Titan 500 sluggish upto 2K RPM

Whit · Post by **Whit** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 9:38 am

Some of you may remember that when I rebuilt my 69 Titan I put on pods rather than the factory air box. The bike runs great as far as idling and seems to have great power after 2K RPMs but the bike seems real sluggish upto 2K RPMs. I have a yamaha enduro 125 that can beat me off the line up to 25 feet. Should the Titan have more power off the line and is this due to the need of different jets because of the pods? What about the carb needle ... is the 3rd slot still the right setting with the pods?
Thanks,
Pat

johnakay · Post by **johnakay** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 11:54 am

CHECK YOUR CARB SLIDES ARE THEY IN THE RIGHT WAY LEFT ON LEFT
ETC. OH BUGGER CAPS ON!
I did that on my old T500J in the 70s.

rngdng · Post by **rngdng** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 1:44 pm

Well, I don't think my GT500 would move at much less than 2K. It's not a trials bike! Rev it up and do some clutch slippage, and it'll go.

Lane

rbond · Post by **rbond** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 1:46 pm

My GT500 lives more in the lower rev range because of the routes I have to take to work, etc. Mostly 'cruise' at 40mph at about 2500rpm. It still does not idle the best, but even packing two it pulls good to what ever speed I want. So something is not quite right with yours, checking that the slides are in the correct carb is a good start. Since you have pods, you might try also dropping the needles one notch to see if off idle improves. If there is any change good or bad it would indicate this where you need to make adjustments at. Just my .02.....

debby · Post by **debby** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 8:51 pm

I have pods on my '70 T500 and it's always been a little flat just off idle. When I got the bike it was so bad it was almost unrideable. PO had the bike jetted too lean. All he did was put in some richer main jets and that has no effect at low throttle settings. Also the foam filters were dry. He apparently didn't know you're supposed to oil them.

Raising the needles did not help. That just made it too rich in the mid range. I went up a couple sizes richer on the pilot jets and that helped a lot. Putting some miles on the bike has helped too. It seems the more I ride it the better it runs. Slides with less cutaway might help but they're unobtanium as far as I can tell. The bike is running pretty good now but is still rather cold blooded and takes a long time to warm up. It starts easily though.

It's not surprising that your 125 can beat it off the line. The bike is geared low and weighs hundreds of pounds less. That's a lot less momentum to overcome. I used to have a TS185 and it was the same - it could beat almost anything across the intersection!

I bought a stock airbox for my T500 and would like to put it on some day, but I need a new boot and it's one of those weird ones with the angled mouth, another unobtanium part. So I'll probably just have to keep the pods. At least it's easy to get the carbs off! (Something I've done many times!)

Debby

Whit · Post by **Whit** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 8:34 pm

Oh crap, Debbie has just made me realize that I did not oil the foam pods before I put them on. ///Pat

Suzukidave · Post by **Suzukidave** » Sun Sep 06, 2009 9:29 pm

Some of these bikes are kinda fussy about intake resonance ,you may need to attach a straight tube between the carb and the pod type filters to get to run right.

jkevinlilly · Post by **jkevinlilly** » Mon Sep 07, 2009 7:00 am

Both my 550 and my 750 are "sluggish" below 2,000. I always just thought it was normal. Normally they are in that rpm range very little so I never thought about it until this post.

Kevin