Conquest carb jetting

[bluebruin]

This is an educational thread. My guess is black and sooty means running too rich. Were you at highest altitude when you last shut it off?
Pushrods have not slipped out and do not look bent. Engine sure looks clean.

engine does look clean. the guy seemed like he maintained it well enough.

last shut it off at 8,000ft.

I would do a few things first, maybe you have already?

compression test + leakdown test
confirm output of fuel pump (within spec)
If these prove to be okay, I would move on with confidence.

Also, does your machine seem to use any oil or do you notice black smoke under heavy load?

FYI-I would try to avoid backfires on shutdown.

1. do I need special equipment to do a compression test?
2. how do I check fuel output?

does not seem to use oil and have not noticed any black smoke.

The solenoid's actual name is anti-afterfire solenoid. Its purpose is to stop the flow of fuel at the same time that ignition is turned off so that the inertia of the engine doesn't pull fuel/air through the engine as rotation stops and result in an afterfire. You probably won't experience an afterfire anyway but you an mitigate by letting the engine idle and cool a minute or so. Besides, afterfires don't hurt anything.

See THIS EXPLAINATION. (the solenoid purpose fits in the delayed ignition category)

And yeah, I know the pin moves freely. Until it doesn't and plugs you up. When that happens flip the choke on and take your time until you get to the tools and replace the solenoid with a bolt. (or do the snip). (bolt's cleaner )

The spark plug doesn't look all that bad. Maybe a bit lean. Might need the 106 for 8K. (I knew Argo was being conservative with their jetting but didn't have the time to do the experimentation.)

But my reading: The base ring has soot that I would guess means that idle is too rich. The insulator is off white and the electrode doesn't look too rounded so at higher than low idle (the high idle circuit of the carburetor - it has two circuits) it is running somewhere pretty close to where we we want. Do google "reading spark plugs" though as this is not my science.

Your pushrods look good. Like PaSean said, when they are bent they fall out from under the rocker.

You probably need to adjust low idle mixture at higher elevation and you probably need to look at your clutch tuning.

ok. sounds good. I will plug her up. hehe

idle is great at 8k, just not 11k.

Blue try to start the engine, let it warm up some. shut it off and unplug front spark plug wire if it starts and runs that cylinder is firing, shut it off and replace wire and remove rear wire see if it starts and runs.
Or you could remove the valve covers and visually look at the push rods/rocker arms and see if one is off.

The Kaw's don't run that noticeably bad when running on one cylinder except under load
.
It sounds as if it either has thrown a push rod or the fuel solenoid is sticking partially closed ( which would make the jet intake smaller than it is) as Thorn wrote.

Put the plug in the fuel solenoid. Put everything back together.

warmed up engine. unplugged front spark plug wire, tried to start engine. would not start.
plugged back in, started up.
unplugged back spark plug, started up.
unplugged front again, would not start.

maybe I am running on one cylinder? Both sets of exhaust pipes are hot when running (with both sparks plugged in)