20 year car mechanic screwed up the Holeshot install

[rider123]

I hear you Johnny, it gets a little addictive. Let me know how it goes because I was thinking sort of along the same veins. If it runs this good with 1.5" hole in the airbox I wonder if opening it up slightly more may give it even more crazy power. I do have a K&N filter but it did make it quite lean when popped in with the 110 mains but maybe with larger who knows. Obviously Dale thought of it too as he has a kit along those similar lines whereby the airbox is totally opened up, although I have no idea what he would be using as mains for that setup. I was guessing 117.5 or 120's but I may be wrong. I guess there is only one way to find out.

Here is something interesting for you to look at if you like. It explains why opening up the airbox helps with the breathing of the bike. Since this bike had to pass emissions they totally hobbled it to squeak by the EPA. The airbox is actually designed for the 600 not the 1200 so this bike is defiantly jetted way too low for the size of the engine. According to fastlarry's site. It seems that with 2 2" holes you have enough to use all of the 4 36mm carbs worth of air. Here is the site they'll explain it better.

here is the main site:
http://www.portablepct.com/fastlarry/banditfaq.htm

Here is the airbox/hole explaination:

http://www.portablepct.com/fastlarry/2_inch_stats.htm

So theoretically with the kits we have with basically 2 1.5" holes which delivers a little more than half what the carbs can deliver to the engine. In fact a 3" snorkle was about what I had on my on my old '84 GS750EF and thats a 750, so you can imagine how crazy having only 1 1.5" snorkle on a 1200 is.

If this bike was put out in the 80's(it is a slightly detuned/bored 80's GSXR1100 engine) with less restrictive regulations, it probably would have come out with the moral equivalent of the Holeshot stage 1 kit stock. Since Suzuki wisely decided to put all the parts necessary to get some real power out of it. I'm sure the guys at Suzuki probably said to themselves "Ok we'll put all the stuff on there so the owners can fix it (wink wink) but we'll detune it so we can squeak it by the EPA people". So that way they have plausible deniability when people fix it themselves and it explains why it comes so lean from the factory. Mine was terrible until I jetted it.

[DaveG]

With the airbox lid totally opened up you would need 127.5's

I was more interested in getting rid of the cold bloodedness and obvious lean condition even when warmed up.

My journey went like this:

Stock muffler ugly, replace with Scorpion

Too lean added 2 radio shack shims.
mixture screws at 4 out.
Good result but still lean so what do I do

Add 2" hole to airbox with hiflo air filter
result bad

install 112.5 mains
not bad but too lean

plugged hole with plumbing hat.
too rich

increase hole size 1/4" at a time
at 1" still a little lean, determined that for me 3/4" was perfect.

may be that the hiflo flows better than stock so 3/4 hole vs. 1.5

no two will be exactly alike, rather that keep changing jets I adjusted intake hole size.

did not mess with the springs,  float hight is very important (13mm)

runs great.

[Johnny from Chicago]

I rode it at 5 shims and too lean from 4-6k then comes on hard at 7k. Upped it to 6 shims and it got better but not perfect still. I'm calling tech line today.

[rider123]

I went similarly Dave. I put a K&N and plugged up the hole to 1" and it was pretty good but still too lean with 110 jets. Only when I stuck the stock filter(actually an OEM equivalent which I think flows slightly better) put the 112.5 jets in and put the hole back to 1.5" did I get really good power. I took a look at the plugs and they look awsome now, maybe a little white,(slightly lean mid range) but with a nicely coloured fuel ring(Jet's spot on or very close). I'm wondering if putting on that last shim may make things even better at the usual leaner mid range rpm level. Maybe I'll give it a go.

Hey Johnny glad to hear your getting pretty close, have you popped in the 112.5 jets in there to give them a shot? You're probably closer to sea level than I am so you may get better benefit out of a little more jet than I. If you look earlier in this post here I gave you a tip which makes it so you don't have to completely pull the carbs, it took me about an hour to do and most of that was getting the tank off, side covers, etc.

[Johnny from Chicago]

Havent done the 112s yet but I called the tech line and he said "get a new cover, I will never get it perfect with the big hole I made." I'm going to tape it up and make the 1.5" hole then try the jets.

