weekends. At first is was really hard, but eventually, that choice led me to work with people who supported the decision and that turned into a work life and eventually a business that supported me as a single father. 

Fatherhood was the reason I had, but I don't believe its the cause for my having the fulfilled life I do now. I used fatherhood as a socially acceptable reason to not bow to the pressure to work more and more and to make money a priority for my existence, but one does not need to be a parent to make those choices.

I joke that I have a lousy work ethic. I want to work as little as possible to have a life I enjoy, and I don't want to work now, so I can have a good life later, I want it now. Over the years, I've developed strategies and habits that have helped me create a life I truly enjoy on a daily basis. In simple terms, here's my "rules" for a happy daily life (in no particular order):

• Get a job that inspires you. Sounds simple, but it might mean giving up your career, or not doing what you studied in college, and you might not even know what that job is! But if you're job doesn't regularly satisfy you on an emotional and intellectual level, get a new one, and keep moving until you find one that does. Some times its the job itself, other times its who you work with and for, and your ideal job might not be one your partner or friends or family think is "worthy" of you. Whatever it takes, do it, because you spend a third of your time at it, so make it rewarding.
• Don't work so much. Set boundaries with your job. What those are is up to you. Choose things outside of work that are more important to you, and make it clear to your employers that those come first. For me it was my son at first. Now its my free time, and certain events I want to attend, like Burning Man. Whatever those things are for you, set firm and reasonable expectations and stick with them. It can be hard to tell your boss "no," but if they respect you, together you can figure out how to make it work (and if they don't, then find another job).
• Get your finances in order. Many people think this means earning more money to afford things (which breaks the above rule), or cutting out fun things (which makes life pointless and dull), or both. Honestly, it depends on you and your particular situation, there's no single magic bullet for this. Having debts and worrying about your bills constantly erodes your quality of life on a daily basis. If you need help with this, seek it out, there are non-profit resources available. (I will write about my solution in another post)
• Try new things. New foods, new music, new ANYTHING. Develop the habit of saying yes, and don't be afraid to admit, after you tried it, that you didn't like it. Take pleasure in discovering something you didn't like! Take pride in saying "I tried it!" instead of being the person who sits back and shakes their head. It doesn't need to be big things, everything counts. 
• Learn new things, your way. Pick something you want to learn and start. Read books, take classes, watch online videos. Whatever, just get started. Anything counts. 
• Learn to quit. This is a big one. Our culture is big on finishing and following through and "quitters never win, and winners never quit!" Its bullshit. A wise person knows when something isn't working, and changes course. If you don't like the class you're taking, stop. If you're job isn't fulfilling, look for a new one. If you always wanted to ride motorcycles, and after a ride or two decide its not what you thought it was, then stop. There is no shame in having tried and realized its not your thing. The only shame is in not having tried. This applies to relationships, too. Don't stay in one that isn't working, no matter how long you've been in it. Not everything is meant to last forever, move on.
• Be selfish. Two of the most acceptable reasons for anything you do need to be "I want to" and "I don't want to." This doesn't mean be a self-centered person, it means not to be entirely other-people-centered. Find balance, and include yourself in your choices. You have to stop viewing your life as other people might see it. In today's world, people tend to think other people's lives are amazing because of their posts on social media, and you might want your life to seems amazing to. That's living for other people. If you love sitting on the couch reading, just do that. It won't look awe inspiring on social media, but it will make you happy.
• Take care of your health. A lot of things in life feel better when you're healthy. Just waking up is better when you're healthy, because you sleep better. You don't have to go nuts with a radical diet change or get a personal trainer. Start small and make little changes that will accumulate, but do something to improve your health, whatever it is now. 
• Reflect. "A life unexamined is not worth living." Think about your experiences, you choices, how they turned out and what you can learn from them. Again, even the little things count. You will learn about yourself, and that will guide you to a more fulfilling life. 

In a nut shell, that's it. I could expand all that into a book (maybe I should!), but in essence, that's it. None of them is that difficult on their own, and chances are you already do some of them. Together they will improve your life exponentially.

