[x-bird]

Spent the afternoon turning myself into a rolling, gas stinking popsicle. lol but got a few things figured out. Here comes the latest chapters (engine woes and steering) in my yerf book!

When i was porting the intake manifold pipe, i'm getting the feeling that while i did improve it, it wasn't the way i thought. I think the mix is getting much better atomization and the cylinder filling is way up to the point that rather than a larger jet, it wants less fuel because the burn is more efficient. The plug and tailpipe have very dry carbon soot on them, no wetness at all. I was worried that i might be getting fuel dropping out of suspension and washing the cylinder, but it'd be wet fouling if i'm not mistaken. I can "fluff" the soot from the tailpipe off my glove. Given that I have no jets to play with, I put a clamp on the fuel line and restricted it pretty severely. It ran best with it oh so close to stalling from starvation. while it still didn't reach a good burn level--still lots of carbon, it runs a lot better with more power--still down from the original way it ran though. I need to get an adjustable jet kit. It also ran better with the breather pipe disconnected, that was the first thing i tried and it improved it quite a bit. However, with the fuel restricted it didn't matter as much. The float level was also too low. The tec service manual states that all their carbs use 11/64 float clearance from the lip, this had about 3/16ths more than that. Otherwise, the carb is squeaky clean, no issues in that regard.
Yes, the throttle blade can go past 90 degrees and i was definitely choking it off with the gas pedal all the way down. Fiddled with the linkage another 15 minutes or so and got that sorted.

I moved the convertor to spring setting no. 3, suits my terrain better. I think this thing is more than a little "tired".

Thanks for the link, i'm pretty well versed in ackerman, but it always helps to visualize. I did keep my steering arms as close to 90 as possible, I can't get them inside the rims so I do pick up a bit there. Most of it is coming from the pitman being mounted on an angle. I've got crazy ackerman. The move of the steering rods up higher did help with reducing the effort, but made the ackerman so bad that the inside wheel was full lock and the outside was only 5 degrees off straight ahead ---i could not get through my woods at all, just understeered and plowed straight through the corners. I reset the rods to the lower point and it improved it. i also need to shorten them (i can take about 1/4 in. off the threaded portion on each end) so i can toe it out more. the tires are toeing in when the suspension compresses--really badly when driving into full width inclines aka jumps. It makes the kart want to dart off to whichever side compresses the least amount. The springs are way, way, way too soft as well.

All that said, i'm still happy with what I'm getting, this thing eats up rock outcrops like you wouldn't believe. With dual arms and a steering rack, and more and better travel at the rear it'd be first rate.

Durability factor?
Slammed several immovable obstacles (trees) with both the arms and the nose and not even a ding.