|
|
Post by alpinerider on Oct 1, 2021 19:31:54 GMT -5
Hi Gang- You guys and gals are awesome, so I'm hoping one of you may have some thoughts on the issues I'm experiencing. I have a 6 mo 2021 ruckus, which obviously ran amazing off the lot- 40 mph on a 1/4 mile (140 lbs, 5'11). A few months ago, I started down the road of performance modifications...and now I have no freaking power.
The mods are as follows:
1. Polini variator
2. TVR velocity stack intake (probably a mistake but it's here to stay, I do not want to revert to OEM)
3. Re-jetted carb for TVR
4. Yoshi exhaust
After re-jetting the carb, the ruck sounds great and idles wonderfully with a nice burpy sound. Pickup off the line isn't as good as OEM, but it gets to 20 no problem.
The issue is that I can't get this sucker up to 30 without a half mile of clean air in front of me...which is not going to work out, at all, ever.
I've dropped from the stock rollers down to 5g, and lost even more power. Went back up to dr. pulley 6.5s and it feels better in the mids, but still can't pop past 30 unless I have a lot of open road.
Has anyone experienced this before, and if so, any thoughts?
|
|
|
|
Post by Baizy on Oct 2, 2021 23:27:08 GMT -5
It sounds like you fell victim to The Ruck Shops stage 2 kit. Tuning these with no prior experience is a lot of work. If you don't have a "singe wire lawnmower tach" go get one. It's going to be your lifeline here. Also modern rucks have idle mix screw plugs and that makes it impossible to tune idle without bastardizing the carb. PM me for details on that one.
1. Buy a lawnmower tach under $20usd, wait the 2 days for amazon to get it to you, and don't bother tuning without it.
2. While you're waiting for the tach throw your 5G weight back in, we don't care about power right now. You need to know what rpm your ruck is able to hit right now.
3. Go for a ride and log your peak rpm on a long flat stretch. A stock ruck is allowed to hit 8800RPM last I checked.
4. Assuming you didn't hit 8800 you have a problem. Let's fix that!
5. Shim your carb, just do it. It's amazing. If you didn't buy the ruck shop kit go get a small washer to slip over your stock carbs needle. You'll want a deep 6mm socket to get the needle holder off, theres a post in the forum on this subject.
6. Is your carb running lean or rich? I don't know but you'll find out. Your options are trial and error or plug chop. If you don't mind getting fuelly just slap in the smallest jet you have and go run it hard and see what your peak RPM is, then run your largest. You should have a 75 as the smallest and an 82 as the largest. I think most people with your kit run a 38/78 and are happy. Give the jets a chance before you swap them unless it's an awful experience.
7. You should be good by now. Once the carb is tuned it'll be up to variator tuning to your preference.
Also did you swap to a polini belt too? If you did you should throw the Honda one back on. Trust me, haha.
Hope this rant gets you moving a little quicker!
|
|
|
|
Post by alpinerider on Oct 3, 2021 11:49:03 GMT -5
You're really the man. I was telling my wife this morning about how welcoming this community is, and you are a standard bearer. Bravo. Ok- so I actually did a few of these things before reading your post, and here are the stats (and yes, I got murdered by that stupid kit. good marketing on their part!):
1. Polini belt- will swap to OEM this afternoon, it just started raining-surprised how loose the polini feels on install compared to OEM and have been wondering about this- thanks for clarifying to go back to stock.
2. 6.5g sliders on the polini variator (note on this- I did notice the plate doesn't move as freely in my polini as it does in the OEM variator- seems like there might be more friction than what is good, but not sure...). Have a load of dr. pulley sliders on the way (4g-7g).
3. 38./78 jetting, needle shimmed
4. tachometer installed and reads fine at idle (900-1100ish)
5. rolling wrench CDI
Went for an extended ride, and have no problems hitting 20/25mph off the line quick enough for my needs. Tacho reading low 3000s.
Takes a 1/4 mile of clean flat road to get to 29-30mph. Max tachometer reading on the entire ride was 3800, usually sitting at 3760 when cruising in the 25-28mph range. Ride smelled gassy throughout, sounded like it WANTED to rev but kept on hitting the upper bound under 4000. very much not shocked but still dissapointed.
Definitely psyched to know RPMs aren't where they need to be. Now to find the problem...
I have a jetting kit with MJs 78-84 on the way to test next week, as well as a golden pulley variator a friend will let me use if the polini is busted. Last question for now- is it worth it to swap to an iridium plug? I've heard they make reading the plug difficult, but I have a freebie one I could toss in there if it'll make a material difference.
|
|
|
|
Post by alpinerider on Oct 3, 2021 14:55:52 GMT -5
Alright- swapped in OEM belt; wasn't expecting much but revs were down to 3600 max, took a little longer to get to 30, can't go faster or recruit more power than 3600-3800 RPM. Still advisable to swap in the 5g sliders to test max of max RPM?
|
|
|
|
Post by alpinerider on Oct 7, 2021 12:12:34 GMT -5
OEM belt and 5g sliders: 30 mph & 4k RMP max at WOT. No idea what's going on.
|
|
|
|
Post by Baizy on Oct 8, 2021 19:19:00 GMT -5
alpinerider How do you have your Tach setup? Something Honda doesnt mention is that they have a dead spark ignition setup where it always sparks at TDC so you have to set the Tach up like it is being used on a 2 stroke engine 1P1R 1 Pulse, 1 Revolution since it sparks twice as often as it needs to. Your idle reading is half what it should be which leads me to think you have the Tach set up wrong. The Ruckus is supposed to idle between 1900 and 2100RPM I think you're actually closer to success than you think. A 4000RPM indication is 8000RPM with your setup so you are close. Go back to a stock CVT setup and see what happens, CVT, weights, variator, everything. I think it will sort you out so you can get back to part swapping and tuning!
|
|
|
|
Post by alpinerider on Oct 13, 2021 12:41:14 GMT -5
TL;DR: Issue was with the carb, I totally bunked the diaphragm.
Thanks, Baizy! After the CVT OEM swap, RPMs were still limited. So, I decided to go inside-out, and started with a carb clean and check. I'm glad I did- there was a seal issue with the way I had re-installed the diaphragm. After fixing that and ensuring the jets were right, things are amazing. Able to rev to the moon, getting to 35 mph off the block very fast, and hitting 45 easy. Good stuff. The little things...
|
|
|
|
Post by Baizy on Oct 13, 2021 14:16:43 GMT -5
Glad you've solved the issue! Enjoy moving forward with tuning your Ruckus to suit your riding environment! Seasons changed overnight where I am so I'll have to rejet again to suit the cooler climate.
|
|
