Installation of Ivan's Needles (Instructions)

Some instructions for general Jet Kit installation, this one taken from an R6 owner installing Ivan's Needles:

For starters, read this guy's web site www.cs.tufts.edu/~sbruno/carbfaq/. I used it along w/ the factory manual www.yzfr6.net/manual/R6_manual_carb.pdf and some good info from this well-done site www.cartest2000.com/fz1/ to get the carbs off. None of it was too difficult.

One note, the last step in pulling the carbs is looseninging the hose clamps which surround the rubber boots underneath the carbs. No biggie, but you MUST have a ball-end allen wrench. Also, the allen-head bolt on each clamp faces towards the front of the bike, EXCEPT #4 (the one to the right side of the bike). This one faces rearward. To reach it, I pulled the little black plastic triangle cover on the right side of the bike, pushed the aluminum foil earth re-entry sheeting aside and slid my allen wrench through there. You can look through there w/ a flash light to watch what you are doing.

Once you have the carbs off, I would do the following:

Drain all the fuel out of the carbs. Just tilt them every which way until it stops coming out. They hold more fuel than you would think. Be patient.

Place the carbs on your workbench on top of several clean shop towels. At least use a thick piece of cardboard. Anything that won't allow the carbs to get messed up while you work on them.

Remove the velocity stacks- the black plastic trumpets.

Remove the float bowl covers and the floats. Note which float cover goes to which carb. Take a magic marker and number them. Some have coolant passages others don't.

Remove the vacuum chamber covers. Set the springs aside and CAREFULLY slide the piston valves out along with the stock needles.

Now is when you want to take a real good look at Suliman's site: sportbikeguy.com/garage_r6carbinfo.html Major kudos to Suli for putting that out there. Absolutely great info. I printed mine out at the office on our color printer and used it throughout the job.

Now that you have everything pretty much out of the way, you get to remove the stock jets. The main jets are easy. Just slide a wrench over the holders to keep them in place and then use a second wrench to remove the jets.

The main air and pilot air jets are a different story. They are not readily removable. They are pressed in. Thanks Yamaha Now Ivan recommends you do the following to remove them:

Thread the inside of the jets using a small tap that he includes in the kit. DO NOT use a drill or dremel. Use a small hand drill, like the one in this kit shop.store.yahoo.com/tmt/driltapset13.html
Don't worry if you haven't tapped anything before. It couldn't be easier and only takes a minute. Then insert the screw he provides.

Now Ivan recommends grabbing the screw w/ a set of vise grips and pulling upwards. I tried this for 45 frustrating, obscenity-filled minutes and got nowhere. It may work for you. It obviously works for Ivan and he designed this kit, but for me it wasn't working.

I found another way that worked better. Give it a try, but please be very careful. You can really bung things up. Put the carbs upside down on your workbench. I took a thick sheet of stainless steel (left over from my license plate holder project) and laid it on top of the carbs, butting right up against the shaft of that screw. I then took a large hammer, resisted the evil, evil urges pent up inside of me, wanting to get out, to strike at the one thing that haunted my every thought, and using the claw end, I pried on the bolt, levering off the stainless sheet. You could use a board here instead of steel sheet - whatever allows you to lever the hammer off of it and does not damage the carbs in any way. When I tried this, the jets popped right out, nothing to it. Just be ready for them to give suddenly. They want to get you, oh yes, don't think for a second they don't want to see you lying in a pool of your own blood, hand to empty eye socket, weeping and...ahem, yes....back to the kit install.

Remove all 8 jets, 1 pilot air and 1 main air per carb. Now take the larger tap Ivan supplies and thread the holes where the stock jets were pressed into. Don't go down all the way. Look at the jets Ivan provides and notice how short they are. You just need to thread down enough for these to go in fully.

Before you install the new jets, you'll want to clean the carbs. But before you do that, skip ahead to the mixture screw cap removal. Otherwise you'll have to re-clean everything like I did. Using the drill bit provided and a drill, drill the caps in a drilling motion. Don't push hard on the drill at all. If you do, the bit will go through the caps immediately and bung up the surface of the mixture screws. No bunging!

Once all this metal grinding-type work is done, take the carbs outside with 3 of your favorite cans of brake cleaner, a flashlight and an air compressor if you have one. I don't yet, so I used a can of computer cleaner compressed air - not too effective, but it was 3 am. I did not care.

Spray at least one entire can of brake cleaner through the jet holes from BOTH ends. Yes, those holes you threaded eventually lead to the other side. You want to get every last shred of metal out of those carbs. When the first can is empty, chuck it and grab a second one. You missed some metal, so use all the second can as well. Now go for the third can. I mean, you've gone this far. Why stop now? Use the flashlight and inspect every hole carefully. Found more metal shards? Go to the auto parts store and buy at least 3 more cans of brake cleaner. Use all 3 (or more) cans. Just be sure you don't use *too* much brake cleaner. That would be silly and wasteful.

