The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
Technical Discussion => BMW Technical Q&A, Primarily R65 => Topic started by: Scout39 on January 20, 2007, 03:24:22 PM
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Just got rid of all that plumbing and I'm curious how many other riders have removed theirs...In addition stopping the annoying "pop pop pop" the seems to be a bit easier to fine tune the idle (could be my imagination). Has anyone got any experience they can relate about making this modification?
I used a kit from Ted Porter at the Beemershop which was worth the the cost for the ease of doing the job. He also found me a used side cover for a very reasonable price and answered a bunch of boxer questions. Yes, this is a totally unsolicited endorsement for a supplier but I think it's important to support the folks who can take care of the older bikes. So... no more "pop pop pop" Thanks, Ted!
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What was in the "kit" and how much?
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Kit was $10 and included two threaded metal plugs for the heads, two rubber timing plugs to fill the airbox holes where the hoses exit and two screws with fiber washers to go in the vacuum ports in the carbs. Well worth the cost I thought, especially if you tried to price out the parts individually. Took about an hour to remove the existing lines, including the reed valves in the airbox, and install the plugs.
I did a little research on various websites before I bought the kit from Ted. I read horror stories about how the fittings freeze in the heads and how to put a ball bearing in the fitting to block it or how to braze
the pipe shut so I spoke with him about it before I ordered. He said he had never seen a frozen fitting and that was a pretty easy mod. As you can see from my other two posts, I'm not reluctant to get out the wrenches, so I put a wrench to the two fittings at the heads before I ordered the kit - they both moved easily so I went ahead and ordered it. Good deal, quick shipping, nice guy to deal with - that's why I made the positive comments. Here's what the plug looks like:
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Sorry about that post - getting used to this format...
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Looks good, that's the same plug I am using - Oilhead oil drain plug! ;) I haven't really noticed any difference in any of ours after removing this stuff but it makes it look cleaner and allows me to thumb my nose at the "smog nazis" [smiley=evil.gif]
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I agree, it looks much better without all the auxiliary plumbing - the steadier idle can be attributed to the well-known "oil change" phenomenon - my vehicles always run better after an oil change. Re: the oil-head plug - nice to know they have some useful parts...
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Scout, sure wish I'd know about your man Ted a month ago.
After $15, 24 days, 2 emails and a phone call, I'm still waiting for Chicago BMW to put my screws and washers into an envelope and send 'em. [smiley=furious3.gif]
I've ordered from them several times and it's usually hard to beat their prices, but they also take forever to ship: I think I'm done with those folks after this.....
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I think it may have been in '81 when BMW added the vacuum feeds to shut off the air injection system when decelerating. Mine doesn't pop at all anyway, and rather than remove mine I bought somebody else's off ebay for maybe 15 bucks and replaced my rusty pipes running from the air box to the head. It looks fine to me and doesn't make any trouble.
If it makes anybody feel better though, I heat my house with wood. Dang, even my stove has a catalytic converter!
;D
Ted seems like a good guy, he called last night and said he would be shipping my tranny back to me Monday, so I should be able to install it next weekend. Man this year is starting off financially painful for me. I'll add more info on the other thread when I get it back together.
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Other than the aesthetics I also felt better not having cool air shooting onto the exhaust valve for some reason...
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I haven't noticed any popping on my R65LS yet, not like my singles on overrun. I'll have to look into this.
Riding a bike returns 3 times the fuel economy of a car, uses less oil, less parts etc etc etc, so the "smog nazis" unless on another form of two wheels can go jump.
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Got the part numbers from the Snowbum and bought them from BMW of Atlanta. No more popping. Yes I think its easier to tune but perhaps I'm just getting better at it Also I have the German Crank fired Electronic ignition (mounted on the front of the alternator) which works much better than the 79-80 beancan with points.
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Ok, last weekend I finally removed all of the emissions stuff and replaced my missing vacuum take-off hootus so I could seal that up too. Put the new parts on to seal everything back up, no biggee, except I noticed an instant drop in idle speed to appx. 700 rpm from 1000-1200, and a tendency to stall. Seems it ran better with a "vacuum leak".
According to Clymer, I need to pull the left plug lead to raise the right carb speed, put the right to etc, etc, etc,: ain't there a better way?? Assuming the carbs are still balanced and there's no other popping, etc, which there isn't, can't I just dial up the idle speed, either at the carbs or at the throttle cable stops?
Or, will I "unbalance" the carbs trying to go this route?
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Your idle speed is controlled by the screw that pushes on the throttle butterfly on each carb.
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That's what I thought.
So why would simply removing the emissions plumbing drop the idle speed? :-?
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I'd hazard a guess that your air injection plumbing was drawing off some of the air, or otherwise reducing pressure
in the airbox. Now that it is gone, you're getting more air into the carbs through the airbox, and so the idle mixture
is a bit too lean. That's my half-baked theory, anyway. It is not good to run these airheads very lean, as that makes
things much hotter for the valves.
On my R100 I used to do the left/right and right/left dance to adjust the carbs for idle, and finally got good enough
that I didn't need to pull the leads to tell which side was not quite doing its fair share just before I sold it.
Gotta go looking for some carb stix this spring, I think, as my do-it-yourself carb synch tool broke, and I think that I
need to spiff up the garage with some fancier looking tools...
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The clue to this is in the statement, "...replaced my missing vacuum take-off hootus so I could seal that up..." Basically he plugged a vacuum leak which caused the rpm to drop.
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So, nhmaf & Justin, am I safe to raise the idle up by dialing in the throttle cable butterfly screws, or do I need to go thru the whole tune & rebalance route?
Keep in mind that it ran well with or without the small vacuum leak created by the missing vacuum takeoff, and I'm able to prevent it from stalling now by some careful throttle management at low speed. I'd just like to prevent a 35 mile trip to the shop to get the carbs balanced, if possible, but also obviously don't want to burn any valves up by running too lean.
Thanks again for your help, guys... [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
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IMHO, It would be best to go through and retune and rebalance. You can't be sure that one carb/side was
more affected than the other due to the location of the "leak" you stopped. But, if you don't have to turn the
screws much, and if you have a "feel" for when the cylinders are both running smoothly you can
probably get close through just adjusting the screws carefully and listening. I'm not sure how much you've
done this sort of thing before. If you do have access to some carb stix or similar gauges for
balancing, it wouldn't be hard to do a quick check to see that they are both in the same positions relative
to each other, after turning the butterfly screws to raise the idle to around 1000 rpm or so. Be sure
that things are well warmed up before you adjust them !
I certainly don't consider myself an expert in this area - Justin or others may have differing opinions.