concours
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- Joined
- Dec 29, 2011
- Messages
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Cheap enrichener.I posted this in another thread, but as we’ve ended up talking Mikunis here, I thought I’d copy / paste it…
The single Mik vs twin Amals debate is like oil threads, they come up from time to time and are never resolved! IMHO it’s not about right or wrong, it’s different horses for different courses.
Mikunis are good, well made instruments that meter fuel well. They are also very cheap to buy, especially when only buying one!
As such, a single Mik gives good low to mid rpm running. Being a single carb, the ‘hassle’ of synchronising etc is removed (I used inverted commas there because for many, in fact most, synchronising carbs is not really an issue). The single carb is therefore definitely easier to get the bike idling well, getting good off idle throttle response, etc.
But there’s no question that they reduce performance above 5k ish. Comnoz showed it to be the manifold design that’s the bottleneck rather than the carb itself, hence different sizes of carb make little difference.
Its worth bearing in mind that when folk say there’s a loss of ‘top end‘ performance, it doesn’t just mean top speed, it means performance above 5k in all gears.
So, if you don’t ride above 5k anyway, then a single carb will not reduce your performance at all and of course, if replacing worn out or out of synch carbs, you’ll actually notice an improvement in performance.
However, if you’re someone who enjoys the benefits of revving their Commando to 6k, a single carb is gonna impact your fun factor somewhat.
Some people seem to struggle with the cold start on Mikunis as it’s a bit ON/OFF. I’ve got Mikunis on another Brit and I always start it and ride off ASAP not leaving it to idle, that seems to help avoid hassles when the engine temp is between the ON/OFF settings of the cold start system.
For a 3-stage enrichener on a VM, look to the snowmobile world. A few more bucks.
Follow the money.