HispanicSlammer

Mountain Road I was clearing out some old data CD's from my shelf and ran across a sort of poem I wrote while VFRD was still part of Delphi Forums, way way way back in the day. Why I Ride Riding my motorbike Down a swift road Leaning into a turn, And then another Kicking the gear Dropping into third Grabbing the throttle, Looking down the road To where I really want to be Humming song of my motor Piercing a silent hollow in the forest trees Stuttering rays of sunlight and shadow Drum my heartbeat Thumping as my motor does Leaning further into that turn With a hint of fear of exhilaration Where the scent of Vanilla Ponderosas live Strengthened by Raindrops on dry asphalt I have come on my motorbike To steal the rainbows From your twisted curves I am alive on my Mountain Road

Sounds to me like a faulty temperature sensor, Intake Air Temperature sensor or the Coolant Temperature Sensor. Most likely the coolant temp sensor since its is what measures the engine temp, and thats when your having surging issues at temp. You should check for ecm codes - 7 blinks indicates off spec for the ETC sesor. Then measure the resistance between the yellow/blue (+) wire and the green/orange (-) wire terminals it should be 2.3-2.6 ohms at room temp (68f), then you need a harness to measure its output voltage - probably best done at a dealer who has the tool. It should be 4.75 - 5.25 volts. Unless you can rig up a way to test the voltage by piggybacking at the ECT connector or somthing.

Keith you have to push on the bottom of the compression valve, push it inside into the cartridge in order to get at the circlip iholding it in, once thats out you can remove the compression valve, careful that circlip will want to bound out of there and take off then dissapear in the dark reaches of your work area!

CRX

Oh man what day! The Colts fulfilled there destiny and Payton stepped up to get his ring. Not that I care all that much but the guy was starting to look too much my like my very own John Elway with all that dissapointment, these last few years, nobody wants to see reruns! I was glad to see the Colts collect on a promise they made! Me however I was listening to the action on the radio as Craig and I drove home from PMI in Pueblo Colorado, not sitting on our asses on some strangers couch eating stale potato chips!! We took our XRs out for some riding instead! Four months of snow and cold and a weather report that said 40 degrees was all it took for the both of us to get the truck loaded up with two honda relics called once dirtbikes (XR'S)! SIDE NOTE: We did see some CRF's out there today, matter of fact the place was packed with dirtbikes and ATV's Man I love Colorado! Where else can you find so much to do outdoors and all relativly free! Look this way theres Pikes Peak, look that way theres the Spanish Peaks, look that way theres Craig rolling on in some nasty ass mud! OK I think he took me through every mud patch there is in Pueblo and at the end I asked him "is there any mud we might have missed there Craig"? Good times and tired! Boy he worked me out - I know I slowed him down on my 650 cause he had to stop a few times once when I avoided a patch of standing water and headed for the thistle only to find a 2 foot deep ditch - down I went, and once down a sortid 60 foot cliff that I wasnt so sure about! Its a 650 man but I went down it anyway! hells ya! The the both of us got schooled by the youger generation on there YZ's and there CRF's doing 60 foot triples where we were going around to easy parts, well I was anyways! Darned kids looked mighty good jumping those berms! I had a great time and was soooooo glad to be back on two wheels and thankful to the Lord for providing us with the bounty of warm weather in Febuary after so much misery and snow these last four months, what a great day! Looks like those of us who had a destiny to fulfil did so on this day, I am a rider plain and simple! I ride!

Well to be sure the color is not the problem, mine had a ground short in one of the phases, definitly melted a wire to the stator body!

yea yours looks as bad as mine did, mine would rear its ugly head when it heated up! melted or exposed wingings just expand or become so resistant at temp that they no longer function when they get hot! However once cooled operate well enough to fool a test!

