Setting up the idle.
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Tourer
Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 282
Likes: 29
From: England
Setting up the idle.
How do you reliably set up a sportsters ( carb models ) tick over without having a rev meter?.
I don't want to set it to low for obvious reasons nor to high.
I have a hand set to let you know what the tick over is, but on the sportster it sends the reading wild, due I suppose to the tick over pattern, which an I4 wouldn't have.
There must be a way the dealers set it, and I don't mean by ear.
I don't want to set it to low for obvious reasons nor to high.
I have a hand set to let you know what the tick over is, but on the sportster it sends the reading wild, due I suppose to the tick over pattern, which an I4 wouldn't have.
There must be a way the dealers set it, and I don't mean by ear.
Road Warrior
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,832
Likes: 67
From: Phoenix
A lot of old-school mechanics have no problem adjusting the mixture screw with a flathead and setting the idle by ear. If you're not familiar enough with how the engine sounds, get something like this:
Lots of brands, they're all pretty cheap. You want one that reads in, at most, 50 RPM increments. I prefer 10. You just wrap the cable around your spark plug wire, and the magnetic field created by the current through the wire creates a current through the cable on the tach, which is where it gets its reading. However often that current occurs is your RPM, since the spark plug wire is only energized when the plug fires. The tach will display that number.
Lots of brands, they're all pretty cheap. You want one that reads in, at most, 50 RPM increments. I prefer 10. You just wrap the cable around your spark plug wire, and the magnetic field created by the current through the wire creates a current through the cable on the tach, which is where it gets its reading. However often that current occurs is your RPM, since the spark plug wire is only energized when the plug fires. The tach will display that number.
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