cowpuc

Here's my take on lowering with spring height instead of raising the forks in the trees Mike. The problem with cutting down the preload on the springs (cutting the spacers) to reduce overall height of the scoot is that you are essentially reducing the amount of travel that you have in your front suspention. I suppose that the arquement could be made that raising the tubes in the trees actually changes the steering geometry but,, I have a hunch that reducing the travel by allowing the tubes to travel into the fork legs (increasing sag) will have the same effect because the forks move at a rear ward angle when they compress too.. I think if it were mine and knowing the type of riding I do (pack heavy, get a little off roading in once in a while so I need all the travel I can get) I would be inclined to move the forks up in the tree's even if I had to get short set of bar risers to make the job doable.. Another thought,,, I have found that on my 1st Gens that I ALWAYS swap in Progressives on that when I do go with the Progressives I NEVER run air in my forks.. If I am understanding you here (thinking your shrader's on are the fork caps?) = I think I would consider removing the shraders and capping the holes and see if the fork caps would then fit.. Wonder if the flat caps off a 1st Gen would fit your scoot and give you the added clearance you need?? I know,, ol Puc is all ,,, all comin from a good heart though

My nephew bought a brand new one in 06. It was the "S" model with all the xtra chrome.. Nice scoot that served him well. He sold it to his brother a couple years ago when it had just under 35k on it.. I rode it quite a bit while Jon (nephew) had it = nice scoot!! I know that he did do the aftermarket seat routine as he and his wife toured a little on it and found the OEM seats to be to hard. It seems like a couple of the few issues he complained about was wishing it had a taller 5th gear in it (thing was a torque monster = could have idled at 70 with a little gearing) but told me that they did make taller pulley's for em - he just never got there with it.. I know he also bought pipes and a tuner = this did increase it's performance although stock it was very good IMHO (comparing his Strat to the new Venture (both 113 inch) = I still think the new Venture is 10 or 15 HP down compared to the stock Strat that Jon had - seat of the pants comparison = combined with the Venny being a LOT heavier,, the Strat FLYS compared to the 3rd Gen IMHO). If I recall the stock bag locks had some kind of issues = seems like the tumblers liked to go south on em if not careful. Also, because of high torque = hard on rear tire and oil change method was kind of time consuming. Definitely a VERY worthy scoot and have seen them around on our local Craigs for very reasonable $'s = 3500 to 5.. Jon talked about 3rd gear issues and lifter issues for the early ones like his but to my knowledge, never had a problem with his!!

anybody understand Polish?

and then a few still shots of us with Pawel just in case those vids failed to make it!!!!!

As long as we are running into technical difficulties with no end of problems in sight,, lets double the trouble, see if I can REALLY mess up our club house and try for part 2 here ..

,,,,,,, how bout this one? Is this any better? Sorry bout that gang!!

While heading to the Rally wayy back then, the three of us passed this perfect example of a real biker out living life large.. After passing him I told Tippy that I REALLY needed to rein in Tweeks a little and go back and take a short video of this person and his bike!! Later (watch for part 2 of this video if your interested) I was VERY glad that I did as we got the chance to find out more about Pawel's very interesting ride plans!! DEFINITELY THE REAL DEAL HERE I TELL YA!!! Hope all is well out there Pawel!!! Tip, Tweeks and Puc!!

Right back at cha, you are more than welcome Duey and thank you for moving this over to the Water before either of us became guilty of stealing each others song with our easy form of !! Turned into a very informative thread IMHO!!!

Here is another interesting point... These springs are OEM stock "ink pen springs" that are being sold as used parts = notice in particular how they are wound = look just like an ink pen spring IMHO: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Yamaha-Royal-Star-Venture-XVZ-1300-Fork-Internal-Spring/381883488429?hash=item58ea0798ad:g:IpUAAOSw-0xYQMnv&vxp=mtr and now a quick peek at a progressively wound fork spring.. Notice the difference?? That tighter winding at the end of the spring makes for a much more progressive and gradual increase in stiffness as the spring compresses and makes it very difficult for the spring to abruptly come to stop at full compression.. Word of note,, I am not sure this is correct but I have always installed those gradual increasing windings to the bottom of the fork when installing. Also, with the 1st Gen's = the OEM ink pen springs are much smaller diameter on the wire of the spring.. Definitely worth swapping out IMHO. Here is the comparison pic: https://www.ebay.com/itm/11-1144-FRONT-FORK-SPRING-YAMAHA-XVZ-1300-TF-Royal-Star-Venture-1999/322544642189?hash=item4b1928a88d:g:uCEAAOSwZ4dZNnvE&vxp=mtr

