• Husqvarna Motorcycles Made In Sweden - About 1988 and older

  • Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

1987 430 VM-38 Tuning

juiceball

juiceball

Husqvarna
A Class
Hello people, I would like some help with tuning my bike as it is such a labor to start it makes me not want to ride. When I'm riding with my e-start riding buddies I don't want to shut her down because seldom will she start back up on the first kick. Once she is running and the clutch is behaving, it's a feeling like no other bike, with the constant reminder of "geez I need better brakes."

Anyhow, the specs for the bike are:
All new bottem end bearings, oem bore and mahle piston. Leakdown tested overnight and it held 7 psi
Carburator has been taken apart 7+ times + ultrasonic cleaned.
32:1 with honda hp-2 and 93 octane pump
1.8mm BTDC W/ SEM ignition
(Tried 20:1 with some cam2 110 leaded and I think it was running pig rich, I gotta try again once she cleans her act up)
Dynoport exhaust with Answer silencer
(Recently repacked)
New UNI airfiter, lightly oiled
Sea level to 1000ft above sea level riding area.
2.5 slide
6DH20 4th from top on clip position
45 pilot
400 main
166 R-O nozzle
Air screw 1 1/2 turns out


I belive I have the starting procedure down pat. Slowly kick the engine over until your at TDC, make sure the kicker is as high as it will go and still engage, then jump and kick with 100% effort. I find it very difficult to kick it with my left leg. It's also very difficult to kick with my right leg while holding the throttle. (It feels like Im playing a game of twister on the leaning tower of piza, with a little attitude from the bike mixed in. Not fun.

On a cold start with choke she will make one combustion cycle then stop. Not a backfire just not enough to spin to life. After this it's choke off and WOT while kicking. This is the only way my bike will reliably start.

If it's a hot start I'll kick with WOT and it usually start up withing 1-4 kicks,

It seemed to coldstart better with the 110 octane.

It seems that on my ride when it was 80F out she was not fully responsive thru the rev range falling flat about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way thru the throttle range. My last ride where it was cool and later on in the day probably 60F out she was the best behaved ever. 3rd gear power wheelies and very responsive. Sometimes a slight hesitation at the 1/2 point which would happen when the throttle is slowly rolled on. If you wack the throttle past with any authority she would respond nicely.

The above symptoms are not what I'm requesting help (it would be appreciated however) for, I can live with this and slowly tune it out. The starting is where I need help as I am hurting my self and it's grueling starting her up.

What are your specs for the carb on a liquid cooled 430? Should I try a different pilot? Should I try tuning the airscrew?
Should I just wait until it gets cold enough for my bike to be on good behavior with the carb settings.

Sorry for the format this was sent from my phone.
 
I would take a look at the ignition system and make sure you have good grounds. Then pull the plug and see if you have good spark when its hot. When the coil is going bad it may start easy when cold but not so good when hot. What is jetting from factory? When in doubt start from stock and make changes in small increments at a time.
Bill
 
Bill502 said:
I would take a look at the ignition system and make sure you have good grounds. Then pull the plug and see if you have good spark when its hot. When the coil is going bad it may start easy when cold but not so good when hot. What is jetting from factory? When in doubt start from stock and make changes in small increments at a time.
Bill
Click to expand...
I am currently adjusted to the factory carb settings. I really don't think it's the stator, as I see a nice blue spark provided it getting kicked fast enough. I really don't hope or think it's electrical. I think an aftermarket CDI might help but it's not the root cause. I should check my timing again because last time I did was before my first start. Wouldn't she stop running entirely if a ground was disconnected from the ignition system?
 
Not sure if it would run if ground was disconnected..Is it possible your clutch is dragging upon restarting. Try restarting in neutral as you said it has good spark if spinning over fast. Does your bike have primary kick start?
Bill
 
Bill502 said:
Not sure if it would run if ground was disconnected..Is it possible your clutch is dragging upon restarting. Try restarting in neutral as you said it has good spark if spinning over fast. Does your bike have primary kick start?
Bill
Click to expand...
I can only start the bike in neutral, primary kick means left side kicker right. If so yes.

