desmog?

[ricoman]

so I got the kit from Rich (the full kit on ebay).
Have talked to a local Honda mechanic who thinks I should leave the bike stock.
Have read a lot of posts here about the benefits of doing the desmog but am now concerned if it the right thing to do.
Would appreciate hearing thoughts on both sides of the issue.

[KCvalk]

All the "smog" kit does to the valk is to route potential unburnt gasses back into the crankcase to be burned again and sent out the pipes.  There are many on this site that don't think it does anything really, but is put on to appease the gov regulators.  Having done alot of reading on this site about the desmog, the problem with all that stuff is really that it causes more problems than it fixes.  With vacuum lines open and hoses coming off it seems to be a "PITA" fix more than a real mechanical modification. Plus it cleans out alot of crap under the air box.  Here in Va we don't have emissions tests for cycles so I plan to do this at the end of riding season.  If your state has emissions for cycles then prob not a good idea cause you will more than likely fail it.

Its personal preference really,  i have had to to deal with a few open lines already and just want it gone cause i'm tired of dealing with it.  Some claim there is a HP increase of 2-3  which i don't really care about.  For $10 in parts and an afternoon its an easy fix.  Once the air lines start cracking and drying up you will curse the day you didn't do this because vacuum leaks really effect the bike, and you don't want to be in middle of nowhere or even 15 miles from home with a vacuum leak from a cracked hose.

[Udo]

I did the desmog, and would anytime do it again. But i´ve not noticed a change in hp. I think if one has more hp after the desmog, something was wrong with the system before the desmog.

[Tundra]

I did the de-smog, just because I'm a orderly systematic type guy. Makes it easier to chase down vaccuum leaks with less to check. I really wanted to "get to know my bike" This was the first thing I did, and did not notice any difference in how the bike ran or performance    
 However, with all the Mods combined over the years, the bike definately runs better than new now.
  Recommendation, When I first did this I capped my vaccuum tubes. I was still chasing down leaks and the caps blew off several times. (pita)
Then I did it right and removed the tubes and put the 14mm freeze plugs in. Problem free ever since. If your gonna do it, do yourself a favor and do it right one time.  
  I believe if you've got vaccuum problems now, you may eliminate them by doing this, therefore it will  seam to run better, or really as it should have. I've done this on three Valkyries and not noticed any performance gains unless there was a pre-existing vaccuum problem.

[Tropic traveler]

Here ya go. This is what you lose from the Valk with a de-smog.



You will gain nothing from a performance standpoint but you will minimize the decel popping that is common with the Valk. Other benefits are several potential vacuum & exhaust leaks eliminated along with a cleaner, cooler top of the engine area.
I made my own desmog kit with freeze plugs from NAPA, vacuum caps & new petcock line from Red-Eye Tech {great folks BTW} along with my trusty Snap-On MIG welder to weld closed the chopped off bottom of the head line. Done 2 Valks now, very happy with the results. Rico, since you are in FL there are no governmental hassles to deal with either. I think there is a post from last week or so that one member here passed his state emmisions test with no problems on his 1997 Valk totally desmogged.
 

[woefman]

Hello Quick Question On Desmog

It has been my observation ( this maybe just my way of interpreting some info ) (remember these bikes
are somewhat old classics and a lot of the info could be old....not saying not useful but rather some posts
may have been trial and error or early stages of desmog until the latest greatest  Desmog tricks came out).

Having said that and I hope I did not confuse anyone. Just Looking from the outside

as a newbie here .

It apears to me there was a Early or you can call it a Stealth Desmog I guess.

Then the FUll Desmog . (hard parts removed)

Am I off base here , Im asking for my own personal understanding.

I see it both ways works , but removal of hard parts has the greatest advantage in terms of

freeing up space.

My Point is I want to  do the Major Desmog, and after extensive reading and searching
it gets confusing , because I have yet to see a kit that has the freeze plugs and to me
if there was only one way to desmog then that would most likley be the most important
part of the kit , because worse case scenario one could clobber together any vacuum line
along with golf tees for lack of better word.

Another words kit is darn near useless without the freeze plugs ...unless the kit is designed for both

either a stealth desmog or full desmog less the freeze plugs.

Long winded and i'm sorry . I just like to be clear and aprec any and all comments.

Flame suit ready tooo LOL

[Andy]

Wish there was somebody close to help me do this. I don't feel comfortable attempting this by myself.

[Spirited-6]

Hello Quick Question On Desmog

It has been my observation ( this maybe just my way of interpreting some info ) (remember these bikes
are somewhat old classics and a lot of the info could be old....not saying not useful but rather some posts
may have been trial and error or early stages of desmog until the latest greatest  Desmog tricks came out).

Having said that and I hope I did not confuse anyone. Just Looking from the outside

as a newbie here .

It apears to me there was a Early or you can call it a Stealth Desmog I guess.

Then the FUll Desmog . (hard parts removed)

Am I off base here , Im asking for my own personal understanding.

I see it both ways works , but removal of hard parts has the greatest advantage in terms of

freeing up space.

My Point is I want to  do the Major Desmog, and after extensive reading and searching
it gets confusing , because I have yet to see a kit that has the freeze plugs and to me
if there was only one way to desmog then that would most likley be the most important
part of the kit , because worse case scenario one could clobber together any vacuum line
along with golf tees for lack of better word.

Another words kit is darn near useless without the freeze plugs ...unless the kit is designed for both

either a stealth desmog or full desmog less the freeze plugs.

Long winded and i'm sorry . I just like to be clear and aprec any and all comments.

