ggathagan

If she's 5' 2", I'd stick with the Ninja 250.

They're not as nice as the newer 300, but they've been around for over 30 years, so there are plenty of clean examples and plenty of parts available.

On the down side, they're a handful at highway speeds, the brakes are not the best, and you really have to keep them revved to get out of your own way.

The last 4 years of production, the seat height went from 29.3 to 30.5 inches.

The Ninja 300 seat height went to 30.9.

If she leans towards the UJM style, there's also the Honda 250 Nighthawk, made from 1986-2008.

The seat height is 29.3 inches.

I like the Hawk and the SV650, but the seats on both are a bit higher.

The CB-1 was interesting, but buzzy at highway speeds and was only made for 2 years (1989-1990), so availability is low.

On 11/22/2016 at 6:50 PM, 2k1GoneWild said:

Yup so the means you don't know anything about diesel and if you knew just a little bit about diesel you'd know a lot more about gas, this little VFR is cake to tune

The existence of the 2001 Dodge Ram Diesel Dually is not in doubt.

It's the 600hp bit that is at issue.

The 5.9L Cummins inline 6 that came in your truck is spec'd at 245 hp and 505 lb/ft.

Granted, you may have replaced that engine with a different one.

Or perhaps Black Widow make a performance header for your truck that unleashes the factory power...

4 hours ago, 2k1GoneWild said:

First of all you have to realize I know exactly what I am doing....

No, we don't have to realize that claim.

In fact, everything you've stated points to the polar opposite of you knowing what you're doing.

Your claim of owning a 600 hp 2001 Dodge Ram Diesel Dually is another indicator of how firm a grip you have on reality.

Your problem sounds far worse than mine; as if you have a LOT of air in the lines or the pistons in the calipers are binding up.

In your case, does it occur only when the bike is at running temperatures or even when it's cold?

On 7/28/2016 at 2:22 AM, lanesmatb said:

Symptoms of air in the brake hydraulic system.  When a bubble of air in the brake fluid heats up sufficiently, it expands and engages the brakes.  If I where you, bleed the system step by step as thoroughly and completely as you can. Take your time and use plenty of brake fluid to flush the air out.  Another tip is to bleed for a while, wait an hour or so, and bleed again.  During the bleed process, air bubbles can get atomized going through orifices; waiting can let the bubbles recombine and make it easier to get out.

 

The only thing that concerns me is that this issue developed on its own (without you breaking into the brake system).  Any signs of leaks?

 

Scott

Aloha, all

Scott, I share your concern regarding the self-development.

Over the last several months I've had little time to work on it.

Since I can approximate when the system has warmed to the point where the expansion occurs, I ride it until it's warmed up, hop off and relieve the pressure via the center bleeder on the left caliper.
I repeat that process as needed and keep topping off the rear M/C.

I take a bus to work and back, so I generally don't ride it during the week.

Last weekend, my roommate and I  repeated the bleeding process again, going through each step carefully.

I removed the left front caliber and had it sitting horizontally on a block of wood when we bled the SMC-to-PCV portion of the system.

I used one of my old brake discs to maintain the gap in between the brake pads.

In addition, I would have my roommate pump on the rear pedal, hold it, then I would push in the SMC piston.

As I pushed on the piston, he would open and close the bleeder on the PCV valve.

Lastly, I held the rear caliper in a horizontal position when opening its center bleeder.

In all of that process, I never saw any air bubbles when bleeding fluid.

After repeating the bleeding process, the situation remains the same.

I'm at a loss as to what could be done differently to pinpoint the location of the air bubble.

Given the amount of brake fluid I've pumped through the system, I would think that any air in the PCV valve or the delay valve would have been pushed out to the calipers by now.

One of life's mysteries...

I would still consider finding a a pipe-bender and get a cost of:

Fabricating a new SS pipe from scratch

The possibility of modifying either Delkevic pipe for a better fit.

Yes, it'll cost more, but it might be reasonable enough to consider.

I realize that this varies from person to person, but it would irritate me to see the poorly bent pipe every time I looked at the bike.

What makes it more galling is the fact that it is a simple QA issue; they have the ability to bend the pipe properly, but choose not to.

Well, the mystery deepens.

I spent last Friday night and Saturday disassembling and reassembling the three calipers and the PCV and bleeding the entire system.
The only components I didn't take apart were the three master cylinders and the delay valve.

I used the guides put together by HS and jay-d.

The work gave me an excuse to buy a Mityvac bleeder kit that runs off of compressed air (new toy!!).

