bike carbs, managment and wht i need to get them running

[chrisd1986]

im probably mad for buying these as i know feck all about them or trigger wheels or after market management and i hate wiring but i have bought them and i need to know what i need to get my car running with them, try and dumb it down as best as you can as im not much of a tech geek and if anyone can help me out you will be rewarded with some rep for your efforts. i have just bought that kawasaki zx10 kehin carb set up off simontw and will be looking into getting everything i need to fit them over the winter and have them running and set up by march and they are already jetted for my engine aswell

[Southie]

Which engine is this for?

If it's for a c-x16xe then you'll need aftermarket management, it's not worth the money and time fitting bike carbs to those engines IMO.

[chrisd1986]

yes it is

[Southie]

yes it is
Then crack on, Tom Reid is your best bet if you want to go down that route.

[vessey]

hope you got deep pockets I looked into this and it was a lot for the gains

[chrisd1986]

cheers pal, ive bought them now so there is no going back

[philip]

how are they not worth it? alot of rally lads use them and have good gains i ran r1 carbs on my c16xe fair enough i had a big spec but drove well and made just shy of 200bhp.

[tom reid]

I agree with philip, it's worth the effort and expense, the more you can do yourself the cheaper it is.
The inlet manifold you've bought is for a 16v smallblock engine?, I have never used your carbs so can't comment on those.
You'll need the following.
Decent four branch exhaust manifold and system, no cat required.
Ignition only ecu, megajolt or this is one I'm looking at using this system in the future, http://www.canems.co.uk/index.htm
Modify or make an alternator tensioner bracket
Trigger wheel may be needed if using megajolt, although that might be redundant on the newer versions?
SBD type cam belt tensioner, this replaces the std tensioner with one that is non adjustable, belt tensioning is done via the water pump.
Electric fuel pump and fuel pressure regulator.
Remove the std fuel pump from swirl pot housing and modify swirl pot to pick up fuel from electric fuel pump.
May need a throttle cable and choke cable and a couple of solder-less nipples.
Plug leads , dependent on chosen ecu
Couple of switches and fuse box
Decent catch tank and a few hoses for oil and water systems, depends on what size of fittings are used in the inlet manifold and if you need to modify the cam cover.
I think that it?, just be sure to check your engine is healthy, compression and leak down tests would give a good indication, there's no point doing this to a worn out lump.

[philip]

I can sort a solid roller to do away with tensioner if need be matey. Definately worth the work though.

[meritlover]

use the std trigger wheel and pickup

use decent management which can work with a 60-2 wheel and drive 2 ign outputs for wasted spark, (or 4 if you want COP but this is overkill on a mildly tuned engine)

wire to coil direct (will need one trigger for each cylinder pair if using coil pack)

power coil(s) from switched live.

find a decent base map, or fill all the boxes with 15 deg BTDC and drive gingerly to a RR tuner.

use carbs from a bike which had a TPS pot fitted as std. a HELL of a lot easier than fitting to one which didnt have OE. You can get it to run without TPS but you will end up with lame pointless 2D mapping.

IGN only ECU couldnt be more simple. power in, trigger in, TPS in, trigger(s) out.

job jobbed.

[chrisd1986]

Right I didnt understand much of that mr meritlover but I going to lean all of this. I get the trigger wheel and that most people use ford coil packs as tbey use a wasted spark system. I also have looked into ignition only ecu but I dont know what tps is or if my carbs have it but still +1 rep to you x

[meritlover]

use a vaux coilpack, doesnt really matter, some have 12v trigger some have 5v so watch

there isnt much difference in price between ign only and fuel+spark so if you can stretch to the latter, its a good investment for all future projects.

any dual grouped coil pack is wasted spark.

without a TPS on the carbs its a waste of time, but your options are limited anyway as the 16v has no distributer drive.

to be really gypo, you could run OE management, using the TPS, CTS and MAP, but it will 'run' but will be so pointless you would be as well running OE everything.

ign tuning is where most of the gains are on a std engine.

you need standalone ign/ign+fuel management, end of.

[Southie]

how are they not worth it? alot of rally lads use them and have good gains i ran r1 carbs on my c16xe fair enough i had a big spec but drove well and made just shy of 200bhp.
If your wanting to do this type of conversion on a budget though it can still be quite expensive and tbh it won't be that beneficial without doing extra internal engine mods IMO, I found the best option was to stick a powerbox on and just enjoy these engines.

[chrisd1986]

use a vaux coilpack, doesnt really matter, some have 12v trigger some have 5v so watch

there isnt much difference in price between ign only and fuel+spark so if you can stretch to the latter, its a good investment for all future projects.

any dual grouped coil pack is wasted spark.

without a TPS on the carbs its a waste of time, but your options are limited anyway as the 16v has no distributer drive.

to be really gypo, you could run OE management, using the TPS, CTS and MAP, but it will 'run' but will be so pointless you would be as well running OE everything.

ign tuning is where most of the gains are on a std engine.

you need standalone ign/ign+fuel management, end of.

