$32 for an E16 jet needle?

[ecurbruce]

I cut some needles for a vintage mikuni mv 26 I was trying to use on my monza 250. The needle tuning was successful, but other elements of that carb were not suitable to my engine. ( it got replaced with a new mikuni vm26 - )
Cutting the needles was not that hard, ya just cut away everything that's not a needle. The hard part is knowing what to cut off. I used the shank from a 1\8th inch rivet for the needles and I chucked it up in a couple of drills, one to drive it and one coasting on the other end of the shank to hold it steady, then clamped the drills in two vices, turned on the one that is driving and began cutting. Knowing what to cut off is the problem to tune it to what your carburetor and engine requires. The documentation for that is out there, and the most useful information all in one place on this topic  I found in the victory library. http://victorylibrary.com/MIK-BT.htm , Supertuning Mikuni VM 26 by Jeffery Diamond. It's not a free book ( less than $ 10. download online) but lots of valuable information. There is also books on that site for amal mono bloc and concentric carbs, but I haven't read them.

Note- the needle shown mounted in the slide in the photo is the one that worked best...

[Jordan]

I've never made a jet needle, but have found a good way to measure them, taking a leaf out of the SU needle identification book:
Paint the needle with marker pen, then lightly scribe it at regular intervals - say every 2mm - starting from the bottom edge of the lowermost clip groove. Then use a digital caliper (much quicker for this job than vernier type) to read off the diameters, which can be compared to known needles.
They may or may not have a single taper angle along their length.

Jordan

Addit: Best to scribe the marks at the same spacing as the clip grooves. Then the measurements will still be meaningful at different clip positions.