All 9 pistons were in excellent shape and moved well. No signs of leakage or seal degradation.

Once I disassembled the PCV, its decompression piston moved freely in the bore and the rubber seals showed no signs of wear. There was no way to access the cut piston.

It was easy enough to establish that the front and rear M/C's were working fine.

When I had the left caliper disassembled, the SMC piston moved freely in its bore and I saw no signs of leakage.

I also took advantage of situation and replaced the front rotors with a set of Galfer wave rotors I'd bought some time back.
All three sets of bake pads were pretty thin, so they also got replaced with the Galfer pads purchased with the rotors.
I don't have a 42mm socket yet, so the rear rotor will have to wait.

Maybe I was doing it wrong, but the vacuum bleeder did nothing for me when trying to bleed the linked portion of the system (RMC to right center/RMC to left center/RMC to SMC/SMC to PCV/PCV to rear center).
Without someone to pump the rear lever, there was no flow.

My house-mate helped me on Sunday by pumping the rear brake lever while I bled the various ports tied to the linked portion of the system.

The one part I struggled with is bleeding the secondary master cylinder on the left caliper assembly.
Although it moved freely when I had the caliper disassembled, I never got the impression that the piston moved at all when I would open the bleeder and push on the piston bracket.

Low speed test rides around the neighborhood  on Saturday indicated that the front and rear braking worked overall.
No binding occurred, even when I would draw down hard on both the front brake lever and the the rear pedal.

A 25 mile ride on Sunday, prior to bleeding the system with my house-mate's help, was also without issue.
I made a conscious effort to avoid using the rear pedal and didn't encounter any situation that required abrupt braking.

Riding to and from work today, however, was a different story.
I again made a conscious effort to avoid the use of the brake pedal.

Frequent braking at highway speeds, even though it was not particularly abrupt, was sufficient to trigger the problem.

I had to stop once on the way to work and twice on the way home to open up the center bleeders on the front calipers and release the pressure.

That was sufficient to free up the wheels.

I wasn't in a position to determine whether or not both wheels were bound, but I suspect they were.

The manual's technical features section on the LBS states that the front center pistons are actuated by the rear pedal; first the left front and then, if pedal pressure increases, the right caliper.

The rear center piston is actuated if sufficient rotational torque is present at the front wheel to cause the SMC to apply pressure via the PCV.

So while the mechanism to actuate the center pistons differs from front to back, the same hydraulic system services all three pistons.

Since I didn't use the rear pedal when riding to and from work, I don't think the delay valve is suspect.

My next step is to swap out the PCV from my other 5th gen to see if that has any effect.

I just realized, however, that I needed to open the PCV's bleeder when trying to depress the SMC piston. I was opening the left caliper's center bleeder. Doh!!

I'll have to try again tomorrow night.

As always, any thoughts are welcome.

Thank you both for the quick reply.

I'll try both your approaches to tracking down which section is the likely culprit, check both M/C's, the control valves and give it all a good flushing.

OK, here's an odd one.

This morning, at around 6 am I rode the bike to church; about ten miles.
When I stopped, the brakes felt like they were binding.
This was early enough that the weather was cool; in the mid '70's.

When I left church, I rode about 5 miles to a restaurant. By the time I arrived, the brakes were binding to the point that I was running in 1st gear and could barely keep the bike moving.
Once I stopped, the bike was immovable.

After I ate and came back to the bike, it was no longer binding.
I made every effort to avoid braking on my way back home. During the first few miles, I would let out the clutch and the bike would continue to roll without any apparent drag.

5 minutes after getting on the highway, however, I had to pull over.

Same symptoms; once stopped the bike was immovable.

The brakes were binding and both front rotor were turning blue, due to the heat.

I called a tow truck and he arrived within 30 minutes. In that time the rotors had cooled down and the bike could be rolled.

The bike is a '01 with less than 17K miles on it.
The brake fluid has been changed within the last 2 years.
The brakes are stock, with the linked system intact.

Any ideas and recommendations as to where to start troubleshooting?

3 hours ago, shaynus said:

Got it sorted, after making a stupid mistake which stumped me until I realised what I had done!

Which was...?

If you're going to ask a question of the community, it's polite to also provide the answer when you find it on your own.

I've not read any reviews on the bike.

Does it have better suspension than the 09 did?

I recall that being a big failing on that model.

6 hours ago, Shinigami said:

http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/bikes/burasca-1200-aldo-drudi/

While I can admire the talent that went into it, I can't find a single aspect of that design that I find attractive.

