Sweet. I particularly liked the clear audio capture in the first one and half minutes of the clip, as it demonstrates very well the engine note of that mid-'70s triple. Quite a distinctive tone, and unlike the triples of today - such as that of the Triumph 675.
+waffle911 the exhaust is a 3-1 header (bought second hand) with a baffled stainless steel muffler on the right side. I've also since added an elbow between the two, that I had made with about a 20 degree angle, because the muffler was too low and scraped when I leaned right. Muffler was bought from dime city cycles. I LOVE the sound, but that carburetor is nothing but trouble.
I am told the center carb tends to be finicky and needs to be jetted differently from the outboard carbs. Turns out a buddy of mine used to own one before I knew him. I'm also told the stock bike is really heavy and more of a dog in the turns than most cruisers tend to be, but his was also in relatively poor shape. Was this your experience and have the modifications significant;y improved the handling?
+waffle911 the handling will never match a modern bike with modern equipment, but I felt it was more than adequate for a bike of it's age. I rode it pretty aggressively around some nice sweepers. it's fine if you don't try to compare it to modern bikes. mine is also significantly lighter than stock and has new, fully adjustable rear suspension, so I'm sure it handles differently than stock. I knew it wouldn't be a performance machine, but I wanted to screw around with a 3 cylinder engine. it rides nice. the only problem is those damn carbs.
The unfortunate side-effect of removing the factory air box. Got an 850 Special for $1k a few weeks ago (thanks partly to your video convincing me I needed an XS triple), and it had cheap pod filters on it that were falling apart, the engine ran like garbage, and had issues starting up again after being warmed up. Sourced a stock airbox and NOS airbox boots (shaped like velocity stacks!) and the bike runs like new, and starts reliably regardless of how cold or warm the engine is. Background: Without a box designed to direct air equally to all cylinders, the outboard cylinders get more airflow causing them to run stronger than the center cylinder(s), which causes uneven running. Jetting is not enough on its own, you'd either have to adjust the throttle plates to be less open on the outboard carbs (a complete pain to adjust and re-test on the twin Stromberg carbs on my four-wheeled Triumph, don't even want to try it on the triple Hitachi carbs on the bike, not even sure a carb synchronizer would accurately reflect the intake balance at speed) or use properly-sized restrictor plates on the outboard carbs to reduce airflow to match the center cylinder (similar pain, maybe capable of more consistent performance across the range than differently-adjusted throttle plates). So, one of the ideas I've been toying with to avoid too much fine-tuning when deleting the air box is fabricating a baffle that surrounds pod filters to draw air only from the rear instead of the sides, functioning similarly to the air box without being so prohibitively big and bulky. But the bike needs other things tended to first. Like the fact it's a $1k XS850 Special with ugly cruiser-style tank and seat, and non-original narrow handlebars that put the controls far enough inboard to cause routing issues for the brake hose and clutch and throttle cables, and the mirrors unable to see anything but my shoulders as I'm riding. That's all that was available in my area. XS750/850 Specials, no standards. At least this one is solid, runs, and legitimately passes state inspection for only $1k, even if I did have to redo the inline fuse holders they put in to delete the problematic fuse block to get all the signaling lights to work correctly.
Scott Young I'm not much of a carb guy, so I appreciate the help. I was having trouble with the bike wanting to idle too high once it warms up. Rewriting fuel maps for fuel-injection is so much easier :)
Hey man! nice bike! which mikunis are you running on that bike (gen1 or2?)?I replaced my carbs with the Mikuni Slingshot Carbs of the Triumph 900 sprint,easy peasy...and you get a little bit more power from them (20 years of carb development ahead...) cheers from austria!
Sweet. I particularly liked the clear audio capture in the first one and half minutes of the clip, as it demonstrates very well the engine note of that mid-'70s triple. Quite a distinctive tone, and unlike the triples of today - such as that of the Triumph 675.
