NakedViffer

Stock jetting is decent until you get modding stuff a bit. Make sure you get a thin piece of wire or wire brush bristle to run through all the low speed circuit holes and the fluting on the emulsion tubes. Also, on those float-bowl screws, its really hard to hit them at the right angle with a screw driver, I use a 10mm wrench to break them free and tighten them. Most of them end up buggered because nobody takes the time to do this and just attack the screws from a 45* angle. They have hex heads for a reason.

I dont know when they temper steel blades its fire and ice, to get the temper, not cooling slowly Whens the last time you rode your knife blades? He's not saying the slow cool is to temper the metal. Cooling slowly avoids distortion from cooling too quickly, especially important on something concentric like a wheel, not so much on a knife blade..

I sandblasted and painted mine satin black, came out nice.

All Balls bearings are high quality, good bearings. I've been through at least a hundred sets of their wheel bearings, and recently installed the tapered headstem bearing on my bike and never had a single problem, every one of them performed flawlessly.

I have an extra motor that needs to be rebuilt, I'm very interested in this. Maybe the thing to do would be to have a custom copper headgasket made by somebody like these guys : http://www.coppergaskets.us/MCG.html

New plastics are pretty much out of the question, best bet is to repair/restore what you have and buy used for what can't be fixed and do the same to those. Not idling would most likely be the low speed circuit in the carbs, tear 'em down and clean them out good, it'll probably run like new.

If you've bled until no air bubbles were coming out with fluid you'll most likely be fine. If you've done some emergency braking and everything worked well, I wouldn't worry. Most of that talk is from people who don't trust themselves to work on their own bikes.

So ever since I got the bike back on the orad it has been acting a little funny and losing a little coolan, and the coolant was also a little foamy, but I thought that may have been the new additive I had used. Well it began drinking more coolant, puffing white a little when first started, and the coolant got a brown tint to it. At this point I'm convinced its the headgasket, not sure which bank, but I'll probably go ahead and replace them both as Ialready have the gaskets from a kit I bought years ago. My dilemma is that i can't seem to find a source for new head bolts, if they were studs I wouldn't be so worried. Being bolts, I'm assuming they are TTY(Torque To Yield) and they are not supposed to be reused after being torqued once. I know thats what Honda uses in their cages. I would really hate to have one stretch on me after its all together and have another headgasket problem, I want to make sure this job gets done properly the first time.. I want to be back on the road, I've already had it sitting for about two weeks.. And I want to minimize the sitting time for the riding season if you know what I'm saying. So does anyone know for sure if we can buy head bolts for these bikes somewhere? Or if they can be reliably re-torqued without fear of encountering more problems shortly after?

Yeah, my beat to crap chain does the same thing. Its come to a point where I just let it stay loose because it only goes to a certain point and then seesm to stay there, but every time I have tightened it, it has gotten loose within a few miles, go buy yourself a nice DID or RK.

I am in actually in the midst of starting a powdercoating business, and I for one can tell you that you should find yourself a new powdercoat shop/person. There is a lot of fear in the market about this particular topic, and a lot of people simply won't take the risk because there have been incidents of cast rims cracking under what is literally tons of force(race cars), and it in turn gets blamed on the heat cycle of the PCing. It's absolute non-sense to think that a wheel that is formed at such high temperatures( my understanding is cast OE wheels form somewhere around 1200*) would be weakened by a 300 degree heat cycle lasting all of 25 minutes or so. Yes, there are alloys out there that this could happen to, but I don't see a cast Honda wheel being one of them. I think a lot of people do not understand the properties behind castings and their inherent flaws and weaknesses and can be very quick to place blame without further investigation.. The ole "it was just fine before" defense, when those cracks could be superficial, and not hurting the structural integrity of the wheel, or they were caused by a sharp impact, improper tire installation, etc. They very well could have already been there and having a bright smooth finish allowed it to be seen after a little torsion transferred the crack to the coating. It could be fatigue cracking showing with age that happened to be observed late.. There are just endless possibilities. Truth is, you are taking a small risk, because there are no scientific facts on the matter, but thousands upon thousands run PC'd cast wheels without trouble. I definitely plan to powdercoat mine, which I guess, in effect, really means I am willing to bet my life on it... Take that for what its worth.. Certainly do your own research on the matter, possibly talk to Honda corporate to see what their exact process and materials are and possibly what they recommend and then even talk to a metallurgist. Call several different PC shops and ask them for their opinion.

