It Runs! Sorta

After much fiddling with the carburetor, and realizing we had the #3 and 4 spark plugs wires crossed, the new engine in RalphVee came to life. And holy shit is it loud! I'm not exactly sure why, since it literally has the same headers and stinger as before, but when we had it running at 3,000rpm, it felt twice as loud as the 1200 motor. I'm petty sure the entire north end of Chico heard us running the engine.

Before we got it running, we fought all sorts of little problems. It would run for about 2 seconds then die. It seemed like it was getting fuel initially after pumping the throttle, but then didn't have enough to keep running. Of course, after realizing the spark plug wires were crossed on the cap, it fired up. It still took a bit of fiddling with the throttle position and choke, but it eventually lit off and would sorta maintain a running attitude.

It feels lean. It backfires, shoots flames, and generally just acts like it is lean. So Mark is going to send us down a selection of larger main jets. We had a selection from 140 to 147, but we may need something in the 160 range. Luckily, Mr A. has a large selection of jets, and with Mark now in Oregon, he can send some down. Hopefully that will get it running better.

It may just need some more time to warm and break in. New engines can be a real bitch to get running.

Of course, I manged no photos and no video of this process since it was a cluster in the garage. But trust me, this thing is LOUD!

C'