Ok,
I got a Scorpion slip-on about two months ago. I didn't have the money for a jet kit also but heard about others who shimmed the needles and adjusted the airscrews in the meantime. So yesterday I figured I dive into this project and squeeze some better performance out of it.
Prior to starting the project my bike ran ok. That is, it started well idled well and ran just fine lifting the front wheel about 6 inches through first with just throttle. Now if I continued to stand on it up thru fourth it would stumble at about 11,000rpm and speed up when I backed off of it a tad. I figured this was a lean problem.
I got some #4 shims and started with two shims on each needle. I had drilled the airscrew plugs out but didn't adjust them yet. I test drove it and it was very flat, almost boggy from about 3,500 on up. I drove home and figured I take the shims back out.
When I got the tank off I saw that I didn't get the tabs back in on the filter cover on the airbox. I fixed it and took another test drive. Now it was much better but it had no low end anymore. Requiring much more throttle input to start off. It also didn't quite pull as hard as it did. But it didn't have a problem running to 12,000 in 1st thru 5th ( I left off after shifting to 6th).
I thought the airscrews would correct this. When I checked them # 1 & 3 were only a half turn out and 2 & 4 were completely closed !!!!! I set them all to 2 1/2 turns out and took a ride. The bike idled fine and accelerated ok and actually better from around 8,000 to 12,000, but was still kind of flat feeling until 8,000. It accelerated hard but there was no way it was going to carry the front wheel like it was doing before anything was done.
I went home and turned the screws back in so they are now 1 1/2 turns out. This improved the lower rpm's a little but still lacked the punch it did have. So then I took the shims out but left the screws at 1 1/2 out since they were so out a whack to begin with.
So now I have the screws at 1 1/2 and no shims. I know the screw settings are better than they were but the bike doesn't run any better than it did when they were all screwed up. The shims only seemed to make the bike run worse. Every thing I have read everyone seems to notice a good improvement but on mine it only seemed to take the edge of the bikes punch.
Am I screwing something up here? What am I doing wrong?