What does the "E" mean ? Jetting changes?

[randaroo]

1. what the heck does the E on the end of my GS1100E mean? What should the jet sizes be?

2, Next question: Carb rebuild kits, what, where, how much? The bowl gaskets seem dry as heck and leaked as soon as i turned the petcock back on after about 5 years leaning against the basement furnace.

3. Q: Is it a no brainer that discarding the airbox for aftermarket filters makes for a better bike and acces to the batterry or is that stupit?

4. Q: I have a Kerker 4 to 1 with a tiny can on it, crazy loud. i'm fashioning an addapter for a large muffler (Yamaha 4SV ) to shut the f#%'n thing up. what jetting changes should I make?

[GS1100ez]

E is the model pachage

just like on vehicles there are limited and laredo, and what have you

on GSs there are E, L, GK
E-more sport orientated, chain drive
L-more mid sport cruse shaft drive
GK- cruse shaft drive

3-it does make it eassier to get to the battery im told, you will have to rejet with pods tho

4. youll have to buy a kit with multiple jets and figure out what you need

2-not sure on

ill prob have people come on and adjust my answers anyways

[Griffin]

1. what the heck does the E on the end of my GS1100E mean? What should the jet sizes be?

2, Next question: Carb rebuild kits, what, where, how much? The bowl gaskets seem dry as heck and leaked as soon as i turned the petcock back on after about 5 years leaning against the basement furnace.

3. Q: Is it a no brainer that discarding the airbox for aftermarket filters makes for a better bike and acces to the batterry or is that stupit?

4. Q: I have a Kerker 4 to 1 with a tiny can on it, crazy loud. i'm fashioning an addapter for a large muffler (Yamaha 4SV ) to shut the f#%'n thing up. what jetting changes should I make?

Welcome to the forum. I suppose Cliff will be around soon enough to give you the "formal" welcome.

I suggest you set aside about two hours of time some evening, make yourseslf a good tall drink of your favorite beverage, and scan through six years of technical data on this site before jumping into anything with both feet.

There are at least ten threads that answer all of your posted questions, plus hundreds more that will answer even more questions you will have as you proceed on your resurrection project.

Good luck with your project. We want pictures.

[Larry D]

Welcome !!
I guess you jump right in with questions on your first post......How 'bout some info on you and your bike. We like to get to know our new members.

Griffin gives great advise. Use the search feature !! There are years of questions and answers in there. I personally would recommend getting your bike stock, with airboxes and jetting. Then ride it for a season before deciding to change to pods and re-jetting. But, that's just me. Good Luck !!

[Steve]

First of all,
As mentioned by others, BassCliff will be along shortly with the full Welcome Wagon bit.

In the meantime, let's attack your questions:

1. what the heck does the E on the end of my GS1100E mean? What should the jet sizes be?
1a. The E is the model name, like the "Impala" in Chevrolet Impala or "Mustang" in Ford Mustang. If you look at the full model name of your bike, there will be another letter after the E. If you have an '82 bike, it will be a Z, an '83 would be D. This would make the full model name GS1100EZ or whatever. More information is found in this article that is found on the home page of this website.
1b. The stock jet sizes are found in the "carb sticky", which is the very first post in this tech forum. Since you are in Canada, the info in post #15 might interest you.

2, Next question: Carb rebuild kits, what, where, how much? The bowl gaskets seem dry as heck and leaked as soon as i turned the petcock back on after about 5 years leaning against the basement furnace.
2. Carb rebuild kits? Forget them. Most times, the only useful piece in them is the bowl gasket, and you can get that far cheaper from the dealer. A better choice is to get a can of carb cleaner dip, if it is available in your area. A favorite brand is Berryman, but Gunk also offers a decent product. Follow the inscructions in the carb cleaning series and don't take any shortcuts. If you do, you will only be coming back to do it again, but correctly. While you are dipping your carbs, contact Robert Barr, a member of this forum, and order new o-rings for the carbs from his website, www.cycleorings.com. This kit and the can of dip will be less than half the cost of a set of four "rebuild kits". The kits frequently offer lesser-quality items that will cause problems of their own.

3. Q: Is it a no brainer that discarding the airbox for aftermarket filters makes for a better bike and acces to the batterry or is that stupit?
3. There is no arguement that it will be a different bike, but better? Depends on what you are after. Yes, access to the battery will be better, but why do you need access to it so often? If you need to change the battery (and, after 5 years of leaning against the furnace, it's about time), spend a few extra dollars, get a sealed AGM battery (that's a type of battery, not a brand), charge it properly, install it and ride. Since it is sealed, you will not have to worry about checking fluid level in it at all. Now you can install the airbox ONE TIME and be done with it.
If you were to change to pod (aftermarket) filters, you will then have to re-jet the carbs to match the additional air flow, and that creates yet another headache. More on this topic in the next answer.

