Price of carb balance?

[Geodude]

How much does it generally cost (99 curvey naked) to get your carbs balanced? Or would it be cheaper to buy kit and do it myself.

Im wondering it myself, think mine might be slightly out, although i currently have a stuck choke plunger which is gettin fixed at the min, but when i first got my sv its carbs where balanced and cleaned by GS Suzuki Ballymena (northern ireland) and it was in excess of 90 quid if i remember right which is normal as they'r a rip off for everything!

[garynortheast]

I'd recommend doing it yourself, it's not a difficult job to do on most bikes once you get used to doing it. The kit doesn't need to cost a lot either.

[Geodude]

Cheers for replies guys still dont know if i want to go garage or diy route hmm will have think ta

[5hort5]

Done mine today, never done them before or anything like it So the actual balancing is easy, the bit before took a bit of work, I'll sort of list what I did below and then if anyone thinks I did anything wrong let me know. Also it may help you make up your mind on the DIY job.

The balancers:

I brought these cause, well, because ? http://www.carbtune.com/ I got the two column ones and they cost 43 quid which included delivery. - Good news - They worked

The pre work (or the pain in the bottom bit):

The rear carb vacuum nipple (I'll call it that for the want of a better term) is easy to get to, it's connected to the fuel tank. The front carb vacuum nipple is just blanked off with a rubber cap and it a complete swine to get to even when the engine is cold. Sooooooo, following advice from the org i decided to add a length of tube to it so I wouldn't burn my hands and so I could do this job easier the next time. This is what I did:

- Took the seat off
- Put the fuel tank on it's stand
- Removed the airbox
- Removed (well like loosened and moved out the way) the throttle cable
- Undid the idle adjuster to give em some slack

(Big note here, I think I could have got to it by taking of the side fairing and pushing the radiator forward, knowing how much of a pig to get my side fairing on and how little movement I have in the rad, the above was the lesser of two evils for me)

All of the above was to enable me to take the carbs off the manifold a bit so I could removed the rubber cap from the front vacuum nipple and put on a eight inch length of pipe from the nipple to attach the balancers to later. I then blocked off the open end of the pipe with a bolt and a jubilee clip.

Next I put everything back together and tested the bike to be sure everything was working as it was before, it was which was good. This also warmed the bike up to balance the carbs.

The balancing:

Built the balancers as per the instructions, this was just adding the cable tie to go over the handle bars and adding the restricter pipes to smooth the air flow (I think?).

- Set the idle to 1500 rpm
- switched the bike off
- Took the airbox off as per the haynes instructions
- Disconnected the vacuum pipe from the fuel tank and attached one of the carb balancer pipes to the tube
- Attached the other pipe to my newly installed extender pipe for the front vacuum nipple
- Started the bike

Now the gauge showed one was about 25% higher than the other so I screwed the balcne screw round till they about matched, rev'd it a couple times to make sure they settled back together and then turn off the bike, stuck the airbox back on, tank and seat on and that was it.

All is well, no popping at idle or when the choke is on and job done



Edit - Then I reset the idle back to 1300 rpm

[Geodude]

Fantastic just what i needed, big thanks for the info 5hort5

Originally Posted by 5hort5

Now the gauge showed one was about 25% higher than the other so I screwed the balcne screw round till they about matched, rev'd it a couple times to make sure they settled back together and then turn off the bike, stuck the airbox back on, tank and seat on and that was it.

All is well, no popping at idle or when the choke is on and job done



Edit - Then I reset the idle back to 1300 rpm

Now I've never done this, but one garage I called said that they "are a pain in the **** because the carbs shouldn't be exactly balanced as the rear cylinder runs hotter than the front"?
Was he spouting sh!t and trying to justify his expensive price , or is there some truth in this?

Well done for sorting your own out though!
Fuel systems and carbs scare me ever since I overhauled the carb on my first fiesta years ago

now i know that this can done to a curvey, but can the throttle bodies on a pointy be adjusted the same way as 5hort5 explained. would be handy as this can be another thing i could do myself as my dealers prices are quite high.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by paiste

Now I've never done this, but one garage I called said that they "are a pain in the **** because the carbs shouldn't be exactly balanced as the rear cylinder runs hotter than the front"?
Was he spouting sh!t and trying to justify his expensive price , or is there some truth in this?

Well done for sorting your own out though!
Fuel systems and carbs scare me ever since I overhauled the carb on my first fiesta years ago

Nah BS, they run better balanced.

Air screw a bit richer at the back might help a tad, but I just adjust them to highest vacuum so who knows.