Grubs,, a quick shop on Ebay revealed this selection of Progressives for the RSV: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=sonic+springs+YAMAHA+VENTURE&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xfork+springs+Royal+Star+Venture.TRS0&_nkw=fork+springs+Royal+Star+Venture&_sacat=0 Also,, here is a thread that you might find interesting.. Lots of RSV Guru chatter happening in here IMHO: http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?19608-Front-Fork-Sag/page2&highlight=sonic+springs

Sup Duey!! Because it's much against my upstanding club etiquette allow me to apologize too for participating in another .. Back in my early days of MX'n after Yamaha invented the Mono shock and our MX scoots got some very serious suspention, the whoops got deeper and the jumps got farther apart.. During that time period it was not uncommon to swap out fork fluid between heats to refresh the suspention. I discovered by hap err chance (always playing with the scoot) that ATF was actually a very very good alternative to Belray Fork Oil and about 1/4 the price. It got to be a fairly common practice around the tracks.. By the mid 80's Honda was actually specing ATF for some fork applications in the dirt world and their engineers declared ATF as a 10wt Fork Oil.. Something to remember about dirt bike suspention (and other track bikes, like modern day MotoGP sport bikes = R1's-Gixxers and the like, as well as some uppity street bikes) is that the forks are usually equipped with "clickers" that adjust the shims/orvices that restrict the oil flow thru them that create dampening. On my Gen 1's (and quite possibly on the Gen 2's too) there are no clickers and long ago I played with "dialing in" the forks on my Venture after replacing the OEM springs with Progressives.. Having no clickers to dial them in with and not seeing the advantage to tearing my forks apart to try a reshim/reorvice in forks dampner rods so I could change the fork oils every weekend like I use to do on my MX scoots - I decided to play the Fork Oil weight game and increase/decrease the dampening effect thru oil viscosity (this is another very common practice and why there are multiple Fork Oil viscosities in tiny increments).. Thru testing, for my ride style, I found 12.5 weight to be perfect when utilized with Progressives and no air added. I have also found that in a pinch, 20 weight Fork Oil used when incorporated with partially sacked out stock Ink Pen springs can slow down the damping enough to keep the forks from bottoming out harshly giving me a chance to get some Progressives installed and keep from ruining the dampeners and having to get into a fork job.. As far as using 5w-20 motor oil? ,,, never tried it.. I personally dont see where using a multi-grade oil would be advantageous when used in a hydraulic fluid application.. If I found myself in the need of Fork Oil and in a bind - I think I would look for a straight viscosity motor oil to use instead but - on the same token,,, I would definitely try the 5w-20 before running em dry!!!!!! Bottom line - in our day and age, Fork Oil is plentiful and highly purposefully engineered.. I would definitely advise to use nothing by Fork Oil for Fork applications.. I know,, I could have said that right at the beginning instead of writing that thesis like I did but I figured I may as well make this a good one as long as you and I are risking getting put on probation anyway The End

In it's purest form, the sag height on a scoot is spring dependent. The oil in the system is used for dampening purposes = the oil is forced thru shim stacks or other forms of orvices that dampen by restricting the oil flow and therefore slowing down the bouncing up and down that would occur if you were running just springs. IMHO, all things being equal = meaning the forks on both scoots are set at the same height in the triple trees, the bike that sits the highest (least amount of sag) with no air in them probably has a set of aftermarket springs in it and the one with the most sag has stock springs in it.. I have no experience with the 2nd Gens so I am sort of going out on a limb here in my reply but I can tell you this - from the factory Mom Yam used what I call "ink pen springs" in the front forks of the 1st Gens.. I say this cause if a person opened up the forks on a 1st Gen and removed the fork springs and laid them next to a set of,, sayy,, Progressives - that person would INSTANTLY see the difference. Quite frankly,, I always theorized that Mom Yam probably had stock in Bic Ink Pen Inc. and had access to their over stock of springs = it's that obvious.. It would not surprise me to find similar ink pen springs in the Gen 2 like you are having fun with. Bottom line, if it were mine I would pull the springs and replace with a good set of aftermarkets (thinking "Sonic" springs may just be another brand of progressively wound springs? Not sure,, maybe someone who really knows what they are talking about will chime in and set us both straight ). Drain and refill the forks to spec with a good 12.5 weight fork oil. On my 1st Gens one of the things I never had to fool with again after doing what I am talking about here is running air in my forks. In my case (and this may be due to some extreme pounding I have put my forks thru) I noticed that my fork seals seemed to last longer if I refrained from using air over the hydraulics in my forks (no longer put any air in my forks). I also right away when ever I switch from stock springs to Progressives that my Ventures come out with a whole new handling charm - THEY LOVE TWISTIES and dont bottom out on rough roads even when two up!!