The fact is, having a fulfilling life is not a difficult thing. We are built to be in love with life. We just get caught up thinking that we are supposed to be happy doing what makes other people happy, and that's not true. How boring the world would be if we all like the same things! What would we talk about? Seek out YOUR happy life, don't try to replicate someone else's.

If you're feeling like you lack direction in your life, you don't need to make a radical change. Just commit to making a small change every day.

There's a parable about a prince, who decided he would toss a pebble, every day, into the river he walked past daily. At first is seemed like nothing, and he did it. Eventually, he thought it was pointless, and he considered stopping, but his mentor convinced him to keep it up. Over time, the pebbles accumulated, into a large pile in the river, which noticeably changed the course of the river. The tiny daily effort of the prince built into a big change. That is how you build a fulfilling life from where you are, with a small consistent effort. 

Midlife San Crisis

I spent yesterday and this morning working on my motorcycle. A month or so ago I wrapped the exhaust pipes in fiberglass, the result was a change in the tuning of the bike, it didn't run as smooth and my mileage dropped from over 50 mpg to about 40. I understood why, it had to do with trapping more heat in the pipes and increasing back pressure and blah, blah, blah.

I knew I'd have to make changes to the carburetor,Yesterday I installed a velocity stack and re-jetted the carb (see post here if you want details), but by the end of the day, after about 30 miles of riding and tuning I still couldn't get it quite right. Carburetor tuning is a tricky thing, and I'd never done it before, every car I ever owned had fuel injection.

This morning, I pulled the carb off again, opened it up and changed one of the jets again. Once it was back in, it only took a few miles of riding to get it tuned right and the bike was riding like it hasn't in weeks. I took it out around town and put another 30 miles on it just for the pure joy of riding. Neighborhoods, city streets, highways, stop and go, cruising, throttle wide open, working smoothly up through the gears or full throttle, 1-2-3-4! Just riding my ride.

There's nothing quite like riding a motorcycle, especially one that's running perfectly, doubly so for one that you've been elbow deep inside to make it your own. Which is what brought me to where I am now, writing this.

When I was a kid, in the late seventies, Star Wars was a big deal for me, I owned dozens of the toys. But my fondest memories were of riding my bike down the street to the community college and scavenging cardboard from the dumpsters to build my own space ships and secret bases for my Star Wars figures. As cool as the manufactured ones seemed on TV, they never lived up to my expectations, but when I built something out of cardboard and glue, it never failed to be prefect -- at least in my eyes.

It was about that time I first heard the phrase "mid-life crisis." I was a pre-teen and it didn't mean that much to me, I just knew adults said it half jokingly when ever someone's father bought a sports car, or some other "toy."

Eventually, I came to recognize it as meaning a man, usually  in his late 40's or early 50's, who society believes is trying to relive his youth through flashy cars and younger women and generally "not acting his age." People said it behind some poor guy's back and giggled at him. Its a derogatory term, and one I've come to believe completely misses the truth for many men of every age.

Underlying the "juvenile" behavior of such men is an assumption about what they should be doing, how they should behave, and what should make them happy. Which is backed by the blanket assumption that everyone should be fulfilled and satisfied by a fairly limited set of ideals, usually career, wife, kids, house and a week or two of vacation every year -- The one-size-fits-all life path.

My life never followed that exact path, but then I never wanted it to. My life also didn't follow the path I wanted for a long time, either. At 20 I became a father, by 23 I was a single father. By the time I was 30, I owned my own growing business and was raising a school aged child on my own (not to dismiss the help and support of my family, just saying I didn't have a wife or girlfriend living with me to share the responsibilities or financial burden.) At 33 I bought a house. I had a career, a family, a house, I took a couple vacations, life was good.

But it was not fulfilling.

That's not to say I was miserable all the time, there is a lot of gray area between utter and complete misery, and blissful happiness, I liked my job, most of the time, I had a good set of friends, I had hobbies I enjoyed. But I didn't have the freedom I expected of my life when I was younger.

Having a child, particularly alone, limits your freedom, and freedom is what I wanted from life. Freedom to explore, to be creative, to try new things, go new places -- to walk away from whatever wasn't fulfilling me. You can't do that when you have a child. Sure, you can do some things, but if those aren't the things that fulfill you (and they mostly weren't) then you're stuck.