Flame suit ready tooo LOL

WOULD YOU PLEASE NOT POST ANYMORE. KIDDING. You have totaly WTF me up. I`m soooo confused ! I think I would like to desmog my 98 Tourer, 21,500 miles, but not sure now. My Valk runs great, no popping on decel, 38 to 41 MPG, the way I ride. I guess it will be "wait and see" what happens down the road.  

[ricoman]

I was doing ok till I saw all the parts that tropic showed that came off after a desmog (I doubt mine has that much crap-is he messing with us?).
Then woefman goes off on his soapbox that I can read but not understand- I am with Spirited6 on this.
I'm gonna say it all makes sense (just so I don't come across too stupid)
I will be doing the desmog next week. (or 3-but I'll get thru this!).

[Madmike]

The desmog is relatively straight forward when you get into it. The pile that is shown is what you get off the bike, with a few exceptions the pieces are repetitive in that there are several tubes that do the same thing.   

I have done it and used the frost plugs and had no problem, I got 9/16 cup style frost plugs from a local industrial supply store for a couple of bucks. 

Get the instructions from the old tech archives - I believe that itt was Quexpress that had a good write up amongst others. 

While you have the tank off you may want to also consider the quick connect for the fuel line at the same time if you don't already have it, (available from RedEye) it makes it so you have a quick connect hose fitting rather than having to pull the gas line off of the tank and get it and the little clamp back in place.

[Tropic traveler]

Rico, don't let the pile of parts scare you off!
Hardest thing on the job to me was pulling the tank & air cleaner. If you get the right parts the de-smog is no problem & will last forever. I did forget in my previous post to mention you will need a big vacuum cap or some other method of capping off the nipple on the bottom of the air cleaner.
A general overview of the job:
Pull tank & air cleaner assy.
Pull both side engine guards.
Remove all the vacuum lines from the system.
Remove the chrome pipes {6} that go to the heads. It will be appearent how they come off. Note: you will have to chop up the 2 pipes that go to the bottom of the head to get them off unless you pull the exhaust. I was reusing the "foot" of the bottom pipes as a plug for the bottom ports so I didn't care about saving them.
Remove the black valve with the big 90* hoses.
Remove the 2 "log" looking manifolds. A 10mm wobble or a 10mm flat wrench will have to be used to break some of the hold down bolts as the carb rack X-member is in the way.
Reassmbly:
Clean the 4 top holes out & sink the freeze plugs down until they "seat". I used a 1/4 extension with a loose fitting socket. If the socket fits the cup too tightly it will stay in the freeze plug when installed.
Cap the unused nipple on the bottom of the air cleaner.
Cap the vac nipples on the intake runners. Use the Red-Eye Tech caps with the little wire clamps. The parts store caps never lasted long for me. Also install your new petcock line on the proper runner nipple.
Cap the bottom port with whatever kit you have.
Reassemble your Valk & ride!

Some people feel squeamish about using the freeze plugs only to cap the top 4 ports. I have over 30,000 miles on my '97 with no JB Weld or epoxy in the ports, just properly seated cup plugs.
I JB'ed the ports on Kim's '98 just to have a way to attach the chrome "beauty caps" that I bought for her bike. They were the wrong size . I thought a nice different thing to do would be to JB some nickels on top of the ports. Sure woulda been cheaper than paying $1.10 each for the stupid chrome caps I bought!
It aint no big deal!

Top of the engine after desmog.

[ricoman]

thanks, Tropic.
I didn't get to it yet-next week for certain.
Can the chrome tubes be capped and left or do I have to go with freeze plugs?-that is really the part of the whole thing that is slowing me up (scaring me off?).
I do have the kit from Rick and also the fuel disconnect.

[Grandpot]

Rico:

When I did my desmog, I didn't like the idea of cutting off the tubes either, so I plugged them.  Just stick a plug into the short hose on the end of the tubes.  I've been running like this for over 10,000 miles and it works fine. 

[Patrick]

in a desmog only needs to read Normands [Quexpress] article in shop talk or the archives.. Its the best one out there in all of Valkyrie Land.. If you're not a God-fearing person , you will be when one those caps blows off because you took the easy way out and didn't do the complete and proper desmog.. I doubt you will regret doing it..

[mirion]

 I just did it this past weekend to my IS, my hands are still sore but it went well , started right up afterward. It is pretty amazing how big a pile of junk you have afterwards. I  found four 9/16 softplugs at the auto parts store, bought the three pack of vacuum plugs (used 2) and a new petcock vacuum hose from Redeye (as well as the fuel disconnect he sells, it makes putting the fuel tank on and off a lot easier) and followed the Quexpress write up which I found to be the most complete writeup out there (thanks Quexpress). I also reused the  two pieces on the end of the chrome tubes that are bolted to the exhaust as Tropic described only I filled it with JB weld and bolted them back on. The hardest part in my opinion was getting the front chrome tube off, it has to be cut in two or three places and then pulled out between the block and timing assembly. ( I used a Dremel with a cutoff wheel) The airbox reinstall wasn't as bad as I feared, I used the method someone described where you "hog-tie" all six of the hoses together with string towards the center and then cut the strings when you get it in, then thread the six clamps in after you have the six hoses seated. I took off the exhaust, crash bars and several other things, you just go wrong giving yourself as much room to work as possible.  I think removing the smog is a wise thing to do, so many potential leaks. It was intimidating at first but became very obvious what you were doing as you progress thru it. As a mater of fact I will definately be doing it to the 97 Std as well, just not until winter.