I drilled 4 1/4" holes in the wifes exhaust this morning, now the bike won't go over 60. Bike ran fine yesterday. Wife is not happy.:mad:
Any help would be appreciated. good fuel and spark.'06 650 classic,just turned 1000 miles

Can you post pictures? It may help us understand.

Actually it was not the holes I drilled in the exhaust, it was the hole I cut in the back of the air box. Apparently it was getting to much air and running lean. I covered the hole and it runs fine. Will have to re-jet to compensate for the extra air
Thanks

Are you talking about something like this? http://vstar.brazilmission.net/ I was thinking of doing this. I wanted to do it before I rejet the carbs since I know it would have to be done anyway.

Yes, exept I cut the hole on the back side (against cylinder) so it could not be seen. I found out the hard way, it doesnt take much to get these things out of good running order

Are you talking about something like this? http://vstar.brazilmission.net/ I was thinking of doing this. I wanted to do it before I rejet the carbs since I know it would have to be done anyway.

I just drilled a 5/8" hole in the front of the air box and put a screen patch on the inside of the air box to keep debris out and secured it with silicone. I am not having any performance issues, except that I did pick up some acceleration on it. My buddy is no longer pulling away from me.

I now have two 5/8" holes in the front side of my air box and have improved on power and have no problem getting it over 60. I have attached a picture with the cover off and the first hole in it.

I actually ended up going with the MaxAir Predator Pro kit and Maxmix screws. My carbs were gummed up from the previous owner leaving it sitting around. I figured if I was going to pull them to clean, I might as well rejet and go with a full air kit. I was a little worried about whether I could do it myself but it was actually quite easy, Like they say, just follow the direction to a "T".Your mod does look cool though!

Thank you, Mike! Just a cheap mod until this winter when I plan on getting a real air intake like the Predator, rejet the carb and change the exhaust. How long did it take you to rejet the carb? How did you know what size needles to get for the carb?

The Maxair kit comes with different jets depending on your exhaust. It took me around 9 hrs of working time. I was working slowly and methodically and cleaning areas I couldn't get to before. My carbs were really bad from sitting a long time with gas in the chambers. They were really varnished. I wish I took pictures of them. I had to clean them good and replace a diaphragm so I changed both at the same time. The whole process is really simple and straight forward. The instructions are good, just make sure you follow them to a tee. I also would recommend using a vernier caliper like Max uses in his video. Don't buy his float gauge it is hard to measure where you need to measure at. I got a digital caliper at Lowes for $28 vs $45 for Max's gauge. Probably the hardest (and most important) part of the whole process is making sure your floats are at 14mm. With the caliper it was much easier to do. If you have any questions let me know. I can post some pics if you need me to. Keep in mind I did this on an 1100 Classic. I'm not sure how the carb setup is on a 650.

Mike, thank you for the narrative, I am almost feeling comfortable enough to do this. If you have pics, that would be great! I have an 1100 Custom, so it should be the same setup as yours.

Here is a link to the pics.
http://s730.photobucket.com/albums/ww308/cyblet/

I put the dogbowl back on because I like the way it looks. You can run permanent hoses inside it so it is easier to sync the carbs when you need to. It is purely decorational now. Really the predpro kit is easy to do if you are even slightly mechanically inclined.