When my son left for college, I left all that behind. The house, the business, the Midwest, I walked away from it all and started over with a girl half my age in a new city. I stumbled around for a few years, broke, often unhappy, not sure where I was headed, but oddly fulfilled. Even in my misery I was fulfilled.

For the last few years I've pursued things that interest me for as long as they interest me. Sometimes I walk away from them because I loose interest, but at least I know that it wasn't for me, because I tired. I tend bar and sleep til noon, I have no drive to buy another house or have an expensive car (I love my beat up old Jeep!) I bought a motorcycle at 44 years old, I go out drinking with 20-somethings and party til dawn frequently. I usually work 3 or 4 days a week, and don't care about "career advancement" because I don't want the responsibilities, I'd rather have time to take day trips or tinker on a project in the middle of the week.

If I were 25 this kind of behavior would be expected. People would say I was getting it out of my system or sewing my oats before I settled down. At 45 many surely point and giggle and whisper "mid-life crisis," behind my back.They're wrong.

In fact, I think for most men hung with that label, its wrong. The simplified mold doesn't fit us all. I never wanted a wife and kids and career, my mother will tell you I said as much in kindergarten (I wanted to be like my Uncle Jimmy!), I might not have expressed it as clearly then, but I felt it.

The crisis in my life came when I had to fit at least part of that mold. I had to settle down into an existence I was told should fulfill me, and yet I was unfulfilled. For years -- more than a decade -- I believed there was something wrong with me, that I wasn't happy because there was some flaw in my psyche. If I could only let go of my foolish ideals, and "grow up," I could be happy.

I now believe that many men go through life equally as unfulfilled, but due to the emotional self-castration our culture forces on boys, they never even face the empty feelings they have. Some drink or do drugs, others are abusive, others quietly retreat into silence in front of the TV or spectator sports (believing they're too old to participate). They either wither and die inside, or they rage and seek escape in unhealthy ways.

Until the day comes when enough is enough and they leave part or all of it behind, seeking to find the happiness they once knew in their youth by doing the things they did in their youth. Where else would you start looking for happiness than where you last felt it?

At these times they no longer identify with the man they've tried to become, they seek a new identity, their authentic identity, the one they've been told is wrong for all their lives. And our culture calls them fools, and laughs at them for it. We laugh at them for trying to be happy -- for not finding happiness where we told them they must.

This is why I reject the idea of a mid-life crisis. Its not a crisis, its a self-rescue from a quiet, desperate crisis one has been living for years, perhaps decades.

Not everyone finds happiness in the same things, and that's ok. My happiness is not a threat or invalidation to yours. If what fulfills me doesn't fulfill you, then go find your own way, and I'll find mine. The sooner, and younger, you find the courage to walk away from things that don't fulfill you, and to admit to the world your path is different, the happier you'll be, even if its a difficult path. (This goes for men and women, by the way.)

As I cruise by on my motorcycle and flirt with that 20-something girl, you may giggle, but you shouldn't, because at least I'm trying. I may find these things don't fulfill me ultimately, or having satisfied the desire, I may move on to something else equally as funny to you, but at least I tried, and I know and don't wonder anymore.

I've been elbow deep in my own life (and will be many more times, I expect), tinkering and modifying it to fit my tastes and trying to getting it running perfectly. As fun as riding a motorcycle is, nothing compares to riding a life that fulfills you.

New Lungs for Phaedrus

This morning I tackled the latest modification to my motorcycle, removing the airbox and replacing it with a velocity stack.

Before and after: Left: Stock airbox.. Right: airbox removed and velocity stack.

The first task was to remove the original airbox. The process was pretty simple, Just three screws held the cover on. Behind that was the filter, and two more screws holding the box in place. Once the main box was off, the black plastic tubing that filled the space between the top of the cylinder and the frame came out easily, it was only held in place by a hose clamp and friction apparently.

Airbox with the cover and filter removed. Only the two screws top center hold it on.

With the airbox removed, no screws to hold the tube in place behind it.

With the whole airbox assembly removed, the carb is exposed. The mounting plate under the gas tank is easily removed after the tank is off. Only two bolts attach the plate to the frame.