I know,, sounds insane don't it!! The one I got 16k out of was the sister bike to the one in the pics and was wayyyy before I ended up with the 79 in the pic's. It was back in the late 90's and in a totally different day and age for our industry = flat out crazy fun times IMHO.. Believe it or not, folks were paying 50 to 70 thousand for cookie cutter Choppers with HD Evo copy cat motors in em (TOTAL INSANITY IMHO) and I was putting together Amen plunger and Santee Hardtail 750 SOHC Chops at the time and offing them for 12 to 15k too.. Just nuts in the mind of a person who didnt live thru such nonsense!! The most fun I had back then was with the little hard tail (round badges drew the biggest $$ with the 1st year white grippers seeing 7 to 10 grand for an original clean bike) Honda Mini Trail 50's = little scoot's I had been working on since my early years in biking, nothing to em but WOW did they fill the cash drawer!! I was averaging 5 to 7 grand a pop on those little restored Mini Trails! Most Harley shops back then were more than a year out after ordering a new bike for a person, they could not build bikes fast enough and the Sturgis Rally was going NUTS too!! During the rally, I-90 was coned off and 2 mile lines of bikes backed up waiting to get into town = only way you could get in was to wait for someone to leave = bikers were actually camping on the sides of the highway!! Definitely a different day and age - a GREAT time to be in the business and a fun time to be a biker!! As far as the CBX's, they were VERY collectable and extremely valuable too as long as it was the 1st year model and a clean original example! Not unlike the mini trails and many many other collectables - prices/values between the first year model's and others were often tremendous but I am sure that a stock, clean 82 model CBX back then could have seen 6 to 8k. I was fortunate - had been in the industry my whole life, took the time to toss a 4 year degree in Business in my tool box so I sort of knew how to run a business and I lived/breathed and loved bikes well enough (about all I was ever really good at) that I became a master "cherry picker". A couple other prime examples that I also did really well with back in the day were the 1st year Honda 750's = these were known as "The Sand Cast" because they actually had engine cases that were rough cast in sand. I once sold a motor out of a sand cast that I pulled from a junk yard and rebuilt for 11k = just for the motor. Still another real good example were the 1st year Kawasaki Z-1's = WOW were they valuable (not to far behind were the H1 and H2 2 strokes)!! I shipped numerous ones of those back to Japan at 10k a pop in ANY shape as long as they were 90% complete or better!! Domestically, those bikes sold for 12 to 18k all day long for original bikes and about the same for a nice restored one. Also, a word of note here,,, a good original set of exhaust pipes for either the early SOHC 750 Honda or the Z-1 would easily see 7k = just for the pipes and those little Honda SL350 pipes (because they were upswept too and rotted out quickly) were seeing 3k for set too!! Here is another example that, quite frankly, still has me shaking my head in wonderment, I also got involved with shipping containers of Harley AMF Shovel Heads to Europe.. As far as HD goes, those AMF Shovels were the most unwanted HD's of all time (main line HD's and excluding the Sporties) but the folks over in Europe couldnt get enough of em!! Pic em up here for 2.5k, fill a container and send over there @ 7k each. Here is the rub in that one,, the top of the line model of those Shovels = the FLT Tour Glide with the fixed fairing (now known as the Road Glide) were absolutely NOT wanted or a sellable commodity in my world.. Couldnt give the dog gone things away even though they were actually the best of the best that HD offered back then IMHO and, to this day, that fixed fairing, twin headlight scoot is the highest dollared bike they sell (excluding the trikes) and folks that own em love em!! Ya got me on a roll here while taking a walk down memory lane Geo... Wowzy,,, here is another good one that popped into my tired ol beaner just now.. One time back in the early 90's I grabbed an H1 triple at a yard sale for a hundred bucks.. The guy I bought it from asked if I wanted to take along the 6 crates of parts he had sitting in his shed for it.. Of course, I said of course... I get home in the garage and find out that one of the boxes of parts is half full of those little pre-formed oil lines for the H1's and included the bottom of that box was layered in H1 igniter boxes (CDI's).. aWhen Ebay took off I had one of my employees sort out that little box of oil lines into "oil line kits" and stuck em up on Ebay @125 bucks a kit.. I had dozens of kits and they sold out in less than 2 days!! Not to long ago I noticed those same kits selling on Ebay for $15 and free shipping.. WOW how times have changed = I NEVER did free shipping ,, - of course my employees didnt work for free either!! Capitalism at it's finest! That's my story and I'm stickin to it!! Puc

