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Is an air/fuel ratio meter (A/F meter) necessary for tuning the FCR on the CBX1000? Yes, it is. Even if you are not working with a CBX1000, an air/fuel ratio meter is essential for setting up a carburetor.

I will be writing a column about the necessity of maintenance for racing carburetors. Please understand that my views may differ from conventional thinking. It’s likely that many people use racing carburetors in street applications without much consideration.

I will write about choosing racing carburetors based on my own biases. This is more of a column-type content and does not necessarily reflect knowledge from personal experience. Besides the Japanese-made racing carburetors mentioned in the title, there are also brands like Dell'Orto. As I love Japanese-made products for their easy parts availability, I will focus on domestic options and not cover foreign products.

Regarding the tuning of the FCR carburetor on the CBX1000, my recent trend has been to tune it to a slightly rich setting. If the optimal air-fuel ratio is 12.5, I aim for around 12.0, considering that the mixture might lean out when the throttle is opened.

FCRs have a wide tuning range and are said to be easy to set up... I sometimes see comments like this online, though I'm not sure how accurate they are. In my case, I've only worked on tuning FCRs for the CBX1000, so it's hard to say definitively. However, if you're doing rough and basic tuning, it is relatively simple.

When tuning the FCR on the CBX1000, I believe that comparing is important. Often, it's not possible to determine if something is good or bad based on just one factor. In my case, since I have an air-fuel ratio meter installed on my CBX1000, I can judge the performance based on the numbers. However, if the gauge is even slightly off, the readings may not be reliable.