Bad Karma is Kicking My Ass as usual! I have never been one to live my life by a set of unbreakable rules, nor am I paticularlly Pious by any means, however I do have a stong sense of right and wrong and knowingly once in a while, I take advantage of the situation. It never seems to pay off since Karma comes back into play to make things more interesting. Such as my Helibar procurement - of which I am sorry for, read thread if you havent a clue - on "Throttlemisters and Helibars" I took the low road on that one! And It surely was strewn with mud, and a lot of members more than willing to sling some in my direction! I know I know! I was wrong, I confess I did it, I regret it but I needed those bars, as I am begining to suffer from riding, some new discomfort did not have before. After riding Baileyrocks bro's bike with the bars I saw that there was somthing I could do about it, and not loose too much sportyness but at the tune of $200 dollars plus? Then I saw an ad in the classifieds for them at a substantial discount, albiet used! I had to get them! So I emaild the guy from Cali and asked if they were still availible, - waited till he wrote back then pounced! Not thinking I deleted the thread, I guess I just assumed it was a done deal, clicked the delete button and poof no more classified! OPPS! Wait I did not read that all the way, his reply he did not say SOLD!?? Aw crap what did I just do? Oh well too late now! and for a couple of weeks it nagged me, then having completed the deal with the bars in my hands I realized wait I cant use my throttle miesters with these?? Payback for being greedy from the Karma police? Yea it was greedy and well Karma strikes again, but I still feel guilty for what I did! Bad Karma was not enough to repent! So I posted a question and just sort of tacked on a confession of what I had done and wow I feel way better! Half arsed too, Of course it got back to my detractors, the same ones who always seem to pounce on every oversight, or any mistake, any thing that I should be doing with VFRD that I am not doing now that they could do better! Those who see themselves as doing my vfrd job better than me and make every effort to let me know that! More smilies man more smilies! If I wasnt using this POS Invisionboard but instead boardIneverheardoff.com nobody uses we would not have been hacked! I am btw the reason that hackers exist, without me there are no hackers they have no reason to hack without me right there is no challenge in not hacking a board without Miguel to spit on! Yea right hmm perhaps If I bought out microsoft tommorow and replaced it with firefox all the hackers would just dissapear never to be seen from again, never mind that you have to download 400 plugins to see a webpage now! OPPS off on a tangent there! Back to cleansing my soul! AHEM clearing my throat! Its winter time here and I am bored, tired from long hours at work, and working nights, seems that days of sunshine just dont exist anymore! I know there is sunshine I saw the pictures! I remember it riding my vfr, and while blowing up my xr on Rampart Range road! Damn my wrist hurt! My back is killing me and My knees hurt, my butt is a bit sore too! Hey look there are some Heli Bars on VFRD! Hey its not too late either I will just dash off a quick email to the guy and see whats up home! - I work with young folks I pick up slang Hmm I dont know why I added that quote - it was a suggestion from one of my detractors, a long standing one who I happen to actually like but hes a ball buster none the less! hes funny so I am amused by the guy even though I know he doesnt like me much! I guess I am just a whore for my fans! More smilies man more smilies! Miguel you suck theres not enough smilies! Why wont you post that video of me at the Texasmac ride last year - but your other videos suck! How do you mount your camera btw I have some videos I can post there are way better? Some member here posted a how to on how to fix your chain can you fix his pictures? (what that was you oh never mind?) I forgot my log in password. Hey you passed that car on a double yellow in that video you give all motorcyclist a bad name! HMM even the ones named Michele Dumbas Dicoff? Shoot a boy named Sue, we already have girl named Martin and guy Named Stephane! You mind if I give you a bad name? I passed on a double yellow so here you go your now named Jabbadodeeddeeee!! (With 6 E's) Barf! gagged on that suggestion post haste! Ignore that one at all cost! Bad name giver that I am, so you see there is no Karma that isnt bad Karma - as I understand it the road to Nervana has no Karma! I expell you Bad Karma! Go git! I confess I suck!!

I love that lone picture of Kieth rolling through that turn, says everything without saying anything!

I am more concerned with the voltage dropping from idle to 5k rpm! That would indicate a bad RR! If you really concerend about the Stator take the thing out of the engine case and inspect it, I had one fail - deep fried it! My engine overheated once cause the fan wasnt working, that contributed to the stator failure. Mine was pretty bad! http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=3016

My XR that is, this time around! Figured out that I had missed an oil jet oring and had it in the wrong spot! no wonder it was chewing up cam shafts! Well anyway I fixed it, then pumped it to make sure oil was getting to the cams! Had it all back together and of course could not get the cam chain tentioner to release! This thing is complicated more than the vfr?