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeppers brother,, I too have experienced what you are talking about many many times over.. I am not smart enough to know exactly why this is but I do have another theory about it = basically developed from some experiences while riding the endlessly amazing, all powerful 1st Gen Ventures.. Having the prowess of being able to take total control of countless situations by having the ultimate choice of either backing off and letting those riding/driving under powered machines duke it out or simply blowing past them to instantly find that relaxed position on the open road where Tip/Tweeks and I are once again on our own is amazingly relaxing in and of itself. I equate what we are talking about here with some experiences I had while playing basketball in High School years ago.. We took our divisional championship one year and, depending on how bad the other teams were that we played, I ironically I always noticed how much more worn out than us they appeared by the time the game was done. We worked VERY VERY hard for our team "hp" during those days = our Coach was a maniac slave driver that ran our socks off = making game day more like a vacation than an actual game!! Run, run, run, run, run!!!!! It occurred to me during those days (and I even said this to my team mates) that we never really did play much "defense" but were always on "offense", basically we owned the "court" no matter where we were playing = we were in control!!. This would leave the weaker team on defensive for the entire game and that,, in Puc theory anyway, was why they were so beat up and worn down when the day was thru and we were ready to go right back at it..

No idea if anyone else caught this but this Kawi is dynoing those numbers out of a tiny little 1000cc's of a motor and this thing is DETUNED from the track bike = flat out amazing IMHO!!!! Also,,, even though they have not released the MPG numbers,,, I gotta hunch they are gonna be amazing for what's going on here..

Personally Sky, I totally get what your saying and am right there with ya but, What I still dont get though is why, in these modern of modern internal combustion engine days cant we have the absolute best of both worlds in our motorcycling experience. IMHO, I would be thrilled to see em drop the big dollar info system nonsense and invest in supercharging technology coupled with electronic HP/TQ delivery control along with lean angle for superior cornering monitoring stuff and advanced ABS. Flip a switch, vein angle on the supercharger changes - cam profile changes - ignition curve changes = MPG goes sky high = 75 MPG while maintaining a docile 75HP/90ftpd,,,,,,, toss the switch again 200 hp/200ftpd.. We wanna putt we can putt and we wanna FLYYYY we can FLYYYYYY all on one bike!!!

:scared::scared:,,,, flippin nock the wind out of me just :scared:at that puppy Bay!!!!! and a GAZIZZILION 'S TO YOU BROTHER! Dear Mom Yam,, please fire Arlen Ness or who ever you hired to design your bikes and hire our club member Baylensmen to head up that department!!!!

I LOVE my R1 for it's completely amazing shear performance value but never,, in a zillion years would I even remotely consider all out touring on it - even though the thought of rippen across the endless nothingness found in area's like Nevada, Montana, Wyoming and testing the salt in Utah on it sounds like fun and has crossed my mind.. Now I notice Kawasaki's latest take on the "Sport Touring" industry = WOWZY WOW WOW WOW - watch the vid = that guy just said 197 horse !!!! While definitely not a direction I will ever be going in,,, I am certainly way impressed witH what is going on here in the way of boosting.. I LOVE what I am seeing here and still,, to this day,, gotta say that I was for Mom Yam to participated somehow in the cutting edge of what is happening here with the new Venture.. Like that application or not,, I honestly believe that Kawi is onto something amazing here in there engine design efforts.. LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!!!!

BEEEEEUUUUUUTTTIFUL Bay!! Do you take requests?? How bout hackin in a 1700cc V-max motor into one of the new Ventures just so we can ....

I think this ? was aimed at you @bongobobny,,,, and I think it has something to do with a motor you were having done??

Absolutely fascinating story Sky!! I have been reading Bill O' Reilly's book called "Killing Patton" and am about 3/4 thru it = also amazing... To bad we were not ready to listen to General Patton (just say NO to Stalin about his future plans for taking over Europe).. Thanks for sharing BlueSky!!! Also,, THANK YOU for your service to God and Country in the continual exhausting effort of keeping evil from destroying our way of life!! Thanks brother!!

