colortune colorblind

got my colortune the other day and i am having a terrible time on differentiating the difference in color in blue the leaner i go. i have no issue telling orange to blue but after that im just dumbfounded. and this headcold isnt helping with telling rpm changes. so what i did was find out where orange went to blue and turned in 1.5 turns. do you think this will be fine?

 

{Edited to remove yet another brainfart} Turning the screws in is going leaner. Best practice is to go from lean to rich, not rich to lean.

You want bunsen blue. Start at 2.5 turns out and gently bump the pilot screw until you get it. You have to go slow and let the color stabilize. If you get to white you have gone too far. Most carbs end up at around 2.75 turns out from a soft seat. A little too rich is not a bad thing.

 

+1.

I don't use the color tune often, but when I do I turn it to where it just switches from orange to blue.

I find that I can't see much difference as I go leaner, and I don't want to be there anyway.

 

Thought orange was rich? I haven't actually seen white which is probably the issue im having. To me it's seeming the same color blue all the way to 0 turns. I guess to mention The bike has a 4-1 exhaust instead of 4-2.

MiCarl. I was actually wondering if i could do that. I didn't know if that's too rich though because in the manual it Says to find that point then a point where the rpms decrease and find the middle point and that's your setting.

 

You're heading lean rather than rich. Back it out until you see bright orange then start going in.

If you don't see orange by 5 turns out you've got some things to look into.

 

My carbs go from orange to blue At about 5 1/4 turns. But i can't find my 2nd at when the rpms die to find the middle. This cold i had has my ears messed up

 

Why not wait until your cold clears up before fiddling with it any more. You probably won't hear the idle drop at all with plugged ears (and honestly most people can't hear the idle drop on one cylinder of an aircooled four anyway). If you see a good blue at 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 turns out you are more than close enough for safety, and will have a fuel/air mix that will give both good power and good economy.

 

well i had been running it at a 2.5 for a week or 2. and i thought she ran like a beauty. but i was scared of too lean and melting my pistons. so i uped it to 3.5 today.

 

• I might as well throw in my 2 cents worth. I have an 85 XJ700 N which is absolutely stock right down to the air filter. I started at 2 1/2 turns and the flame was blue and the plugs got black and sooty. After trying for about 2 months, Chacal mentioned that the 700's were tuned a little lean at the factory, and that the best proof of the proper mixture comes from reading the plugs. Frustrated, and knowing that once a plug gets black and sooty it's hard to read any changes I decided to start from a lean position and enrichen just enough to get the proper color plugs. Using the colortune plug I turned the pilot screws in until I got the white flame and then opened them just enough to get a blue flame. Then I installed new plugs and rode 50-60 miles and took a look at them. As needed I opened the pilots further--no more than the thickness of a dime or less--road another 50-60 miles over the next few days and read them again. Doing this I was able to get a really good setting and really nice looking plugs. The bike runs better and the mpg is better.

Now all that being said, I don't ride hard or fast for long periods. I'm not sure if I've ever been over 7000 rpm's more than once. If I were riding it hard I might add a little more richness to it, but right now both the bike and I are happy.

 

We're only talking about the idle mixture, it has almost no effect when the throttle opens even a little. The only way you can judge it by plugs is to put a new set in and let it IDLE for a period. Riding it will mess up your readings.

 

Android? search the google play store for "tachometer rpm". there's a few there but i haven't tried them yet

 

That is a good way to generally tune, though, in all carbed applications.

 

My research indicates that the pilot system is the main fuel source from idle up to about 1/4 throttle when the main jet and needle start to become more prominent and at WOT it's almost all main jet. However, even at WOT the pilot system still provides fuel, even if a small percentage, and on my bike--XJ700n--it is the only thing that can be adjusted. If it's providing too much gas at idle, it's providing too much at any rpm resulting in a rich mixture. When I finally got the pilots adjusted correctly my mpg increased from 35 mpg to about 42 mpg.

 

i am android but i have searched for an RPM thing and i dont think ive found anything of interest to be good enough. i dunno maybe im just not focusing on color much but i honestly couldnt tell the color that day. maybe i was just flustered. ill give it a go in a couple days and keep all your 2 cents in mind because its more than what i had

 

Wanted to ask what is the best procedure / steps to ensure the color tune provides a perfect seal at the spark plug hole since the torque for installing it is so low - 1.6 ft-lbs for 14mm plug or just hand tight. Is the copper washer really going to work at that low torque setting if there are some slight ridges, pits, bumps, etc on the head?

Is it possible that if a perfect seal is not obtained then air drawn in would make a good mixture appear overly lean?

 

Just a tip I like to use the color tune in low light it easier to see the color change. My neighbors think I'm crazy seeing me work on a running bike in the garage with all the lights off.

 

lol, makes sense, though!

 

Could be, but probably not. In any case, the final determination will be reading the plugs--at least it was in my case.

I hand tighten with the plastic socket that is used with the mirror.

 

The copper washer will seal the colortune plug. Torque it just as you would a regular sparkplug. I anneal the copper washer after each use (each use being wone bike's worth of tuning), to ensure that it remains soft enough to seal well.

 

an·neal
əˈnēl/
verb

1. heat (metal or glass) and allow it to cool slowly, in order to remove internal stresses and toughen it...

I couldn't find wone...