That depends - see above two posts, might have made the best spring of all!

Here is another missunderstanding. Spring rate is constant and has little to do with the pitch angle of the spring! Spring RATE is determined by the number of coils, the diameter of the wire, and the mean diameter of the coil (center to center looking top down) not the pitch. Meaning the pitch angle or distance of the coils together does not effect the rate of the spring per sae - UNTILL they bind! In a dual rate spring such as the vfr the closer wound springs will bind first - they simply have a shorter distance to travel before binding - once a spring binds the number of effective coils is reduced by the number of coils touching each other! So the close wound springs at the bottom of the fork will bind before the longer wound springs and be removed from the number of effective coils increasing the spring rate at that point.... Pitch does effect Spring LOAD - which is determined by how much load a spring can support at a given height. The rate only tells how much height will change as load is changed. A spring can lose its load height over time if steel is not heat treated properly. When a spring sags, its rate is still the same as when it was new. In example a VFR spring has 6 closely wound springs and 20 longer wound springs. The total free length of the spring is 375mm, the free length of the close wound coils is 50mm. 6 x .5mm = 30mm, you have 20mm of spring travel before you lose 6 effective coils then the spring rate is increased because you have less coils now in the spring - that is to say once the short wound coils bind it is no longer part of the effective spring. That is how you get a dual rate spring, the shorter coils bind and you get fewer coils from that point on with a new higher rate. Here is the forumla G * WD4 / 8 * N * MD3 = Spring rate lbs/in G = Torsional Modulus for Steel = 11250000 WD = Wire Diameter in Inches N = Number of Active Coils MD = Mean Coil Diameter in Inches. Mean Diameter is: Looking top down center to center I.D. = 1 Wire plus inside Diameter O.D. = 1 Wire minus outside Diameter 8 = A Constant for all Coil Springs Calculating the spring rate for a vfr spring at no compression and after 20mm of compression 26 coils at total free length G = 11250000 WD = .19 in N = 26 coils MD = 1.2 in lb/in divided by 56 = kg/mm spring rate = 40.79 lb/in or 73 kg/mm now with N = 20 coils after compressing the spring 20mm (all 6 of the short coils binded) spring rate = 53.03 lb/in or .95 kb/mm after 20mm of spring compression! the attacment file in the first post is the updated excell worksheet with the above formula

Well yea! we calculated that to be 130mm for a stock spring! Its just the thickness of the wire diameter times the number of coils - easy! .5mm * 26 coils = 130mm If you cut off 4 coils as in the exorcise to increase the spring rate you get .5mm * 22 coils = 110mm binding length. I found a better formula for calculating spring rates - you can only increase a springs rate by a finite amount till you run out of coils, or fork travel. http://www.bluecoilspring.com/rate2.htm

I think Mark refers to Dynamic sag as Static sag - Dynamic meaning the bike with the rider on top, static no rider. Think about it Dynamic is power, moving Static means not moving. Riders are Dynamic!