Many many years ago,, like wayyy back in the 90's,, out of the kindness of his heart, my Doc of that time does a routine Prostate exam on me. Also includes the PSA on my blood tests.. Prostate felt normal to him but the PSA came back at like 1.9. Says he wants to just keep an eye on me,, peeing good at the time.. Good Doc except he has fingers that are 2 inches in diameter. Then he hires a new P.A. that is a girl = long skinny fingers.. Next scheduled Prostate exam I was asked if I minded having the P.A. do the exam = much better!! Years passed, PSA kept climbing in tiny increments.. Three years ago Doc at U.of M. noticed a P.S.A. spike during follow-up blood tests for brain fluid leakage into my sinus cavity = sounds crazy dont it? Still peein fine,, family Doc puts me on some stuff called Saw Palmeto or something like that.. Worked fine,, dropped back down into the slightly elevated.. Then I end up getting a Pace Maker installed and the heart guy finds micro blood in my urine on a totally unrelated blood test for surgery pre-op.. Tells me he lost a good buddy to Cancer a few years ago that had something similar happening and it didnt get pursued.. Sends me to a Urologist friend of his for further exam.. Urologist redoes lots of same exam stuff.. Tells me he does feel something on the left side of the Prostate and, with slightly elevated PSA, wants to do one of those 16 pin prostate cancer pokes and a bore scope into my bladder.. Comes later with, yep,, Cancer but very very low on the "Gleason Scale". My daugher is a Doctor and a HUGE part of her work is Cancer study. She has me gather the slides from the biopsy and I send them to her.. She flies here to meet with our Urologist and to compare notes. Her and her comerades agree with the Urology peeps here = slow moving Cancer = watch and see,, no problembo.. Less than year later and my P.S.A. goes high again only this time I start having difficulty peeing. Told Tip I knew something was up.. Urologist does a routine exam = eyes light up = something definitely wrong.. Ends up being a totally unrelated to the original slow growth Prostate cancer.. This new one is doubling in size every 90 days and the size of my fist, includes areas including part of my bladder and uretor (thats the tube that hooks the bladder to the pee pee).. Cancer Doc tells me the surgery ain't open heart but close to it cause of some of the diggin they gotta do down there dealing with glands and other stuff.. I asked about putting it off for a month so I could be here for the birth of our grandson (thinking something similar to the early slow cancer) = doc says if I wait 30 days I will go from 30/70 to 50/50 scale of positive outcome.. Scheduled the surg. Recovery was no picnic. Ended up with a collapsed lung and lots of other stuff. Cancer doc said it involved even more than they expected BUT = the original cancer on the left side of my prostate was still at the same size as it was = TOTALLY weird IMHO, but my Daughter tells me that what I experienced is part of what makes her job so difficult = many many "types" of cancer.. One of the things I noticed early on with the type I am dealing with is how fast I lost weight = in three months I had lost 58 pounds and looked like a concentration camp victim, not from lack of eating either.. I always thought weight loss connected with Cancer was from Chemo but, in this case that was not so.. Also, HUGE fatique!! Other crazy things I can attest to related to the subject.. When I was a kid I used to love writing my name in the snow with my pee,,, I know,, probably a guy thing,, maybe just a Puc thing but just being honest.. Growing up has always been a very slow process for me so it should be no surprise when I tell you guys that even thru the years of Bow Hunting Deer here in Michigan I would stand on the edge of my tree stand at 30' off the ground and pee in the snow below and attempt to write my name = I became a professional name writing pee-err thru the years.. Something that always intrigued me about peeing was how the stream had a twist to it and it stayed a tight stream... Might sound gross and I will probably have to go back on club probation for telling you guys this but I always thought that this "pee twist" was caused by a spin device that was built into the end of my pee maker... As numerous of my life long theories, I found out thru this medical experience that my twisted pee stream theory was not correct. I wasnt up and about long after getting gutted (first had to lose the cathedor routine, then on to keegle excerzises for daily diaper quantity reduction) and I found out my understanding of pee twisting was way off because now when I went pee the stream had no twist and was similar to going thru a large Burger King straw = more of GUSH then a stream.. Also,, because of the missing bladder material that had to be removed that was once connected to the now missing uretor tube,, I had a major reduction in bladder size (went from a quart to 2 or 3 ounces). As one might ascertain,,, for me anyway,,, getting older and dealing with this Prostate stuff has resulted in no longer being able to write "Scott Barnhard!" in the snow like I always could.. Now I am happy to just be able to write a "!" and, probably if I was still Bow Hunting I would have to be happy with a large odd shaped "." (period).. The end!