baby vara, no guts issue

[Pommy]

Hi, I bought a 2001 baby vara, it was running oksih but there was a little lack of power, yes it is only a 125 but i have ridden a friends of the same year and it has more go...

Anyway i thought i would give it a service, no oil and filter, new air filter and a set of new plugs, now it's even worse.. The air filter i took out was filthy, clogged and a little damp with what looked like oil from the engine vapours.

I took off the carbs and they stunk horrid even though it had not been stood and had recently been filled with fresh fuel, I cleaned them out even though there was no gunk anyway. Still no change.

I took it for a ride for 40 minutes, came back and checked the new plugs, the rear plug was very sooty, the front almost white. This sound like mixture is wrong but i never touched any settings on the carbs and, like i said it got worse after the service and before i even took the carbs off.

So, anyone got any tips, maybe the carbs need balancing or something ? I'm stuck here.. I know my way around a bike engine but never had a v twin before.

[Ratmanc]

Does it pop on deceleration? If so it could be running lean. Changing the air filter is going to alow better airflow and more air into the mix. Try a little richer?

[Taught2BeCautious]

It could be that someone just adjusted the mixture to compensate for a blocked air filter, rather than change it - and now that you have changed it, it is not running right.

I would start with a good clean-up and a compression test and go from there.

[Pommy]

I was thinking about mixture but those screws are not easy to access being on the bottom of the carbs.

[AnotherHonda]

They aren't even easy to access with a proper tool, that said the Motion pro bits are a poor fit to the KeiHin adjuster.