pegscraper

Who knew? clicky

Backrest and windshield were included on some of the early models. Some of the Tour Classics had four mufflers too.

Sounds like it's time to buy some Seafoam stock.

I do have VMX cams and adapted a V boost system to fit my bike. No speculation here. So what if the valves are 1mm smaller. They can still use all the lift they can get. More breathing efficiency is always good. The VMX cams are just not that big anyway lift-wise or, duration-wise either. They're about the same size as what was in the XS1100s and what is in the FJR today. Do those bikes lack any low end torque? The Venture cams are borderline too small. I run the V boost valves manually with a choke lever from a V Star 1100. If I want, I can have it wide open at idle speed and all the way up. I can tell you this set up has no trouble hauling around this 800 lb. bike with two passengers who weigh a good bit more combined than you two do (and that's all I will say about that). Does the guy in that pdf have any real proof that the powerband will move up 2000 rpms, or is THAT speculation? There's nothing to be afraid of here. But in the end - you're of course welcome to do what you like.

Wow. I'd sure like to actually touch a real bear. Not a living one though.

Yes.

You beat me to it. I just saw that. I'd love to take a ride on this thing. I used to ride a Honda ATC350X three wheeler. Even that had a good amount of power. I can't even imagine how this four wheeler must run. This is the new engine too. When I first saw it, I figured they were using the old one. Sure seems like even the old one would have been a serious blast.

Wow. You have eight batteries you need maintained? How many bikes do you have?

Like they have all said, once the came bore is machined through the caps, they can only be used in that position and no other one will fit. The ONLY way I would use another cap is to take the head off and take the thing to a machine shop to have them machine it out properly. No guess work on your own. These things take a lot of stresses and if they're out of place, you could wind up with a broken cam or worse. Since all that needs is the little pieces put back, you might try a good welding shop. Even then, once the part had been heated like that, it would be best to bolt the thing down and check the bore dimensions with an inside caliper before relying on it again. I wonder if some JB Weld would work for this. I know machinists who swear by it. I've used it only once in a much less critical situation. The claim is that once it sets up, it's as hard as steel and machines the same too. If you want to try that, I'd drill some small holes in the crack area, and I mean like .040" or smaller. That would give some extra area for the JB Weld to hold the pieces. If any of the stuff gets into the threads, don't try to run the screw through it or the pieces will just break out again. The proper tap ought to be used to clean out the threads. Good luck.

I've only had three street bikes, one dirt bike, and a Honda 350X three wheeler. Not enough to have a favorite. One bike I always wanted to get and never did was a mid '80s Honda Magna V65. It would have had to be the 1100, the muscle cruiser. I still like them but will never have one at this point.

Thanks. And good grief. There are more little cubby hole features on this board than I realize.

That type of gauge is not anywhere near sensitive enough to do an accurate carb sync. If someone gave you a set, they're better than nothing. But I wouldn't spend any money on them. That type of gauge reads absolute vacuum levels, which relies on each gauge to be accurately calibrated, and even more importantly to perfectly match the other gauges. Even if that were possible, which it is not, they do not read fine enough variations to get all the carbs exactly the same. What is needed is a set of gauges that read relative vacuum levels, where each one is balanced against the rest of them. There's no calibration to them and there's no way they can be out of adjustment. This is the way the carbtune operates, as well as the plain old mercury stick. The mercury stick works fine for me.

An excuse to try out the new feature and ask a question too. Did you do away with the unanswered threads search on purpose, or did it fall by the wayside in an update? I used to do that once in a while. It served its purpose a couple times. Not a lot though.

The poor boy option is to cut the rear part of the arm off, grind and file it smooth, and put a clear coat on the bare steel. This is what I did. This is the first bike I ever owned that had a heel shifter on it. I tried to get used to it and couldn't and gave it up. It's not needed, and it was really nothing but in my way anyhow. My left foot has a lot more room without it.

Well if you had them screwed all the way down, how did you make sure to get the screws in the same line? I went out and checked the trunk of a car I'm getting ready to have hauled away. I knew it had two identical jacks in it, but they turned out to be the wrong kind. Rats. I'll have to hit up a wrecking yard.

Hey now, that's a really ingenious idea. I missed that the first time around. I think I'll be building one of those. How did you get the screws exactly in the same line? Maybe with the jacks fully extended, lay a piece of angle iron across the screws and weld the ends together? And I'm thinking that should be the first step before welding the frames together?