I can live with buying the new management as I expected to in the 1st place unless I was running and older engine like a 20xe, I still dont know what tps is to find out if my carbs will have it and any help with wiring diagrams drawn in crayon would be nice to help me along. I already have a powerbox on it but I just think it will look quite trick when I pop the bonnet at shows and I dont realy use it as a daily plus they are cheeper than throttle bodies

[Southie]

Chris I ran bike carbs on my old SR and yes they were fun and sounded fantastic btw, personally get the cash together and let Tom do the conversion for you as it will save you the hassle of setting them up as they're a bit unpredictable to get right unless you know what you're doing ;)

[Adam]

Some older mappable systems use ford coilpack etc because they need fords old edis system. Any decent ecu system will be able to use standard gm crank trigger and ignition system so you dont need any ford crap and it makes things much simpler.
The majority of bike carbs have a tps fitted as thats whats the bike ecu uses for throttle position.

[meritlover]

you cant run a 'powerbox' with carbs.

the TPS should be on the spindle of the carbs, has a 3 pin plug on it,

like this (or similar):

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f100/DUFFBEER30/DSCF0343.jpg


a VERY cheap and clever way would be to use an OE motorbike ign ECU and a power commander. many of them use alpha-n load sensing, sometimes barometric compensating, CTS and IAT sensing and are nice and simple.

using a power commander allows 'mapping'

ign outputs could be configured to run on a car with COP

[meritlover]

Some older mappable systems use ford coilpack etc because they need fords old edis system.

yes, and they are also horrible and cumbersome to work with.

[chrisd1986]

I had 40's on my mk2 golf 16v and I miss the sound of carbs and I haddnt seen anything bike carb wise come up that cheep in a while. I want to try and tackle this myself but if I end up throwing ky toys out the pram I probably will

[Adam]

yes, and they are also horrible and cumbersome to work with.
Aye. Hence why i said any decent system system wouldnt have to use some 20year old ford shoddy setup lol

[dgbnova#1]

Tsp throttle position sensor or switch did not understand everything but I get the idea any photos of bike carbs on these engines or a build thread of someone who has fitted some on this engine or any engine so got some idea of the task

[meritlover]

Aye. Hence why i said any decent system system wouldnt have to use some 20year old ford shoddy setup lol

i wasn't disagreeing with you.

[meritlover]

Tsp throttle position sensor or switch did not understand everything but I get the idea any photos of bike carbs on these engines or a build thread of someone who has fitted some on this engine or any engine so got some idea of the task

from what i can decipher from this, you need a pot' that will work across 0-100% range off the throttle. it wont work with a switch.

[chrisd1986]

Only thing I know about the carbs so far is that they are correctly jetted for my engine

[chrisd1986]

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb368/chris_d_1986/9728331443_3c82b9a8af_m_zps8265baa1.jpg

[meritlover]

yes but do they have a TPS like the pic i posted?

[dgbnova#1]

I see so it tells ecu where it is and not that it's just open that makes sence, going to be best if standard gm sensors can be used so what management is best what is listed earlier ?

[meritlover]

correct, hence 'Throttle Position Sensor'

ecu ranges the voltage from the pot' to show 0-100% travel.

any sensors work, most GM use common resistance tables, which make it easy to calibrate. Any decent ECU should be able to accept resistance tables to calibrate to any sensor of choice.

im not getting into debates over what ECU is 'best'

its a question of features/operability/support vs budget/features required/knowledge.

[chrisd1986]

Cheers meritlover al have a look for a tps on them tomorrow

[Southie]

you cant run a 'powerbox' with carbs.

the TPS should be on the spindle of the carbs, has a 3 pin plug on it,

like this (or similar):




a VERY cheap and clever way would be to use an OE motorbike ign ECU and a power commander. many of them use alpha-n load sensing, sometimes barometric compensating, CTS and IAT sensing and are nice and simple.

using a power commander allows 'mapping'

ign outputs could be configured to run on a car with COP
Who said running a power box with carbs?

[meritlover]

i misunderstood. the 'power box fitted already' comment was obviously irrelevant.

[dgbnova#1]

Ye cost and practical options are the main factor like the idea of useing bike ecu if thats an option to look at

[meritlover]

there is no reason why it wouldnt work.

[chrisd1986]

Well I may have taken as the carbs dont have a tps

[meritlover]

you will either have to retro-fit (nightmare) or just run 2D ign mapping and suck it up.

or, buy a similar carb from a later model and swap the jets if the main body and throttle bore is the same. often later engines had TPS fitted. late model CBRs had TPS carbs fitted before they went ITBs.

do some research. chances are you will have to re-jet anyway, which is another reason just to go all out for ITBs there is very little difference in price in the end.

[chrisd1986]

Was thinking of buying different carbs n swapping jets over, might just big block it on carbs as im sure ive got the old cav carb dizzy in the garage lol

[tom reid]

Fitting a tps to your carbs might not be an issue, post up some decent pics of the throttle spindle of your carbs please, as long as there is enough of the spindle showing and there is enough room around it, there are plenty of aftermarket tps's available. My main concern is that your carbs are designed to run with a fuel pump and are not gravity fed items,more research required.

[gte-87]

On the timing side I run mine at 10degress before tdc and 3 psi fuel pressure would any one agree. Thanks dan

[dgbnova#1]

There's no spindle at all sticking out it has a blank hammered in on both ends so until that's removed we don't know what's available to work with.

[meritlover]

On the timing side I run mine at 10degress before tdc and 3 psi fuel pressure would any one agree. Thanks dan

base timing or total advance?