Bad bones reeds bad?

[WFO Speedracer]

So I am looking for a set of carbon fiber reeds for my 550 reed motor,a set pops up on PWCT the sellers name is Seymore,he doesn't know what they fit.I look at them closely and have him measure the bolt spacing because they came with reed spacers.We decide they are indeed 550 reed motor reeds and I buy them at a reasonable cost.Let me stop here and say that I am in no way form or fashion trying to say anything bad about the seller,he has fair prices and excellent shipping and I would buy from him again and probably will,he's awesome. I install the reeds and something just doesn't look quite right,the reeds are curved on the edge and don't seem to fit the cages well.I put it together anyway and try to tune it in,it does not tune in like I want at all.So I am thinking well I ported the cylinder,put in new piston and rings,new crankshaft seals,changed the carbs,intake,reeds,exhaust manifold,pipe and put on total loss so its probably some where else,I try rejetting and it won't hold a setting,I fiddle with the total loss and it seems fine,no combination of jetting seems to work.So I pull the reeds for a closer inspection,they don't seal up at all,no way are they ever going to seal up,the damn things are just made wrong pure and simple,I put a set of stainless steel reeds out of a Tigershark in it this morning,kind of a last ditch effort to get some riding in this weekend,it sounds 100% better,I am going this afternoon and tune it in again.Monday I will order another set of kawi KDX 200 reeds and put in it,thats what I ran in it before and they worked great never an issue,they were ten years old when I replaced them.The good news is I got an awesome set of reed spacers for about the price of a set of reed spacers lol.:cool2:

 

[sflsurfrider]

why would you even try to run/tune it knowing that the reeds arent sealing against the cages?

 

[WFO Speedracer]

When I first put the reeds in they actually looked pretty good and as I said I changed everything so I had no baseline to go by,I was tuning the carbs and had the flame arrestors off and saw smoke coming back up through the carbs when I turned it off,a large wattage light bulb went off at that point.

 

[tom21]

you have lights coming on all by themselves? sounds like a ghost.:scratchchin:

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Kinda like that,I can see the light come on in my head but its not really there,or is it?

Any way that did not cure the problem ,something is still amiss with my total loss,That baffles me because this was a brand new total loss system,the pieces were still in the westcoast plastic wrap packaging when I got them.It could be a bad coil and since I have two with this system I am going to swap them out today and try it again.Fugging total loss!!!:261:

 

[SuperJETT]

It sounds like they are just old probably and the material has deteriorated. They are cut from material that is stored in rolls, so it has a permanent curve to it normally anyway. They're what, probably 15 years old by now?

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Yes probably the real problem is they were cut wrong,unless carbon fiber shrinks with age these were made totally wrong.

 

[Motorheads5]

I must be missing something here so what are you saying these reed's are bad bones reed's ?

 

[WFO Speedracer]

Yes Bad Bones reeds for a 550 Kawi reed engine.They also made heads,adjustable bearing housings,reworked carbs and exhaust resonators for the 550's,as well as some Yamaha heads and other parts,their main focus was the 650 KAWI engine,then later the 750.

 

[WFO Speedracer]

I found a wire which somehow got tucked back into the harness and did not get hooked up to the second coil ,that explains why the second coil did not fire,so hopefully I can eliminate the coil problem tomorrow as it has basically two separate ignition systems.That will only leave the auto cutoff switch to be bad if it still cuts out.

I officailly have two working sets of coils now,spark looks to be weak on both,not what I would expect to see from a total loss setup.That pretty much leaves the autocutoff switch to be the culprit,looks like I get to pull the engine and rewire the system for use without the switch,the battery is hot and the voltage going to the switch is the same as the battery voltage,no drop at all,if I loose some of this unecessary wiring,switches etc etc maybe I will get my spark back.