Sounds great. Looks proper, from what I can see. Show folks a bit more. You'll get more likes.
nice sounds, I would like to see what the whole of your bike looks like, especially the exhausts
Sounds great!
Excellent 3 banger !
Was wondering does your bike always make that clicking noise I have the same bike and I hear it on mine as well so wasn’t sure if it was normal
Any details of the build?
I need this sound in my life. Sounds just like an air-cooled Porsche flat 6. Details on the exhaust system?
+waffle911 the exhaust is a 3-1 header (bought second hand) with a baffled stainless steel muffler on the right side. I've also since added an elbow between the two, that I had made with about a 20 degree angle, because the muffler was too low and scraped when I leaned right. Muffler was bought from dime city cycles. I LOVE the sound, but that carburetor is nothing but trouble.
I am told the center carb tends to be finicky and needs to be jetted differently from the outboard carbs. Turns out a buddy of mine used to own one before I knew him.
I'm also told the stock bike is really heavy and more of a dog in the turns than most cruisers tend to be, but his was also in relatively poor shape. Was this your experience and have the modifications significant;y improved the handling?
+waffle911 mine weighs about 630lbs wet
+waffle911 the handling will never match a modern bike with modern equipment, but I felt it was more than adequate for a bike of it's age. I rode it pretty aggressively around some nice sweepers. it's fine if you don't try to compare it to modern bikes. mine is also significantly lighter than stock and has new, fully adjustable rear suspension, so I'm sure it handles differently than stock. I knew it wouldn't be a performance machine, but I wanted to screw around with a 3 cylinder engine. it rides nice. the only problem is those damn carbs.
The unfortunate side-effect of removing the factory air box. Got an 850 Special for $1k a few weeks ago (thanks partly to your video convincing me I needed an XS triple), and it had cheap pod filters on it that were falling apart, the engine ran like garbage, and had issues starting up again after being warmed up. Sourced a stock airbox and NOS airbox boots (shaped like velocity stacks!) and the bike runs like new, and starts reliably regardless of how cold or warm the engine is.
Background: Without a box designed to direct air equally to all cylinders, the outboard cylinders get more airflow causing them to run stronger than the center cylinder(s), which causes uneven running. Jetting is not enough on its own, you'd either have to adjust the throttle plates to be less open on the outboard carbs (a complete pain to adjust and re-test on the twin Stromberg carbs on my four-wheeled Triumph, don't even want to try it on the triple Hitachi carbs on the bike, not even sure a carb synchronizer would accurately reflect the intake balance at speed) or use properly-sized restrictor plates on the outboard carbs to reduce airflow to match the center cylinder (similar pain, maybe capable of more consistent performance across the range than differently-adjusted throttle plates).
So, one of the ideas I've been toying with to avoid too much fine-tuning when deleting the air box is fabricating a baffle that surrounds pod filters to draw air only from the rear instead of the sides, functioning similarly to the air box without being so prohibitively big and bulky. But the bike needs other things tended to first. Like the fact it's a $1k XS850 Special with ugly cruiser-style tank and seat, and non-original narrow handlebars that put the controls far enough inboard to cause routing issues for the brake hose and clutch and throttle cables, and the mirrors unable to see anything but my shoulders as I'm riding.
That's all that was available in my area. XS750/850 Specials, no standards. At least this one is solid, runs, and legitimately passes state inspection for only $1k, even if I did have to redo the inline fuse holders they put in to delete the problematic fuse block to get all the signaling lights to work correctly.
Go up one step on your idle jets and synchro it with mercury sticks and you won't have to hurry off the stops any more. It'll idle great.
Scott Young I'm not much of a carb guy, so I appreciate the help. I was having trouble with the bike wanting to idle too high once it warms up. Rewriting fuel maps for fuel-injection is so much easier :)
Hey man! nice bike! which mikunis are you running on that bike (gen1 or2?)?I replaced my carbs with the Mikuni Slingshot Carbs of the Triumph 900 sprint,easy peasy...and you get a little bit more power from them (20 years of carb development ahead...)
cheers from austria!