- Joined
- Aug 6, 2005
- Messages
- 1,211
I am curious after years of reading lists and forums and seeing the great debate of a single mikuni come up time and time again, why no one really ever does a single 32mm amal. I bought, not to long ago, as a back up plan, a single amal manifold to bolt on to the head and fit a stock 32mm amal carb for my commando. After finally getting the dual carbs to work right and riding the bike for a nice long weekend I sat and thought about practical use of the bike and future adjusting and problems and if I really wanted to have to mess with the carbs or ride the bike happily. I have never liked the looks of a mikuni on a British bike, only my opinion, sorry if that offends, but I just don't like em. From what I've read and the one I do have on my single Ducati, they are more dufficult to set up than an amal, there are more components than an amal. So I sleeved an old 32mm amal, modified the idle curcuit so it is accessible, put in a new needle and needle jet, set the air screw to the book at 1.5 turns out and kept stock jetting, bolted it on because I needed to see what , if any performance differences I would have and guess what. For "my type" of riding, street riding, norml speeds 0-80 mph, 0-4500 maybe 5000rpm's I had absolutely no difference in performance. It does idle better and it only took about 20 seconds to make sure it was set right and it was road ready. I figure I have eliminated about 80% or more of any carb related issues I may have in the future from a cable binding, stretching or slide doing the same. I don't have cable routing issues and a well set up amal is a beautiful thing, so simple, so functional. So I spent 50 bucks for the sleeving, 14.00 for the needle jet and 8.00 for the needle and I'm good to go and the bike still looks stock. I bought a used air box plate and modified it for one carb and even have the horrible ugly space filled in that a mikuni leaves open like something is missing. So the question is. Why hasn't the single amal been a hit and why the mikuni such a rave. I appologized in advance if this post offends anyone who is pro mikuni or a dual carb purist, but I've tried all of the options successfully and the single amal is so sweet and easy I just didn't get why I'd never really heard of the single amal option.