4. Q: I have a Kerker 4 to 1 with a tiny can on it, crazy loud. i'm fashioning an addapter for a large muffler (Yamaha 4SV ) to shut the f#%'n thing up. what jetting changes should I make?
4. Kerker might have another baffle available if the Yamaha muffler does not work out. Since you seem to be more interested in quiet than outright performance (thank you ), you might also keep on the lookout for a set of stock pipes. If you retain your stock airbox (see item #3) and go with stock exhaust, your stock jetting in the carbs will work just fine.

When you have your carbs apart to be cleaned, note the sizes of the jets, compare them to the stock jets in the carb sticky. If the jets are stock, your bike is probably running lean (not a good situation) with the Kerker header on it. If the jets are larger than stock and you go with pods, they will have to be larger still. If you stay with the stock airbox and go with stock pipes, the jets should be changed back to stock sizes.

[woodman]

Something I just thought Id mention on the carb cleanings. If you go to any music shop that sells guitar strings, for a buck each you can buy wire strings from .009 - .018 which are really handy to use to clean the small openings in motorcycle carbs. You can get thicker ones but you really dont need them. Its really handy for a set thats set with gas in them

[Zooks]

E stands for Extremely cool bike.

[marz]

ummm if its a stock bike already ? is it?


and its in good condition? is it?



then get a collectors plate for it !

and then you would pay about 350 -400 a year insurance..

then do your mods. and keep quite..!

[Clone]

OK, the E is the cool standard style of bike.

The L is the lame wants to be a cruiser but isn't bike

The ES is the half fairing model that is not quite yet a "rice rocket" still kinda cool though

[randaroo]

5. Oh ya and one more thing, there is a lot of crackling from the exhaust when decelerating hard, with the Kerker can is that just normal (loud) or is it a sign of leaky exhaust valve(s)?
6. Annd another: oil seep at the case seam in the front, quick fix or Grinn and Bear it ?

[TheCafeKid]

5. Oh ya and one more thing, there is a lot of crackling from the exhaust when decelerating hard, with the Kerker can is that just normal (loud) or is it a sign of leaky exhaust valve(s)?
6. Annd another: oil seep at the case seam in the front, quick fix or Grinn and Bear it ?

The back popping on decel is common on bikes that arent tuned to the "T" for the pipe/pods combo. HOWEVER, unless you are a glutton for punishment and really really like tinkering with carbs, OR have some really awesome equipment like a exhaust gas anylizer you may never get it tuned to the letter. Now, you NEED to make sure the bike isnt overly lean, but its natural for the bike to lean out a bit on decel. When you chop the throttle you are creating a large vaccum pull in the motor, as the slides and/or butterfly valves are now closed or very nearly so. While there is this massive draw, there is no flow thru the venturi's in the carbs to draw fuel from the float bowls other than the pilot circuit. At high revs, it simply isnt enough fuel to keep the bike running at proper air/fuel mix, so it leans a bit, popping thru the pipe. tleast thats MY take on it. Some of the carb gurus may know better or disagree. There are carbs out there, which ive actually seen a set of on a GPZ1100 a guy I know used to have, which actually have DEcelerator pumps in them, that give just a mist of fuel on decel to help prevent the leaning. Now, MY GS1100ES (yeah the one thats not quite a full on rice rocket with the little fairing) pops a bit on decel after putting the whip to it, but I know that my bike isnt overly lean, and Im not one that simply LOVES tinkering with carbs. So, i live with it.

[Nerobro]

First, "L" bikes aren't shafties. G means shaftie.

E = sporty chain drive
ES = Half fairing chain drive
EF = Full Fairing Chain drive
L = Cruiserish chain drive
G = sporty shaft drive
GL = cruierish shaft drive
GK = Fully dressed shaft drive

Jetting is usually the same between displacments of the same year. That is, you'll find the same jetting on a 1983 GS1100 e, g, gl, and gk.

Something I just thought Id mention on the carb cleanings. If you go to any music shop that sells guitar strings, for a buck each you can buy wire strings from .009 - .018 which are really handy to use to clean the small openings in motorcycle carbs. You can get thicker ones but you really dont need them. Its really handy for a set thats set with gas in them

Bad move. Guitar strings are steel. Jets are brass. Steel will easily carve into brass causing rather major jetting changes.

[mighty13d]

Bad move. Guitar strings are steel. Jets are brass. Steel will easily carve into brass causing rather major jetting changes.

right, there is a good suggestion in the carb rebuild pages that shows how to use a wire from a wire brush. You can always find a brush with brass wire or just be careful with the steel one. thankfully a wire from this will not gouge out the jets like guitar string since it isn't spun.