I don't think the clutch is dragging at all. I measured it and it was within spec soaked prior to installation. I can wack the throttle in 4+ gear and not detect any clutch slippage. I belive the carb is what is giving me trouble.
 
Primary kick means you can start in gear with clutch lever pulled in. Maybe check for air leaks when hot around intake system. I spray carb cleaner or WD 40 around gasket joints while running and if idle speed picks up you have an air leak.
 
Bill502 said:
Primary kick means you can start in gear with clutch lever pulled in. Maybe check for air leaks when hot around intake system. I spray carb cleaner or WD 40 around gasket joints while running and if idle speed picks up you have an air leak.
Click to expand...
In theory it should be able to start in gear with the clutch pulled in, I don't have the horsepower to do that though.
 
Your jetting looks like what came stock based on the parts list. I couldn't find timing specs. Where did you find the 1.8mm BTDC spec? Are you sure this is correct? I had one these bikes in the 90's and have no memory of it being a pain to start, although I have 36" legs so .........

I ran across this HVA Service Bulletin on how to test a Sem Ignition. If you haven't tested it already maybe doing so now will shed some light on the starting issue.
 

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Crashaholic said:
Your jetting looks like what came stock based on the parts list. I couldn't find timing specs. Where did you find the 1.8mm BTDC spec? Are you sure this is correct? I had one these bikes in the 90's and have no memory of it being a pain to start, although I have 36" legs so .........

I ran across this HVA Service Bulletin on how to test a Sem Ignition. If you haven't tested it already maybe doing so now will shed some light on the starting issue.
Click to expand...
You definitely have longer legs than I do! Thx for the sem testing sheet. I should do that soon. I got the 1.8mm btdc from this forum and many anecdotal reports. I belive the manual specs 2.4mm btdc which is too advanced. I might advance my ignition up to 2mm btdc.
 
juiceball said:
I got the 1.8mm btdc from this forum and many anecdotal reports. I belive the manual specs 2.4mm btdc which is too advanced. I might advance my ignition up to 2mm btdc.
Click to expand...
Moving the timing further from TDC will make it more difficult to start but will improve performance, to a certain extent. Sounds like 1.8mm is an optimum found by riders with 430 ownership experience, therefore a non-issue in your case. I came across another Service Bulletin that indicated reeds thinner that .015 must be replaced. The bulletin was published in 1978 but may apply to all swede Huskys. It may be worth looking into regarding the starting issue on your 87 after you have verified your SEM is functioning properly.
 

Attachments

Crashaholic said:
Moving the timing further from TDC will make it more difficult to start but will improve performance, to a certain extent. Sounds like 1.8mm is an optimum found by riders with 430 ownership experience, therefore a non-issue in your case. I came across another Service Bulletin that indicated reeds thinner that .015 must be replaced. The bulletin was published in 1978 but may apply to all swede Huskys. It may be worth looking into regarding the starting issue on your 87 after you have verified your SEM is functioning properly.
Click to expand...
My boysen dual stage reeds have less than 1 hr on them. I belive they are within spec still. What do you think of the vforce v3 reeds?
 
They have a heavy slide and vibrate. Given enough use the carb basically gets worn out. I rode a 500 enough that the idle screw threads failed. Close up the plug gap a bit might try. Sorry to be so negative. Is one of those jets the needle jet you knock out from the bottom? I changed that on the 430 auto when it was in use. Electric not popular but eliminates such problems.
 
Your starting procedure sounds about normal, but maybe w/o throttle being open.

Does the motor run backwards from time to time my 86 430, would & vibrate like a paint shaker, when used at high RPM's , causing a bunch of loose bolts/screws. But even with that, it still started on the 1st kick.

Did adjusting the timing help?
 
fran...k. said:
They have a heavy slide and vibrate. Given enough use the carb basically gets worn out. I rode a 500 enough that the idle screw threads failed. Close up the plug gap a bit might try. Sorry to be so negative. Is one of those jets the needle jet you knock out from the bottom? I changed that on the 430 auto when it was in use. Electric not popular but eliminates such problems.
Click to expand...
Ya know the carb could be tired, I did not think of this. Any suggestions are appreciated!
 
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