Getting the carb off was pretty straight forward. The gas tank had to be removed, which meant taking off the seat and petcock knob, then the one bolt that holds the tank on. I'd done all that before, and its not technically difficult, just takes a few minutes.

Under the tank a lot of hoses to remove. Like a lot of motorcycles, this one has things that aren't necessary to make it run well. The white triangle is part of the crank case breather,, which is overly complicated.

Before getting to the carburetor, I removed some unnecessary hoses. TJ Brutal Customs has a great video about what can be removed safely from this bike. Mine didn't have quite as much junk parts as some, probably because it wasn't originally sold in California.

The airbox and assorted hoses which no longer reside on Phaedrus.

With all those hoses removed, you can see straight down to where the carb connects to the manifold. Those two black screws are the hose clamps that hold the carb in place. The hose, immediately above them in this photo, is a coolant line that goes to the carb, which I rerouted.

With the extra hoses removed, getting my hands and tools inside to remove the fuel lines, coolant hoses, vacuum lines and throttle cables was much easier. There was a set of wires for the throttle position sensor to disconnect, that was the only wiring to deal with. 

I disconnected everything and pulled the carb off. The biggest problem was just working some of the hoses loose. 

With carb removed and the coolant hose rerouted.

This carb had two coolant hoses attached to it. One leading out of the engine into the carb, then a second from the carb to the radiator. Apparently this is to help warm the fuel in the carb (in theory), but in reality doesn't really effect much. Both the hoses are under pressure, so simply capping the nipples would not work (Coolant spraying out of the engine is usually a bad sign.) 

One source recommends using a screw inserted in the end of the hose (cut short) and a hose clamp to hold the screw in place. I may do that eventually, but I couldn't find a small enough hose clamp. Instead I cut the longer of the two hoses and ran it straight from the radiator to the engine, simply removing the carburetor from the routing. This will keep coolant flowing through everything else.

The velocity stack itself simply slides over the open air intake of the carb, and attaches with three recessed screws. Because of the increased air flow, the carb needed to be re-jetted. Again, TJ Brutal Customs has an excellent video showing how to install the new jets, and everything went exactly as described in the video. Since he does such a good job, I won't go into details, just follow his instructions.

Once the jetting was done, I capped off a couple vacuum and coolant ports. I also added TJ's long handled adjustment screw, since accessing the pilot adjustment on this bike is a real pain in the ass, even with the airbox removed. 

Once all that was done, I put the carb back on, which was simple since several hoses didn't need to be attached anymore. 

Adjusting the throttle cables was the biggest issue for me, mainly because I'd never done it before. It took me a bit to figure out I'd switched the two cables. Once I figured out that mistake, I had too much free play, I went from having no free play in the throttle to having too much. But eventually I got it adjusted.

A few more minutes to put the tank and seat back on, then came the moment of truth... After about 20 seconds of cranking (to get fuel through the drained lines) it started right up! 

I let it warm up while I cleaned up my tools, then took it for a spin. It ran a little rough at first, but after giving it time to warm up fully, and adjusting the new long handled screw on the carb it came right into tune. It runs fine, and seems to have a bit more power. There's now lots of room under the gas tank to move electronics to when I get around to rewiring it. 

My only issue is that proper tuning has the adjustment screw all the way in (at least I think its all the way in?) Which should actually make it stall instead of increasing the RPMs. So I might need to pull the carb off and change one of the jets (the kit includes 2 main jets, and 4 pilot jets), but I'm going to ride it for a bit and see how it goes. I would like to have some play in the tuning so I can adjust for altitude in the mountains, but I'm not going that far until spring, so there's time. 

UPDATE:
I tinkered with it most of yesterday, off and on, and never quite got it running right. After some emails with TJ, I woke up today and pulled the carb back off the bike, swapped out the pilot jet for a size up and took it out.

After warming up, and a couple turns of the air/fuel mixture screw it settled in nicely. I rode it around neighborhood streets, then out onto higher speed city roads, and finally for several miles of highway. It works great in all gears, wide open acceleration, cruising, and no popping or sputtering when I close the throttle down.

Thanks again to TJ Brutal Customs for a great product, great support with both videos and email assistance!