Red_Liner740

Sigh...okay, i'm so pissed off right now its not even funny...

background story...

bike ran fine last season, over winter put it away and installed Yoshi's

ran the bike this season and i've noticed a low end stumble, stuttering, i'd sometimes have to slip the clutch a lot more to get the bike going smoothly...but it still pulled really nice, lifted the front wheel without any problems. So i'm thinking its running bad cuz of the pipes

I bought a DynoJet stage I kit and took it to the shop to have the kit installed on thursday, its been an on going hell ever since...

calls me Thurs says bike wont be ready for thurs it'll have to be done on friday...friday rolls around, they are still not done with the bike because "carbs are really dirty, we had to spend a lot of time cleaning them, it'll be done on saturday"

well saturday noon rolls around "yea, its still not done, hes still working on it, an hour tops..." i come in at 2..."yea your bike wont be done today, hes having a hard time reaching your sync screws bla bla bla...it'll be definitively done by monday"

So now i'm fuming cuz we finally have great riding weather and i'm out of the bike, and now...drumroll....i get a phone call from the shop "yyeeaaa, reason i was having a hard time tuning your carbs your bikes is running on one cylinder...you have no compression on front cylinder...."

What the hell do i say to this?! uhh, the bike will lift the front wheel in first without any problems, it has no less power than last year and yet it only has 70 psi on front cylinder?

so i told em to button it back up, i'm taking it home...

they quoted me 3hours to install the kit and tune the bike, before this whole no #1 cylinder power came up it was up to 6 ******* hours!!

so at 90 bucks an hour i'm 600 bucks out of the pocket and i STILL dont have a properly running bike... and i possibly have a blown engine?!

any ideas whats causing low pressure?? he said to take off the valve cover and check for a stuck valve...yea i'm not that lucky...most likely i have blown cilinder rings...

or do you think they're just trying to hose me down even more.

P.S. one thing that i noticed is at cruise speed and cruise power, the bike would cut out and i'm sure thats timing chain slap i hear when it does it...

skipped timing chain?

tangostorm

Check the head gasket for that cylinder look for oil mixed with the water in the rad m8 and check for overheating.Hope this helps you bud

inderocker

Classic! I've scored some great deals on bikes because of this. Someone had in storage for winter, it wouldn't start in spring, they took it to a shop to get it going again and the shop said they had low compression. Gas turns to varnish and will make valves stick... and give shops opportunities for $$$. I can't believe they made you pay for the work they did... what a bunch of jack ***'s. It is possible that the valve got stuck open and got smacked by a piston though. Did they forget to put the sync plug back into the front cylinder before they did the compression test? I don't see why the rings would be gone, unless they were stuck too in, but they will come free. Is it smoking? How about this... return it to stock, fill up the tank with some good gas, dump some Seafoam in there and go for a ride.

Wolverine

Sounds like your gettin' the shaft. Auto parts stores sell the tool to check compression. If you can get to the plugs yourself, you can check the compression to confirm. You should hold the throttle wide open when you crank the motor (both plugs out). Kinda sounds to me like they F'd up your jet kit install/adjustment. Someone with proper knowledge should be able to get you tuned in. I've done jetting, but never sync'd multiple carbs. It's not rocket science, but if your out in left field, it sounds like you might need to pay someone more $$ to fix the original shops poor work. Maybe you could make them pay if you find the compression isn't bad. Proof that they suck **** and screwed up a basic jet kit job. $600 is crazy, I wouldn't be payin, expecially since the job wasn't completed right. I feel for ya.

divingindaytona

1st go back to the shop and DEMAND a refund.

In my opinion a jet kit should take 1 hr to install, then 1/2 an hour to tune (at most). Syncing the carbs will take 15 min, if they read the owners manual and are a competent mechanic.

Check the cyl compression for yourself. I would not trust anything that the shop said, personally.

