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10 Things We Lost on Modern Motorcycles (www.youtube.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/motorcycles@lemmy.world
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[–] 12 points 3 months ago (16 children)
  1. Piss poor charging systems.
  2. Really really floppy frames.
  3. Carburators

We should do a list of stuff that should be brought back, I'll start.

  1. Carburators
  2. Kickstarts
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  • [–] 21 points 3 months ago* (15 children)

    Oh, fuck a carb 7 ways to Sunday, EFI is a million times better

    I get the thinking, but carbs are 19th century black magic that only strange people truly understand, and most of them died decades ago (I say this having cut my teeth working on carbs...ewww). Haha.

    That said, bike carbs are way simpler than on cars.

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  • [–] 13 points 3 months ago (10 children)

    That said, bike carbs are way simpler than on cars.

    This suggests to me that you have not dealt with a 4 carb setup on a 4 cylinder bike before.

    Never fucking again.

    Unless I stumble on a cherry CBX1000. I'd make an exception for that glorious 6-cylinder monstrosity.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (7 children)

    Or a bike that has multiple tuned carbs per cylinder that have to be balanced together. Thanks BMW.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Why would anybody design something like that?

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    BMW is like wha ha ha ha

    Hold my beer, or whatever that is in German.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (2 children)

    The reasoning was: Less cylinders, higher torque, but not enough space for big complicated carbs.

    So we'll just put more smaller carbs! Yay yay yippee it works. Ship it. In the next model they kept the same carbs and doubled the cylinders. Power increased with basically the same weight.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 child)

    Oh I see, they didn't want to design a carb specificly for a single cylinder they didn't make multi-cylinder versions of, and so sticking 2 restricted carbs on was cheaper to design and start manufacture, even if it was more expensive per part and required more maintaince.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I have, and those carbs are still far simpler than on cars.

    Balancing can be fun (figuring out why the hell does this one always pull more mercury, and how do I balance so they're all reasonably similar).

    Have a bike like this currently.

    But bike carbs don't have the crazy vacuum lines everywhere, or an EGR system mucking things up.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago

    Never did have to deal with a carbureted vehicle with EGR. Lucky me I guess!

    4 CV (vacuum operated) carbs on a 30 year old inline 4 cylinder bike is where I topped out. There were definitely several dark magic ceremonies required to get those to run well (at all throttle positions). God forbid you want to change the intake setup.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    My point of view as connysewer of cheap and disposable bikes, is that a carb can be fixed with a screwdriver on the side of the road. A GOOD efi will enter limp mode and get you home, but I don't do good bikes...

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    I've had way more failures with carbs than efi.

    I've had EFI run for 20 years with zero issues, on a single vehicle. Zero maintenance, not even sensor replacement.

    One current vehicle is from 1985 and the EFI still works flawlessly... A 1985 EFI.

    Once EFI transitioned from analog to digital, lots of little gremlins just went away. They became a lot more consistent and robust.

    I've owned early analog EFI... Whew, talk about a persnickety system.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    I had an Isuzu Trooper with an early multiport EFI setup on a 2.6 4ZE1 engine. It basically ran on controlled vacuum leaks. The easiest way anyone ever found to fix it was to remove it and swap in a carb setup from a 2.3 4ZD1 engine. I decided that when coping with a 1980's Isuzu the most effective way to solve all your problems was the radiator cap solution: Remove the radiator cap and hold it up, then drive another vehicle under it. Put the cap back on and it will run better.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago*

    That said, bike carbs are way simpler than on cars.

    The problem here is multiple carbs.

    My personal favorite is the carb setup on a Suzuki Intruder 1400. One down draft and one side draft. The idle speed is linked together with a cable. No vacuum nipples to put your guages on, but that's ok the guages won't help anyway.

    Or I could ride my nightster with it's EFI.

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