Oh, I thought you were going to say something about how you got car jacked. A car jack by itself doesn't have a wide enough stance on the ground to hold a bike in the air with any stability. The way to do it would be to build a parallelogram type of frame support to hold the bike and use the car jack to lift that. This link here might give you some ideas.

It's tricky to understand why this swap doesn't affect the speedometer. It took me a while to believe it myself. I was familiar with cars where the speedo was read from the tailshaft of the transmission. I had changed rear end gears in cars before and always had to compensate for the speedometer. So why not on this bike? It's because the sensor on this bike doesn't read driveshaft revolutions. It reads the teeth on the ring gear on the rear wheel. Okay, it reads them through an idler gear. Okay, so that idler gear happens to be the pinion gear on the back end of the driveshaft. But it's still a 1:1 ratio from the teeth that go by the sensor to the number of teeth on the ring gear, no matter how many teeth are on the pinion gear. The Venture has 10, the VMX has 9, but there could be 135. The ratio stays 1:1. (I don't know where jetman is getting his numbers, but they don't match up with anything.) The Venture's rear gear ratio is 33/10, and the VMX is 33/9. The ring gear on the wheel has 33 teeth. All that changed is the pinion gear. And that's why this swap doesn't affect the speedometer. Whatever the speedometer read before the swap, whether speedo-healed or not, it will read the same thing afterwards. Yes, it would be nice to figure out how to separate the speedo and the odo and be able to correct each one of them separately. Then you could make them both accurate. What will happen to the gas mileage? Nothing. Lower rpms does not automatically mean better gas mileage, and higher rpms does not automatically mean worse gas mileage. It's a known fact that the RSV will run a higher top speed in fourth gear than it will in fifth. That right there tells you that the ratio for fifth gear is too high and the engine can't pull it properly. Even at legal highway speeds, the throttle has to be held open farther in fifth gear than it does in fourth gear. So the engine spins slower in fifth gear. Having to open the throttle farther to get it to pull a too-stiff gear is not saving any gas. In fourth gear, the engine is spinning faster, but it is also working easier. Plus the engine is running closer to its powerband and is much more responsive when you need a little extra for getting up a hill or whatever. You wouldn't have to downshift to get the power out of it that you need. The overdrive on this bike (and most cars for that matter) makes no sense to me. It's simply too high. Fourth gear on this bike is what high gear on bikes used to be, and as far as I'm concerned should still be. But changing the gear ratios in the transmission is a rather difficult job. However the VMX rear gear swap is quite easy, and for the most part band aids the gear ratio problems. But in my view it's still not ideal. The gear ratios in the transmission are still too far apart. To prove my own point to myself, last fall I ran several tanks of gas never using fifth gear. I shifted and rode the bike as if it had a four speed transmission in it, and this included some 85 mph interstate runs. And this is with the VMX rear gear, so it's spinning even faster than a stock fourth gear. I don't have any real gas mileage numbers, but I know I was getting the same number of miles out of a tank as I always did. I didn't lose any range on a tank of gas. That says to me that there's no difference in gas mileage. There was a world of difference in the way the engine ran. It was much smoother and much more energetic, it didn't pound and shake when I gave it a little throttle for an overpass, and I didn't have to downshift to pass somebody. Hmmm. I think I might have some plans up my sleeve to get this engine the gear ratios that it really wants and let it run like the sport bike engine that it is.

Starting fluid works better. You want something that is not merely just flammable. It won't work near so well. You want extremely flammable.

You'd have to install a tire about 3 inches smaller in diameter to get the same effect. Impractical.

No, it does not throw off the speedometer. It does not change the speedometer's readings at all.

It will raise the rpms about 11%, which amounts to about 400 at 70 mph. It will be almost exactly right in the middle of what fourth and fifth gear with a stock rear gear are.

You're aware, aren't you, that swapping the VMX rear gear on does not throw off the speedometer and does not require correcting it for that reason? You may want to correct the speedometer for the error built into the thing. But using the VMX rear gear does not change anything.

Yes they can, and they'll bolt right in place too with maybe some slight bending of brackets. But the connectors don't match. You'll have to solder the correct connectors to the wiring harness to do it. And VMX coils are the same thing as 1st gen coils, which gives you more places to find them. But Venture coils probably go for less anyway. And yes, there are plenty of tales around of VMX and 1st gen coils cracking and failing. Some of the VMX boys right now are swapping on the coil-on-plug units from other bikes that use them. The jury is still out on whether there are any real advantages or not, but the price is sure right.

Welcome to America. Speak English.