Leaner vs Richer Setting On Carb

[P2skater1]

My spark plug has black residue on it, which means I'm running my carb to rich, correct? And if so, I'm going to adjust it to make it leaner. Is a leaner mixture going to decrease my bikes performance though? Or will it stay the same/increase?.

 

[crassius]

old school wisdom was 'rich for power, lean for speed'

living at bottom of canyon, I like it to be just a bit on rich side

 

[P2skater1]

old school wisdom was 'rich for power, lean for speed'

living at bottom of canyon, I like it to be just a bit on rich side

And which way would I have to move the ring on the pin to get a more lean setting? Up or down?

 

[gary55]

Up.

 

[Timbone]

Keep in mind that the needle clip setting affect mixture for roughly 1/4 throttle to 3/4 throttle. That’s most of your riding. If you are bogging at WOT, or otherwise think you need to lean out at high throttle, that’s controlled by main jet. You lean out at 3/4 to WOT by moving to a smaller main jet.

 

[crassius]

changing needle position will definitely change the idle - seen several with idle screw in to the stops and setting leaner will allow idle to be screwed out several turns

before changing jet at WOT, I'd first try changing float level