I have been reading on here recently that carbs that aren't balanced properly effect the running of the bike greatly.
I've always set mine up by eye, others I know set them up with drill bits, but is it really nesscessary to buy a set of vacuum guages to do the job right?

no way round this one without guages bud, you will never guess what carb to adjust or which way to turn the screw , they will probably end up worse than before if you even tried to do the job without guages .

do the vacuum gauges plug into the blanks in the inlet stubs?

Yes you get adapters with the guages normaly 5mm and 6mm , the best ones for the money are the morgan carbtune rod type in my opinion they are better than the davida dial guages .

Yep Kev's right.

Balance them by vaccum, it's the only way to take into account the air-box and cylinder variances.

3 of the cylinders you remove the screw and washer and screw in adapters, the one cylinder you use the take-off for the vaccumn hose (so make sure you still have fuel goign in!)

Yeah I balanced my brothers fazer ages ago but he borrowed the guages and I never got using them but I rarely hear anyone on hear talking about them

royster81 wrote:I have been reading on here recently that carbs that aren't balanced properly effect the running of the bike greatly.
I've always set mine up by eye, others I know set them up with drill bits, but is it really nesscessary to buy a set of vacuum guages to do the job right?

I just noticed your starting statement.

I wouldn't say 'greatly'

You'll get a shitty, lumpy idle like you have a bad plug and possibly what sounds like 'clutch rattle' with a bad idle.. if its' really really off you won't be able to turn the idle down all the way.

at full throttle it has no effect as all the carbs are open fully.

balancing mainly smoothes out the idle.

best to have em balanced though, bike sounds rough without it

aint the carbtune company based in belfast? or in NI enquire about a group buy id buy some if they were cheaper!

Rory from my short experience with four strokes I would go with the vacuum gauges every time, tried the so called drill bit method and ended up getting the carbs balanced by a mechanic.

Group buy? I'd definitely be in on that, I'm bidding (and losing) on a couple of sets on eBay right now, they're just a bit too dear for something I'll use once every year or two.