Maria is a hard rider. She loves her ‘94 FXR and takes it to the limit. She’s had
 her FXR for 10 years and was having some cylinder base gasket leaking. So we
 were going to just change out her gaskets.

 Once I got the heads, cylinders and piston’s off I noticed that Maria had allot of
 carbon build up on her pistons and heads. Carbon build up is due to unburned or
 partially burned fuel. Carbon will rob your engine of power, performance and
 fuel efficiency. A vehicle with excessive carbon build up will emit more harmful
 emissions into the environment.

 Also Maria’s spark plugs were black and this is often caused from over fueling.
 I cleaned the pistons and heads of most of the buildup. I reconditioned the
 cylinders to no avail, I was not able to get a good crosshatch pattern in the
 cylinders due to the wear of the Pistons and rings rubbing against the cylinders.
 Wear tends to create taper in the upper part of the cylinder that can reduce ring
 sealing and increase blowby and oil consumption if not removed.

  I called Maria and we decided to go ahead and bore out the cylinders and go with
 .010 over pistons. This should give Maria a bit more power as well as attaining
 good piston ring seal. 

 There was still the issue with the over fueling. I pulled Maria’s carb and rejetted
 it. Maria had the stock Mikuni jets in her carb and the accelerator pump nozzle
 was injecting too much fuel into the carb so we downsized to a 50 pump nozzle.
 We also put in a 98 jet needle, Mikuni’s leanest needle. The needle controls the
 air/fuel mixture. Maria said that her fuel efficiency was fine, but she should
 notice better fuel mileage with the new jetting and needle.

 When putting everything back together I also checked her engine alignment. It
 was off by 1/2”. Maria is a trooper for adapting to the misalignment. She said
 she hadn’t noticed any poor handling, but I couldn’t let it go. Engine misalignment
 leads to poor handling and could result in an accident or even death. I like Maria
 too much for that! (laughing) I check alignment on all vehicles that I do extensive
 engine work on. So I realigned the engine in the frame. 

 I took the FXR for a test ride and it was SWEET! Now I know why Maria likes
 it so much! I am expecting that Maria will notice a difference in handling, power
 and also in fuel consumption. I’m excited for her to ride it on Sunday in the
 “Frosty Buns Run” put on by Roadhouse, Post Falls, ID.