RK1

Six hours to determine your bike is (supposedly) running on one cylinder? You are being ripped off by scumbags. I'd go talk to a lawyer. Many lawyers will give you a 30 minute consultation free for nothing.

Other options?

Years ago I had a client, a very cute and sexy blond women in her early twenties. Bought a new truck from the local dealer for use on the horse property she operated with her mom. The truck turned out to be a lemon and the dealer wouldn't do her right.

She contacted all the local media ahead of time. Parked the truck in front of the dealer on a Saturday, covered it with a case of lemons. Stood on the sidewalk in 5" spiked heels and and a tiny pink string bikini with a sign saying "XXX Ford Sold Me A Lemon!"

It was in the local Sunday papers. Three days later the dealer gave her a brand new truck.

I'm not suggesting you wear pink bikini, but use your imagination. If they don't do right by you, spend a few days making sure everybody knows what they are.

loserbaby

I tend to agree with all above... then, start looking at coils. I had a coil prob kick my ***. I am a life timetime mech and still had great trouble getting to it. S'hawk coils are notorious for failing intermittently due to the resistor installed. Find if you have a cold"colder" cyl while it's missing, then swap coils and do the same check... plug coloration should help in this process also...

LB

inderocker

Really? Ths is news to me.

Red_Liner740

Oh i plan on double checking everything they've done...

Only reason i took it to the shop is that i wanted the carbs tuned on the dyno and they said "with a jet kit, its gonna be less than 3 hours"

i'm a god damn aircraft mech and to hear this kind BS coming from their mouths is just pure $$$ scam...

"Oh your carbs were soo dirty and fouled up it took forever to clean them" if that was the case the bike wouldnt run...after winter storage she fired right up, never any problems.

"you have low compression on cyl 1, because of that we cant sync the carbs"
low compression would lead to lower idle bad pick up bla bla bla...this thing idled at 2000 rpm...

i've been around car engines since 16, i've rebuild numerous engines, done swaps, turbocharged non-turbo cars etc etc, all in my garage, so i KNOW around engines and what problems show what indications....this engine never showed any of the indications of problem they are saying.

i havent paid anything, and if they expect me to pay the full price, they have another thing coming.

Wolverine

Glad to hear you haven't paid yet. $600 for a botch job is ridiculous!

Red_Liner740

Okay, so today i went there at 1 pm.

The guy wanted me to pay 5.5 hours so i can take my bike home...NO was said in many ways from me, from polite to downright NASTY.

i demanded to speak to the main boss and explained the situation, he said to me "well, we did clean the carbs too and do all this work...." at which point i told him yea, but i was quoted MAX 6 hours for DJ kit installation, cleaning and dyno tuning, bike hasnt been tuned or sync'd so why would i pay the full amount...

he knocked it down to 4 hours, which is still a lot but i can live with it, as the carbs were cleaned...

i also demanded to talk to the guy that worked on my bike...

"yea dude, 70 psi, you know, you should check your valve clearances, sticking valve, bla bla bla. there was no suction when i put my hand over the intake opening....and the slide wasnt jumping when cranking..."

so i get on the bike, take it down the road, and jeez, its like i'm riding an SV650, definitive lack of power. DEFINITIVELY not how i brought the bike in....ride it home, get home, take it apart...do a compression test...BAM!!
165 PSI! cylinder is HEALTHY as can be...but true the slider isnt jumping when u're cranking it with throttle open.

take the carbs off, take the vacuum side of the carb apart and sure enough the vacuum diaphragm wasnt sitting properly and leaking air...no wonder the slide wasnt opening or the bike had any power, it was trying to breathe with the slide closed.

so i call em, and call em out on it.
"bring the bike back we wanna see for ourselves"

so the bikes back there, compression test was done infront of them and sure enough they saw the same results...

so they said they will tear apart the carbs, make sure everything is good and tune the bike for no extra charge

********....

I KNOW from past experience that you can only trust yourself...

this was the second and last time a shop did work on that bike...

