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'81-'83 XV920 Virago V-Twins with Hitachi HSC40 Carbs

      This is the first and last of the Virago series with the XV920 engine the original style Hitachi HSC40s. Lots of people have huge issues with these carbs that I find can almost always be ironed out. The bike runs well with these carbs. A lot of kits available for these carbs are horrible. The carbs also have different tuning front to rear and some people get the cylinder placement wrong and set them up backwards. There are many other pitfalls, but they can all be handled and made to rumble the road again. Fun fact... Hitachi placed the ID number on the float bowls, so detective work is needed to ID as the bowls might have been changed at some time. Especially since the '81-'83 XV750 Virago is almost identical. I have seen almost every version of these early Hitachi's ('81-'83) on almost every model. They physically interchange with no mods. This is where the problem comes in with so many people complaining about how these carbs run. I find them to be fine for the applications, with no complaints on how they run. Even tuning for pipes and pods they work great. A person just has to scrutinize the initial set-up, everything. There is so much bad information about these carbs that it makes it near impossible for a person to set these up properly and KNOW they are correct. I have re-built plenty of these that were just rebuilt already and always find mistakes that you just simply will not notice if you don't rebuild a huge amount of them. Even if you have rebuilt plenty of other carbs, these can be a handful and very frustrating. Hitachi does not make it easy, some parts like needle jets/emulsion tubes don't even have a mark, the jet needles can shift position, the linkage can have issues, and so much more. They just seem so simple, it is hard to believe. Add in a lot of horrible kits and I can definitely see why all the Hitachi Virago carbs get a bad reputation. And please don't get me wrong, there are people who have successfully rebuilt these carbs, and do every day. However, there is a much higher percentage that got them after being mixed-up or crappy parts installed and are very close to making a carb shaped dent in the garage wall. I work hard to make it the last time you ever have to deal with your Virago carbs. Nothing fancy or exotic tips, just done right.

        Note: Starting in '74 Yamaha started year coding bikes in the last letter used in the name. You may see this code on your bikes paperwork or in a parts list or catalog.  I leave this off as it is redundant if you are showing the year anyway. There is a chart below to find your year code.

      Below is a pair of '82 XV920 Virago 10L-00 Hitachi HSC40  carbs. There were two versions of these carbs, one for '81-'82 and one for '83. They may look the same at first glance, but the '83 has a different bowl that they continued to use up to '87. This makes the body different and it also was the first year of the pressed-in idle jet.

    So when you look at the ID list below you have to consider this. You could have bowls from almost any other model (based on the two bowl types) on your carbs, even 750. So usually you have to do extra detective work for verification. Do not use the list below to implicitly ID your set of carbs.

'81-'82 XV920R Virago Chain Drive----------------5H1
'82 XV920 Virago-------------------------------------10L-00 (V in float bowl)
'83 XV920 Virago-------------------------------------10L-01 (no V in float bowl)
'83 XV920M Midnight Virago------Black-----------27Y