[rider123]

Cool. I would maybe change your post From "20 year car mechanic screwed up the Holeshot install" I don't think you screwed up at all. If you look at the pictures on Dales site and the dinky instructions you get with the kit it's easy to get confused.

Maybe if you removed all the emulsion tubes to really get some fuel in there and hydrolocked the motor and bent a rod, well then maybe  

Yeah I know they are telling you to get a new airbox cover but that will just make it pretty if you tape it up nicely with a 1.5" hole it will work just the same until you get a cover. In fact if you wanted to test maybe do what Dave did. Cut a 1" hole then open it up a 1/4" at a time and see how that goes with the standard settings(5 shims, 3 3/4 turns out). Thats a good way that Dave did it.

[txbanditrydr]

Too late for this thread but there's a decent "How To" on jet kits in the download section - lots of good pictures and really fills in the gaps from Holeshot's instructions.

[Johnny from Chicago]

I got out the cardboard and the duct tape and fixed the box.
 Made a hole like I was supposed to. I'll ride it in to work tomorrow and I'll see if it's better before I buy a cover.

[rider123]

With the airbox lid totally opened up you would need 127.5's

Was this posted somewhere? It might be an interesting experiment considering I have a K&N filter basically brand new and the cleaning kit for it just sitting in my garage. It's kind of a waste. If I could find out what the settings are I've already bought Dale's stage 1 and 5* advancer, so he's not losing any money. It seems his kit basically is the same as the stage 1 I bought except it comes with needles(adjustable? More aggressive taper?). I figure I could tape the K&N in place and get it right before cutting my airbox lid. Has anyone done this? Might be worth the 10 or 20 bucks to buy the jets and find out. Worse case senario I just go back to what I have now. It's too bad he didn't have it available when I bought my original kit I would have bought the new one instead as it's only .3 of a horsepower away from a full stage 2 with better weather protection.

[rider123]

For fun I popped in the K&N filter in there put a an extra shim on there for 5 total and turned the screws out to 4.25 and reduced the hole to 1". Definately got a bit more power but I think its just a tad too lean up top. Maybe Ill order 115's for fun.

[DaveG]

That's pretty much what I did with the same results.
Reduce hole to 3/4" or increase mains to 115's
the hiflo is an K&N but not an oiled one.
I use the hiflo 138 oil filter which is a K&N without the nut.

[rider123]

I just have the generic K&N hi flow with the oil, SU-6000??? or something? Whatever, you're right Dave it works super great but just at the top end do you get a bit lean but its still better than the 1.5" hole with stock filter. Revs up super fast now, definately more power. I just checked the plugs and it's very very close so I'm assuming if I did go to 115's I would probably have to drop a shim or two or maybe turn the mixture screws back to 4 or whatever. But wow what a difference now.

I may go with the bigger jets because I fabricated a nice mini-velocity stack with a Valve grommet for some truck from Canadian tire(it was only $10 for a pair). It actually is almost Identical to the factory intake snorkle and it actually looks to be part of the original airbox(just with a mini intake on top). I'll try and see if I can take a picture. I may pick another 2 pack of those grommets as I had to widen it to get to 1" (they taper to 1/2" hole) I'm sure I could just widen it to 3/4" if I didn't want to wait for jets, and it's easier to install. I just like the idea of not having to buy an air filter every year.

And yes the K&N or equivalent flows way more air than a paper filter. I've done some research and it's anywhere from 25% to double. However it doesn't trap as many particles. If you're worried about it though I guess you could change your oil in your bike more frequently but by the time any particles would be doing any real damage the bike would have fallen apart from age.

[Johnny from Chicago]

So I took cardboard and duct tape to patch the box and cut the 1.5" hole like Dale said and it runs perfect now. (Hmmmm, when you follow the instructions it works right... aaah. Gonna try the 112.5s though because they got such good results from 123.

[rider123]

Yep after fooling with the K&N I went back too. I'm at 5 shims, 112.5 mains and 4 turns on the 17.5's, 1.5" hole in the box. All is good.

[Dave 02 1200]

So I took cardboard and duct tape to patch the box and cut the 1.5" hole like Dale said and it runs perfect now. (Hmmmm, when you follow the instructions it works right... aaah. Gonna try the 112.5s though because they got such good results from 123.

Glad to hear you got good results.

I did my Holeshot Stage 1 per Dale's instructions and the results are excellent.

He really knows his stuff.