Luckily, my opinion only matters to me.

A few years ago, I was amazed and pleased to find an ethanol-free source here in Hawaii that were not in the traditional locations: the marinas and boat yards.
That one source had a little sign identifying it as being for lawn-mowers and boat engines.

Later, another gas station started selling it with full-blown advertising about using it for all the reasons we know to be true (water, engine seal damage, etc...).

It's still not ubiquitous, but more sources exist.

What's ironic is that Hawaii jumped on the ethanol wagon very early in the game.
They had visions of using sugar cane to produce the ethanol, since sugar beets had replaced cane as the cheapest source for sugar production and lower labor costs in other locations left the Hawaii cane industry all but abandoned.

Their vision would resurrect the cane farms, bringing new jobs and investment to the state.
So they passed legislation in 2006 that mandated all Hawaii gas using at least 10% ethanol.

As usually happens in Hawaii, the legislature forgot to check with reality.

Growing sugar cane was now a small tourist/agricultural research industry and didn't have the capacity to supply anything for ethanol production.
No one born in the last 3 or 4 decades were interested in returning to the bad old days of laboring in the cane fields for The Company.
Much of the land formerly used to grow cane has been developed for housing and resort areas.

They ended up having to import ethanol to satisfy their own mandate.
Last year, they finally passed legislation repealing the mandate.

Ah yes, got a higher resolution image?

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

The later versions of the manual had both versions of the wiring diagram ('98-'99 and '00-'01).

Two of the PDFs of the manual in the downloads section can be zoomed in on without getting too ugly.

page 558 from marriedman's manual download:

http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.php/files/download/171-98-01-honda-vfr-service-manual-optimized-bookmarked/

page 255 from HS's manual part B download:

http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.php/files/getdownload/534-1998-2001-service-manual-part-a-and-b/

When the main bike color isn't black or white, my preference is silver, trying to match the frame color as closely as possible.

It gives you the visibility of white, ties into the frame, forks and the exhaust, and doesn't show dirt as badly as white.

From '98-'01, Honda uses the same fuel injector part number (06164-PCA-000) for the VFR, the CR-V, and one of their outboard boat motors (BF-130).
From the look of the connector of 3dcycle's post, the connector is the same.

Thanks for your reply, Knight

When this occurs, the engine just cuts out and the tach drops to zero.
It doesn't have any of the characteristics of a fuel-related problem, but rather an electrical/electronic problem.

I've never had it happen while at a standstill, so I can't say for sure if the engine comes back up on it's own or if the bike is essentially jump-starting itself through its own inertia.

The bike has very low miles (just over 14K) and is in mint condition. All the rubber tubing is still supple, as is the wiring.

Point being that the bike is close to showroom condition; no rust, no oxidation on aluminum bits, no corrosion; nothing.

I inspected the ECU and PCII connectors prior to installing it and saw nothing wrong.

As to heat: If it was my old Wolf underseat exhaust, which came with a metal replacement for the stock under seat tray, I could see a possible heat issue with the ECU and PCII.
With the stock underseat and the Staintune, there's no way the back of the bike's tail is getting hot .

I've had the bike for just under a year and have never had this happen prior to hooking up the PCII.
The previous owner, a close friend, has never had any issues with the bike and he's had it since it had about 1300 miles on it

If I didn't have the identical symptoms with a different '01, and a different PCII, I might be inclined to think it was the bike, as well.
The whole deja-vu aspect of it tends to steer me away from the bike being the source of the problem.

Years ago, I bought a DynoJet PCII off the Internet for my '01.

I had bought a Wolf underseat exhaust and wanted to improve the fueling curve.
When I installed it, however, I had problems with the engine cutting out.

Too often it would occur are the worst times, like midway through a curve.
I bought the O2 eliminators, but that didn't change anything.
Then I discovered that the PC was meant for the '98-'99 model with the 'choke'.
Dynojet was kind enough to reflash the unit for '00-'01 bikes, but that didn't improve anything and I finally took it off.

Fast forward to today.

I'm on my 2nd '01 and recently bought a Staintune highmount from a fellow VFRD member who included a PCII with a map for the Staintune (Thanks Maxswell!!). The map helped smooth out the acceleration and minimized the snatchiness when initially opening the throttle, so I was quite pleased with it.

I don't ride the bike daily as I used to, so it's rare that I'm in heavy traffic for any length of time.
This past week, however, circumstances forced me to take the bike to work.

As I was riding home in normal Honolulu traffic (20-25 MPH for about 20 miles), the bike started cutting out, just like the other bike did so many years ago.

