Into the carb

I had mentioned previously that upon my return from Vegas I picked up the
bike at the dealer and found that it didn't seem to run right, only to find
out that he rasied the needles by .5mm. Well I gave it a try and just
couldn't get used to it. It bogged down a little at lower revs, and had
poor throttle response until I was up into the higher revs. I also found
that it was getting harder to start and a couple times the bike died on me.
I'm chalking this up to fowling the plugs with the new needle setting. Last
night I decided to open up the tops of the carbs and undo what was done.

I've never been into one of these Keihen CVK carbs and was somewhat
suprirsed, although I really shouldn't have been, to see that the needle is
moved up and down by a diaphram. I'm used to the Amal's on the Triumph that
have the needle and slide attached directly to the throttle cable. Anyway,
it turns out that raising the needle by .5mm was simply a matter of putting
very small washes on them so that they sit in their seat a little higher.
At least this is my assumption as I saw no other means of adjusting them,
like the clips that I'm used to, so all I did was remove the washer from
each needle.

So far 've taken it around the block last night and to work this morning and
I'm much happier, much better throttle response at lower rpms and doesn't
"sound" like it's running rich or bogging down. Just to make sure I
couldn't conclusively say that it was the needle position, I put in new
plugs at the same time. She's back to running the way that I was used
to and is currently sitting out in the parking lot at work in the rain. I
guess I"ll be removing the timing cover for a little wipe down after work.

From a personal experience I'd say you did find your problem. Dyno jet kits
have the clip washer your talking about for raising the needle.

I used a washer under mine and had the same thing happen your talking about.
I had my idle mixture screw out 3 turns so I thought I'd richen it up a bit
by raising the needle. After it running to rich and having the same symptoms
your talking about I opted for the Sportster needle then I was able to drop
my main jet down one size and my idle mixture screw was able to be out only
1 3/4 turns.