The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
Technical Discussion => BMW Technical Q&A, Primarily R65 => Topic started by: Julio A. on August 21, 2011, 10:47:30 AM
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Everytime I talk to somebody who owns (or owned) an Airheads here in the Philippines about my R65, they always ask me If I have changed the carbs to Mikuni's. I had spoken to my uncle in the US and when he heard about the R65, he asked the same thing. My uncle used to have a R69, an R75, an R80, an R90S at different periods in time and is very knowledgeable about airheads. And such persistent questioning opened my curiosity about what the Mikuni's do on the bike.
So far, I can only positive thing I see is that the mikuni carb parts are very easy to find here in my country compared to the Bings. But in terms of performance, is there really a difference?
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I personally don't know if there are performance advantages or not - but the carbs are more commonly found on many other bikes, so parts/availability is definitely a plus. And likely, there are more bike mechanics familiar with mikunis than Bings.
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I personally don't know if there are performance advantages or not - but the carbs are more commonly found on many other bikes, so parts/availability is definitely a plus. And likely, there are more bike mechanics familiar with mikunis than Bings.
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Julio, I've been to a few American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association (AHRMA) events in the past couple of years. There are quite a few airhead BMW's set up for the events and it seems to be more common to see them with Mikunis than with Bings. The sidecar racers are almost always BMW's and it seem rare to see one with a Bing. Don't ask me why. You might research some of the racing websites for some information.
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Interesting topic, did some googling and a couple of places (webbikeworld and advrider) point to Rocky Point Cycle who offer conversion kits for BMW's.
http://www.rockypointcycle.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=RPC&Product_Code=2103&Category_Code=B12
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=223563
http://www.bmwmoa.org/forum/showthread.php?t=39368
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I like the bings and prefer them for these bikes. They work well and are easy to maintain. The Mikunis, on the other hand, don't fit right up as easily, needing some custom work on the intakes sometimes, and the airbox tubes. My only bike with Mikunis is the LS with the 850 kit. I attempted to swap back to bings, but the heads have been extensively worked over with the intake ports now 36mm; the bings didn't want to fit on, so re-installed the Mikunis. I do like the way the bike runs with them, but I'm not a hotrodder, so don't really notice the bike running any better or worse than stock.
But, I must add, the reason racers use Mikunis is quicker response. That, and possibly better top end flow. But these beemers aren't race bikes, and when treated that way don't hold up all that well. And besides, they don't do that well in that sort of racing anyway. If anything, these bikes do well in endurance racing - not sprints.