SOHC.co.uk Forums > CB500/550

recommend a carb balancer

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K2-K6:
My opinion is that although balancing makes a difference (mostly to slow running/tickover) it's quite alot street theatre for which people have consented to be charged money for.

If the carbs are set-up well on a bench i.e. so that all the slides really do start to open together, then they are usually very close to being ideal with any obvious problems down to other factors like points/timing/valve clearance etc. This is why all the advice points you to verify those first before carb balancing.

If you don't have any guages then you are not missing much if your general set-up work is accurate .

stidds:

--- Quote from: K2-K6 on June 05, 2011, 06:24:14 PM ---My opinion is that although balancing makes a difference (mostly to slow running/tickover) it's quite alot street theatre for which people have consented to be charged money for.

If the carbs are set-up well on a bench i.e. so that all the slides really do start to open together, then they are usually very close to being ideal with any obvious problems down to other factors like points/timing/valve clearance etc. This is why all the advice points you to verify those first before carb balancing.

If you don't have any guages then you are not missing much if your general set-up work is accurate .



--- End quote ---

I agree with K2-K6, I bench synced my carbs recently and when I connected up my carb balancer, they were all pretty much identical.

deltarider:
Couldn't agree more. I share a set of 4 clocks with another friend/motorists. Unless you have more bikes, cost of buying is hardly justified. That's why we shared and soon an owner of 2 350's will use them too. My experience is: once set you don't have to sync for a long time, very long indeed. As a matter of fact when you think they're out of sync, I would advise you to look for another cause. In my experience the carbs stay synced almost forever. Honda did a good job on this, after learning lessons with the 4-cable operated carbs on the early 750 models. Last time I used the set is some 15 years ago. On a few occasions I had the carbs on the kitchen tabel (for experiments with the needles) and decided to see how accurate I could sync by hand, using a small allen key for testsliding under the little cutaway section in the front side of the slides. I adjusted, testslided, adjusted, testslided etc. Then I drank a cup of coffee and checked it again, eyes closed for maximum touch. After mounting the carbs on the bike and attaching the set I was surprised I had managed to sync within 2 cm Hg(!), well within factory specs.
Maybe - just for fun - I will build a DIY as described elsewhere, because I like the idea so much (simple fysics). Gives me also the possibility to check if the 4 clocks are still within calibration after all the hefty movements. The homemade set can never lie. No negatives: you need no figures, just visual information that fluid is at the same level. For the rest of you: share. Less is more.

florence:
Personally, I would recommend finding a trustworthy and reliable motorbike shop to do it for you.  I did this fifteen years ago and it has been tiptop every since.  I asked the mechanic when he thought I would need to have it done again and he said that as long as I didn't take the carburettors completely apart it should be fine more or less forever.  Evidently he was right, and it didn't even cost much to have done; certainly a lot less than buying a set of gauges.

K2-K6:
I thought that maybe I was speaking out of turn but following comments seem to agree that the original design (multi cables excepted) are good enough to maintain an accurate sync under normal circumstances.

I do have a set of guages (bought a loooooooooooooong tme ago) and have used them to set/check many friends carbs but they always seem to show the same thing in that unless somebody has done something wild then most set-ups are usually within range and the owner is dissapointed that there was no real magical improvement in the running of their bike.

It appears that most of the people on a forum like this have sufficient skill and attention to detail to be able to get a decent set-up without them so save some money if you need to.

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