This time, however, it was much more frequent.

I'd say about 2-3 times in the span of 2 minutes, but not at regular intervals. I couldn't discern any sort of pattern to the problem.

Due to traffic, the bike was hot, but not obscenely so.

The temp gauge would hit 220, the fan would kick in and it would drop down to 210.
I experienced the cut out in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gears.
I experienced it under acceleration, under deceleration and under heavy acceleration.
This time around it was not on a curve; strictly straight line.

As I got closer to home and traffic thinned out, the pace picked up, the bike cooled down and the problem went away.

Although it would seem to be a heat-related issue, the fact that the PCII is mounted back by the ECU would lead me to believe that it's not a matter of the PCII itself overheating.

Another data point: The red FI indicator doesn't light up with the PCII installed, so I've not bothered with the O2 sensor eliminators.

Has anyone else had this problem?
Is it possible that there's a mapping issue? That doesn't seem like a logical cause, but I'm not well versed in how the PC modifies the ECU signal.

Dynojet lists the PCIII USB as an applicable model for the 5th gen.
Is it, or any other product, worth consideration to deal with this issue?

I can't remember the source, but I was under the impression that the main reason was noise levels, not emissions; that the whine from the gear drive would fail pending changes in EPA noise standards.

I'm not sure if that line of logic is valid. Porsche is an established marque with a racing and performance heritage. Motus is a newbie on the block. I understand paying more for engineering or ownership of a certain brand name; but I'm not sure if Motus is in a position to command such a brand premium given the product they are delivering. Is Motus claiming, regardless of purpose, to have better than the entire sum of engineering leading to a significantly lower priced R1? The follow up to that is: "Come to the track and prove it." At $35k with no collector value, a small dealer network, medium performance (in the grand scheme of things), and no existing "street cred," there better be some other compelling reason for me to purchase one (like, this bike is guaranteed to get you laid).

Well, Porsche didn't start out as an established marque. They had to gain success in racing in order to justify their products' prices.

In their words, Motus is: "An American-made touring motorcycle with the personality of a high-performance, canyon-carving machine."

So, to answer your question: No, Motus makes no claims regarding superlative performance on the track.

They're filling what they see as a niche in the motorcycle market: a high-end American made sports-tourer centered around on a unique engine.

Like the premier models of other motorcycle manufacturers, they use top-shelf wheels, suspension and braking components.

Like other American performance vehicle suppliers, they've partnered with notable performance experts for their unique engine and frame.

For some people, that's a compelling reason.

Don't forget the cost and complexity of mating the 2015 cowls to a 6th gen.

Keef,

Would your setup work under the 2015 bodywork?

Both you and reed are building street-fighters, so that's a part of the picture that you're able to avoid.

Late to the party on this one, but a subject that hasn't been mentioned is longevity.
I'm thinking primarily of things like the cooling system and the cylinder wall thickness.

Since supercharging doesn't alter the engine itself, all of the components maintain their stock strength/capabilities.

As Mohawk stated, we know that the engine is strong enough to deal with the HP that RC45 racers were getting, but they looked at the situation with an eye towards a longevity of one season.

I'm the furthest thing from an expert on any of this stuff, but logic would indicate that you'd have to address whether or not the cooling system and the thinner cylinder liners could handle the increased heat.

Nah, grab rails bolt directly to the sub-frame, so their presence or absence would have no impact.

I don't think there are any screws intended for that.
When removing the rear cowl, the service manual only discusses the 4 bolts holding the rear grab rails, the two screws that hold the rear cowl to the sub-frame up by the tank, and the two 5mm stainless pan screws that you mentioned.

When I look at the parts fiche sections for the rear fender, the rear cowl, and the tail light, I don't see anything.

The picture of the tail light in the service manual doesn't show much detail, but it only lists the four screws that attach the tail light to the rear cowl.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was loose by design.

Instead of trying to find a screw, I would suggest a rubber grommet or even electrical or foam tape to fill the space between the bosses on the tail light and the holes in the rear fender.

I may not be as wire savvy as you, but I was unable to download the manual. What I'm picking up, if I am looking down the bike from the rear, the order should be 1-4-3-2? Coil on the left should have 1 & 4, and the one on the right should be 3 & 2, correct?

Nope.

Coil on the left is 1 & 3, the rear pair of cylinders

Coil on the right is 2 & 4, the front pair of cylinders

Here are the figures I was referring to from the manual:

Odd that you can't download the manual.

There's a large green Download button on the page I linked to.

What happens if you click on it?