Measuring coil length on the short side of the spring Let me begin by addressing a few items first as to why post this in the first place. One reason is to do what I always do, (being the cheap bastid I am) - why spend good money on a spring you can make yourself for a fraction of the cost! Assuming of course you need a stiffer spring! You know you do because you changed your fork oil, its spring like weather outside and it is warm, you set your sag to 1/4 - 1/3 of the total fork travel to the optimum sag for a vfr (I split the difference) and of cours to answer the question below! total for travel 120 mm / 3.5 = 35mm Wow so you checked it like I show you here and you end up screwing the preload all the way too the top! Something is wrong here! I guess your too darned fat for the vfr :blink: heh just like me! What do you do ? You have kids to feed! ~ and a wife who needs money for groceries! Here is what you do, you cut the stock springs down to size - thats what! You will need some tools but your a guy and guys have tools right! (well so do women who ride) Now how do you figure out what the spring rate really is? You can look it up in your shop manual, according to everybody at vfrd your springs should be rated at 0.74 kg/mm! There is a simple way to measure it yourself! Vfr springs are steel! Go get your wifes bathroom scale, without pissing her off about it - or buy your own! And put it on the floor, clean up the fork spring first (not oily or rusty!) and get a tool you can push down on it with and keep it in line, like a shaft of a large screw driver! Thats how I did it! First measure the total free length of the spring! Measuring the Spring Free Length Amazing its exactly 15 inches pretty darned close anyway. You would think they got them from the USA? Pushing down on the spring using a large screwdriver I stop at 10 lbs tape now reads 14 3/4 inches or so I use this as my baseline measurement and then I push down on it more to add more weight to the scale! Pushing down on the spring more I pushed on the spring till the tape moved 1 inch from the free length reading 14 inches It was a difficult to take a picture and do all this so I just took the photo to demonstrate then did the actual measurement after I put the camera down, the spring will want to twist up on you which is why you need a long shaft to hold it. I ended up pushing in the spring one inch and getting the scale to read 40 lbs! Take the difference in weight 40 minus 10 = 30 lbs Take the difference in length 14.74 minus 14 = 0.74 inches OK simple calculation gives you the spring rate in empirical scale 30.0 divided by 0.74 = 40.54 lbs/in spring rate convert that to metric using conversion constant (looked up on the internet) 40.54 divided by 56 = 0.72 kg/mm wow thats pretty close to the book! And too weak for my fat a$$! I found this chart from Race Tech (vfrd members 15% off BTW) Race Tech Diagram spring rate recommendations According to that chart I should be using a spring rate of 1.1 kg/mm?? Jebus I already bought the 1.0 and those are stiff enough for me! - But this writeup is about you not me! I think race tech is too stiff for road applications, great for riding at the track but the street its too stiff. Me I would go with 0.9 kg/mm if I had the chance to do it again! Been there done that see here! If I could I would do it again! How do you do that with stock springs! YOU CUT THEM SHORTER! But not without calculating how much! to get from .72 kg/mm to 0.9 kg/mm the calculation is rather strait forward surprisingly! Just figure out the percentages! 0.9 minus .72 divided that by .72 = 24% holy moly!!! you need to cut off 24% of the coils to get a 0.9 spring rate? Or you could just settle for 0.8 kg/mm or 10% cut off! Is that even doable what if you cut it off too short? How do you know! Me I read Mark Lawrence's page on doing it and and he shows the calculations, sort of like doing your taxes but its not too difficult! http://www.calsci.com/motorcycleinfo/Suspe...easeForkSprings There is also a page for calculating any steel spring rate! besides breaking out the bathroom scale! I took the measurements 26 coils, diameter .2 in outside diameter 1.2 inches = 52 lb/in divide by 56 = .928 kg/mm WRONG! doesn't account for pitch! http://faq.f650.com/FAQs/ShocksSpringRateF...te%20Calculator Calculating how many coils to cut Back to cutting the springs! Now we need to figure out how many coils we can safely cut using Marks calculations it goes like this! (a) Spring wire diameter - 5 mm (b )Number of coils - 26 © Total free length of the spring 375 mm (13 inches) (d) Spring binding length a * b = 130 mm (e) Available spring travel c - d = 245 mm (f) Travel per coil (average) e / b = 9.423 mm (g) Fork tube travel (manual says) 120 mm (h) Excess spring travel e-g = 125 mm (i) Excess spring coils h / f = 13.26 (j) Number of widely spaced coils: count 18 (dual rate spring) (k) Number of coils to cut j * 24% (from above %) = 4.376 (l) Length of widely spaced coil measured 16.61 mm Measuring coil length center to center on long side 16.61 mm or so (m) Length of stock spacers measured: 50 mm Measuring stock spacer 2 inches (n) Length of new spacer (k * l) + m + plus a safety margin 10 mm = 138 mm add 10 mm in case you cut the springs too short and you cant achieve sag, you can always cut the spacer shorter! (o) Desired Dynamic Sag g / 3.5 = 34 mm (p) Saftey margin (excess spring - length to cut off) h - (k *l) = 53mm Now to actually cut off 4.4 coils off! Me I would use my cutoff wheel then grind it off at the end - heating up the coil with my torch to flatten the edge. and your done, some use PVC 1 1/4 inch pipe for spacer material, I use aluminum pipe, or brass pipe even would work. Attached is a microsoft excell spreadsheet I made with all the calulations above - easy cheesy forkspring.xls