Use your compressed air source and dry out the carbs. Wear eye protection and stay back as far as you can. I didn't get brake cleaner all over my face, if that is what you are thinking. I just think it might happen to someone in the same situation, who looks just like me and also had their face right down on the ground looking inside the carbs when all of this transpired.

Install the jets Ivan provides, being very careful to put the correct ones in the correct holes. Use Suliman's website and double check the numbers stamped on the jets.

Set the mixture screws according to Ivan's instructions. I called him to clarify the following: when he says 3 turns out, he means just that - 3 complete 360 degree rotations of the screw. No, I am not anal-retentive. Thank you for asking. Ivan also recommended an additional 1/2 turn out for my CA model. Please double check w/ the man himself before deviating from his instructions though.

Next, reinstall the floats and set the float bowl height. I found this to be the most nerve-wracking as it seems very imprecise and the actual method of adjustment is "jicky". I really couldn't understand EXACTLY what I was supposed to be measuring until I found this pic on Factory Pro's site: www.factorypro.com/images/carb,float adj,38Mik.jpg AHA! Now it all made sense. Also notice that the carbs are being stood on end to measure. I did this also and it seems to work ok although I measured the floats w/ the carbs lying on the bench as well. I didn't have the Factory Pro tool, but thanks to Suliman, I ran out and bought a $20 Sears Vernier's calipers w/ a depth measurement beforehand. Worked well. I just set it to 3.25mm and ran it along the surface of the carbs. If it came in contact w/ the floats, down they went. Much of a gap? Up w/ the floats. Not too difficult, just time-consuming to get just right.

Go here
www.threebrain.com/songs/hypo.html You’re now ready to continue.

Check your pilot jets while you are here. They have little numbers stamped into them. According to Ivan, 49 state bikes come standard with #38's and he recommends sticking w/ these. He was surprised to see that my California model came stock w/ #35's. He said they shouldn't be a problem but that I should go up to #38's if I got excessive popping w/ low throttle openings. So far, I haven’t noticed this to be a problem w/ my bike, so no biggie.

Now pop the green (or on my bike, blue) caps holding the needles in. Pull the stock needles and CHECK FOR WASHERS! I had one per needle stock. On 2 of the needles, the washers stuck to the inside of the piston valves. Remove all the stock washers and set them aside w/ the stock needles. Put the 2 washers in the Ivan's kit onto the needles, on top of the little circlips and CAREFULLY insert them into the piston valves. DO NOT BEND the needles or they are ruined. Put the green/blue caps back on until they snap on and slide them back into the carbs. Look through the throat of the carbs as you do, ensuring that the needles are directed back into their holes.

Normally you would put the springs in and reinstall the covers. I would wait until you have the carbs reinstalled as you will want all the room you can get in there.

Take the carbs back to the bike and carefully put them back in. A few things:

-For me, getting the throttle cables hooked up was a real pain. Get as much slack as you can in the cables and push the carbs as far forward in the bike as you can to make it as easy as possible.
-Blah, blah, blah. Read this: www.angelfire.com/ia/z/FZ1throttleplay.htm
-If you're like me, you've already used up all your adjustment near the throttle grip (the external adjustment. The internal one is there on the left side of the carbs). Before you finish adjusting the cables, reset your external adjuster almost all the way back in.
-Ensure that the lower throttle cable is indeed in the lower position. This cable has the long nut and one small one. The upper cable has 2 small nuts. Here you'll want to ask yourself which cable you identify most with.
-Ensure that the lower cable is all the way at the bottom of that gold-colored bracket thing and the upper cable is all the way at the top.
-Before you are all done, CHECK THE THROTTLE PLAY!!!! When I released my throttle, it wouldn't close. That is bad. I had actually taken too much slack out of the system and it wouldn't rotate the butterflies back easily. Loosen the adjustment if that is the case.
-If you get it all adjusted right, you will have a nice throttle with no slop. That alone made the bike nicer to ride.

See my previous post regarding installing the carbs onto the rubber boots. Very important: I know shower-type injectors are cool, but don't try to duplicate that with your carbs. Won't work.

Normally, coolant is supplied to the carb bodies to warm them quickly upon startup, aiding emissions. Ivan recommends disconnecting them. This was strange on my bike as mine were not hooked up ever! Don't know why, but I plugged the lines anyways.

After reinstalling the carbs, throttle cable, choke cable and anything else I'm forgetting, hook up a fuel source and start the bike. It might take a second for the floats to fill back up, but mine didn't. Guess fuel pressure took care of that the moment I turned the key on. The bike should fire up and run well after a moment or 2.

Sync your carbs, then reinstall your airbox, gas tank and seat and then go for a ride. Hopefully, everything turned out as nicely as mine did. I'm very happy with the kit and I don't think it was very difficult. Even if this is your first time messing with carbs, you'll do fine provided you approach the job as seriously as I have. Good luck!