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Reminder: Next time you modify the engine of your motorcycle, finish testing it before setting off on a 400 mile road-trip.

Popped down to Portland for the weekend on the bike.  The weather was great and the ride down went along nice and smooth.  The ride home wasn’t nearly so nice though.

I’ve been playing with a new air intake for the bike which has added a nice bump to the power.  Unfortunately, there is almost never a stock setting for your carbs when you’re dealing with a custom air intake and exhaust.  It takes a fair amount of trial and error to get everything tweaked in just right.  Too little gas and your pistons overheat, too much and the bike burns dirty and fouls the spark plugs.

Luckily, I guess, for me it was just a problem of too much gas.  So 300 miles into the weekend everything completely choked up with soot and started to loose power and stop firing.  This made getting home a real joy, but I shouldn’t have done any permanent damage to the cylinders or pistons.

If you drive by this weekend, you’ll probably see me sitting on a bucket in my driveway again: busy busy busy stripping down and rebuilding the carbs one more time.  My next bike is going to be fuel injected, I promise.

It sure seems like it costs the government a lot of money when they pay for me to sit and wait while all the paperwork is getting filled out and approved. But then, I guess that’s the price you pay for some assurance that the lab isn’t going to explode and turn eastern Washington into a sheet of glass.