07 pIONEER 900, WILL NOT IDLE PROPERLY

[Slayr1]

OK, so I have a Pioneer 900 that is driving me crazy, It wont idle smooth its all over the place. If I lower the idle speed to far it dies if I raise it, it engages the clutch so I cant switch into gear, its just up and down and all around. The carb is new all gaskets and insulator block all new, it accelerates perfectly. Good gas, fuel filter etc. I am sure this isn't carb/gas related but I am at the point of strapping a few sticks of dynamite to it and running it off a cliff. I might get it to idle for 2 or 3 secs. then it drops out or accelerates and engages the clutch. I'm lost here! Any thoughts? Could it be a rev limiter? Its a FE350D-ES27 w/o ACR , Cart serial is AE0703-718360

[CP241]

Most FE350's had hydraulic lash adjusters, but I have seen some and had 1 that had manually adjustable rocker arms. It might be worth pulling the valve cover off and seeing if there's a nut on the top of the rocker arm to adjust valve lash. Should be set to .005

Did you use an OEM carb or an aftermarket? Have you tried adjusting the air/fuel mix screw on the top to get it dialed in with a lower idle speed?

I had a gator with a FE290 that was the same way. Ultimately it just took a lot of fine tuning and patience to get it to idle right. And you literally have to set the idle to where it allllmost dies out, but doesn't. Any higher and it will start to engage the clutch.

Also, the clutch spring may be worn and have lost some tension over the years. might be worth trying a new or heavier spring in it to keep it opened longer before it starts to close. I had a few different clutches for my gator and all of them had completely different springs inside of them. Now that i'm thinking about it, I also played around swapping springs out until I got it dialed in. It took a couple evenings of drinking and tinkering but eventually I got it to where it would idle all day long and shift perfectly. gonna take some patience though, they're finicky. I was fortunate enough to have a few clutches, so had a few springs to play with. Not sure how the clutch is set up in your pioneer, but you may be able to use some washers or something and preload the spring a bit to stiffen it up and give that a try before trying to order stuff.

[Slayr1]

CP241 thanks for the reply, I had a good clean OEM carb on it and when I could not get it to idle I got an aftermarket carb , both run the same, I replaced all the gaskets, the insulator block and no change. The clutch is brand new and the valve are adjustable and set at 5. I have spent so much time trying to tweak the idle mix and it's driving me up the wall. It acts like it's got an air leak but it doesn't. It will idle for a second then goes to crap and stalls out. Or it will pick up a few hundred rpm and engage the clutch. I guess I will just keep on tweaking it til I get it.