Recent content by CaptChrome

Bravo! I guarantee that every attempt after this will be better, but you will never get good unless you start in the first place and a failure is still the way you will learn. The bike is starting to take shape!

If this ^^^^ doesn't help, check the spark timing and advance. Lack of balls across the rev range is also a sign of a retarded spark.

The crankcase to carb intake line is mostly to reduce emissions. It is not a reed valve, but simply an opening straight to the crankcase with some baffles in the path. This line doesn't need to be on the crankcase, but if you are not using it, plug the carb side of things so that uncontrolled...

Regardless of the plugs right now, the mix screw position and the hanging throttle comment sort of point to a lean condition and maybe an air leak. I my opinion, just putting pods on with the H-pipe shouldn't make that drastic of a change of idle fueling, so I would look at an air leak (carb...

Do what tstidham suggested first, but what oil are you using - is it rated for use for a motorcycle with a wet clutch? If the oil is not JASO MA or MA-2 rated, it may cause the clutch to slip.

Right on! +1 on this. Prep has to be extremely thorough for the sealer to last and work. I believe too many think sealers are the magic bullet to take care of rust scale when the truth is you have spend effort to get that crap out of the tank and down to bare metal before the sealer even gets...

Yup. They sell only OEM Yamaha parts - same as the dealers. I have used them all of the time after price shopping and never had a bad experience.

Welcome. You might get Yamaha cables to work from a different style of bike. I originally had buckhorn bars on my '81 XS400H Special II, but decided to go with lower bars that would be found on a standard. Luckily the '78 XS400-2E and '79 XS400-2F have the same wheels/engine config as well as...

You know, I forgot to mention one thing. People have had some luck opening up the TCI, cleaning them and repairing the solder joints that may have failed because of vibration. There are some threads on here as I recall and also lots of other things to read on the general internet from other...

Good move. The only way I know of to test what is up at this point is to swap in a known good TCI. If you know of other DOHC XS400 owners near you, now is the time to show up with a big smile, a case of good beer to leave and a small request from them. Otherwise, eBay is going to be your best...

They tend to idle higher when warmed up, but it could be the pilot jet is bigger than it needs to be. A couple of questions to narrow it down: - do you know what pilot jet is in the carbs? - how many turns out are your pilot mixture screws?

Welcome. Either the TCI is not connected properly or not working or the pickup coil is not sending signal to the TCI. I am assuming you have a good battery on the bike?

Welcome. While I don't have the DOHC bike, I have had my SOHC bike starter apart and can offer some opinions of how you might proceed. Mitsuba made a lot of models of starters for all of the Japanese makers. Some are four brush models (like the SOHC XS400s) and there are also two brush models...

Build a hidden fender hump into the seat pan to allow for the rear wheel to have full travel. It will also allow you to get the look you want for the seat without compromising the ride geometry. So you have to sacrifice a bit of seat foam in the very back - who is really going to sit back there...

So, here is the link I was thinking about: https://www.xs400.com/threads/81-back-running-now-what.20446/