Choke Question (t300 Engine)

1997 Thunderbird 900, Mikuni carbs, professionally cleaned 2000 miles ago. Always 98 octane petrol to avoid ethanol.

This might not be an issue, at this point I’m mainly just curious. I’m old and used to carb’ed cars. My Volvo 240 has a manual choke, twin-barrel carb - never give it a second thought. A couple of hundred meters from home I can close the choke, and that's when it's winter.

On my Triumph though, I have to ride app. 2,5 miles before I can close the choke, also in summer temperatures, and the first 2 miles it’s running a bit rough. After that, the engine runs perfectly. As it is a T300, ’silky smooth’ would not be the proper term, but I don’t think it was much better warmed up when new. Also, if I re-start a half-warm engine, I'd better use a bit of choke again.

Is this what I should expect? Or is it something I can improve?

 

I guess you are right, after 20-30 years of use things may very well tend to act differently between bikes. Thanks for your comment. These are great bikes, right?