Because progressive springs are more of a band-aid to road going machines because the manufacturer wants it to apply to a wide array of people. Or you're a Harley/Touring guy and want a mushy spring that won't bottom out badly. It makes a good all around spring that several people of different weights can ride with OK results..But if you want a bike at the top of its game and setup to handle its best with your specific weight, then you buy a specific weight straight rate spring(s) for it. Yes, they sell them for sport applications, I don't know why.. Profit potential I guess.

Its actually a 1:3 ratio, as in 1 mm will get you about 3mm at the rear wheel.

Not on a 4th gen, thats for sure, take a look. And if you think I haven't found the bottom yet, my method of finding full compression is a stoppie. I've got a black ziptie on there for reference. Now I will tell you that my radiator hits the fender a little at full compression, but I just have to modify the mount a little bit and that will be fixed.

Wow, I really want that tail for my bike. I'm gonna look for it.

Only if he has a green card.

Just make sure you stay on top of your coolant level until you can get it done properly, or replaced, you definitely don't want to overheat it.

I've got the back raised about 12mm, and the front dropped a lot, I haven't measured how thick the stock clipon is, because you are supposed to measure from that and I removed them, but I'm 2 and a 1/4 inches from the top triple, and I'm using every bit of travel in the forks and at full compression my bottom triple nearly touches the dust seals. My bike handles great and is still stable as a rock, I honestly wish I could drop them more..

I do my forks on the side stand with no support at all, just do one side at a time and, its pretty simple. i think you'll be pleasantly surprised with raising the tail and dropping the front, it sure made a world of difference on my 4g. I can keep up with my buddy on his DRZsm now.

As am I! I'm dreading the three days of work this coming week, I'm going to be less than worthless! Nakedviffer, you're not far from me, if you want to get together any weekend and ride just let me know. One of my favorite rides is to start in lake lure and lunch in Little Switzerland. Yeah, I hate that I missed that weekend. Stupid rain!! Yeah man, that'd be cool. I ride 64/74 just about every day that I ride. Not familiar with "Little Switzerland" though, but I'm down to check it out. Maybe we can put that dragon run together again too so you can make it this time. Also, I'm not sure if you're a dragstrip guy or not, but i used to spend lots of time at your local track down there and was a big fan of their red cross bike race, I used to enter every year. I haven't been in about 12 years, but I've been wanting to come down for that this year if thats something you'd be interested in.

Now with the addition of a MOSFET R/R you could nail that voltage down permanently and be much more reliable. Since I installed one, and hardwired the R/R to the battery, I get a solid 14.4v no matter what RPM or condition, its great piece of mind.

I was about to say.. I would torque them to Real Tight lb/ft. I've only ever used a torque wrench for head bolts/studs..

Man, oh man... I am seriously about to miss the third one in a row I've tried to attend. At first i was looking at potential new employment, that didn't happen, I had the green light, and then the wife got a good job offer, so I'll be watching my 2 year old son for the weekend because he has never seen a day-care or baby-sitter and would absolutely not stand for it.. I think I'm gonna go sob in the corner now. I'm thinking about planning my own ride for peoples half way local to the area to get out to the dragon at some point this summer because I've never ridden it, and have been dying to do so since before I had a motorcycle license.. If anyone is down, or planning on on a similar thing that I could just get in on, that'd be great..

You probably still had %100 gas still in it. Nah, we've had ethanol blends at pretty much every pump around here for well over 5 years, and even then, we have all been getting blends for a LONG time, they just started telling us about it recently with the rise of ethanol based fuels. The "gas-a-hol" deal has been going on since what, the 70's? Just a way for corporations to have a higher profit margin..

Are you guys really having trouble with ethanol mixes? Because I've had absolutely none.. I recently started my bike for the first time in two years, same gas was in the tank the whole time and it didn't miss a lick, I even rode it till it was gone without issue..I did pull the bowls first, and they were clean as a whistle, so I proceeded.

I'm not sure how you are doing this, but you can't do it with rosin core and an iron, thats for joining wires. You need a torch and some acid core plumbers solder to do this job properly.