****** didnt do basic troubleshooting, nor did they do a compression test like they said and wanted me to pay extra to fix a problem they caused when they took the carbs apart to clean them...

Circuit_Burner

That shop is incompetent.
The line of BS in the order they fed it to you shows they are novice at best.

nuhawk

With your experience I am surprised that you would like someone else work on it but I do understand being busy on other fronts. We're about to install the FP jet kit on my Superhawk. The mechanic says he thinks I have an air leak somewhere in the hoses. All this 10 year old stuff is going to be replaced in the process of the jet kit installation.

The bike was in for a new Barnett clutch but he jerked the tank off and sync'd the carbs, checked the airbox and adjusted the idle down as far as it goes and it bottomed at 1200.

The cool part of it is his shop is right next door to my office.

Red_Liner740

give me a Turbine engine and i'd have done the tuning myself

Carbs i'm kinda lost...never worked on them nor did i wanna start learning on my bike when its nice weather out riding. It was supposed to be the next day....friday afternoon, so i can ride it the weekend

but from now on...NOTHING is being done on that bike other than myself...

just like my cars are being done now.

nuhawk

Well, bro, if you read the archives you would have known that all kinds of guys have probs tuning the DynoJet package. Yeah, yeah all about how they're best for most other bikes but the Superhawks do the best with the Factory Pro set up. I don't know why - they just do.

My Dad was a carb expert. I didn't know him long enough to know that but his mechanic buddies were more than willing to scratch their heads as to how much fuel mileage he could tune a mid-fifties Chevy to. Gas at our stations was 29,9cents per gallon for Premium.

His last piece of work was for my cousin who bought the first year Pontiac convertible with the slant six. My Dad tuned it and it got 28 miles per gallon.

I'm like you, when it doesn't work - I'm the last guy you want in a set of carbs. I'm just very attentive when work is going on by people I trust.

Like you, I've been around this for a long time and excuses don't cut it. You're paid, you're well paid, you're paid to get it right the first time. That just the way it works around my shop. I expect the same of my suppliers.

Little_Horse

your shop horror story sounds just like what happened to me, I understand people make mistakes, its just the run around I can't stand from these places. Its like just tell the truth, quit trying to spoon feed me BS.

Wolverine

I kringed hearing you were taking it back to them to fix the problem. Good luck. Those dickwads wouldn't have laid another finger on my machine. I'd go over it with a fine tooth comb when you get it back. An image of the fast food guy spitting in your returned food comes to mind.

Red_Liner740

^^

Not too many shops in T.O that have a dyno, and going anywhere means starting from scratch...they finished tuning the bike for free cuz of their FUBAR

i finally got the bike tues afternoon...DynoJet Winpep7 program shows a peak of 105hp and 67 ft lbs. with the following Run Conditions: 73.15F 30.10in-HG, Humidity 19% SAE 0.97

The graph i'm gonna scan but i'm a bit weirded out by how flat the HP is between 3500 and 5200 RPM...it holds at steady 60hp takes a tiny dip at 5200 and then a gradual "hill" to a peak at 9000rpm and a slight drop to 100hp by 10000

torque is great with a very gradual rise and fall over the entire rev band. it has 60+ torque from 5500 to 9000

modifications are stock new filter, shortened Yoshimuras and DynoJet stage I kit

cliby

nice job trouble shooting it yoruself. Sticky slide would lower the compression for sure. I was surprised reading it you ever had someone else do it in the first place given your abilities. I have done the same myself and will also say, almost always regretted it. Not that I don't screw up also, but at least I'm not trying to charge someone for it and I ususally fess up to my errors. I think the number of truly good and truly honest shops is pretty small, unfortunately.

bill

Tweety

Yeah... the difference is if I screw up I usually fess up and know where to look for my own mess... If others screw my stuff up they act like it's raining and I get to figure it out myself...