The Screaming Viking

I bought a device off a guy that is known as “Jack’s O2 Mod“.  This thing is a resistor connected to a couple of couplers.  It plugs in line between the O2 sensor and the fuel management system.  What it does is “fool” the computer into thinking the mix needs to run a little richer.  In one of the first posts I put up about the 13o0 I covered where the bike is setup to run lean at idle or low throttle for emission purposes.  This shouldn’t cause any damage, but it’s not the ideal situation as far as heat and performance is concerned.

The page I linked goes in to some detail about how to make the mod yourself for around a buck.  My problem is I solder like a 2 year old.  I also don’t want to make changes to the bike that can’t be backed out.  If I splice into the wires…it’s pretty permanent.  I contacted a guy that has commercialized the finished contraption and he has stopped making them.  He was putting them together and sold them for 50 bucks.  I put a post on a 1300 message board to see if anyone had one they wanted to part with.  A guy answered me, and we made the deal for 30 bucks shipped.  I received it the other day, took about 5 min to connect and fired the bike up.  The mod does exactly what it advertises it does…it clearly richens up the mix at the lower throttle settings.

It’s tough to explain why this little adjustment is needed on a bike unless you ride.  Even then, some guys don’t put in the little bit of effort to improve the performance of their bikes.  I don’t get it.  It gives me a little bit more power at the lower end of the first couple of gears..which in town and on the gravel make quite a bit of difference.  Also, spending 30 bucks here will allow me to put pipes and another intake on the bike before I have to install a new fuel management system.

I got a bit of time to work on the squeak in the rear end.  I assumed it was from the belt being too tight.  To be able to adjust it, I had to take off the muffler, loosen the rear brake caliper, and loosen the axel nut.  Then I had to adjust the tension bolts on each side of the wheel.  This sounds like a little bit of effort, and for my first time taking it apart it didn’t go too bad.  I loosened it up quite a bit, because I assumed my weight would tighten up the belt when I sat down.  I set the belt and had the kid check the tension when I was sitting on the bike…incredibly loose…too loose in my estimation, but I still took it for a little test run.  It was clear on the driveway that I had done more harm than good.  Rain was coming in so I had to put things away for the night.

The next day pulling things apart, adjusting the belt and putting things back together took about 15min….the first night it took around an hour.  I tightened the belt up quite a bit and took a swing around.  I had thought initially the noise was gone, but towards the end of my ride the noise came back.  I checked the belt and it is still a bit looser than the mfg suggests.  I’ll tighten it up some tomorrow morning.  I am hoping to put a couple hundred miles on the bike…so maybe I’ll wait till after I get back.

I ran in to a guy at the bar tonight that rides a Stratoliner.  That bike is a bit bigger than the 1300.  Weight wise it has about 200lbs, it has a higher center of gravity and about 500cc’s more displacement.  I had thought pretty hard about looking for one of those, but I had my doubts about how it would handle on the gravel.  The guy I spoke with said it is not fun to ride on the dirt roads.  I think I could probably get used to it, but I’m glad I decided to go with the 1300 instead of something quite a bit bigger out of the gate.  Maybe down the line I’ll get something bigger…but we’ll see.

The last bit of maintenance I’ll have to do, that the previous owner clearly didn’t, is to adjust the valves.  The yamahas get a pretty good “tick tick tick” sound to them after awhile.  I called a dealer to see what they would charge to do it, I figured if it was around 200 bucks I would consider it.  I’ve looked in to the job and the first time I do it I’m expecting to take around 10ish hours.  After that first time I expect to do it faster…but while I’m figuring things out it will take more time.  They quoted me north of 500 bucks to do it.  For that price I’ll take care of it myself.  Man, I don’t see how guys own these things without doing their own wrenching.  Outside of changing tires and major engine work…I’m confident I can take care of whatever is going on.  Hopefully I don’t have a serious problem where I have to test that though.

I mentioned in the first article I posted about the new bike that I needed to replace the handle bars.  I did quite a bit of reading about this process, even read through a very verbose walk through of the process.  Every thing I read about this process said you need to get either new grips or new weights for the grips because the stock 1300′s won’t work with the RSTD bars.  My bike has after market heated grips.  I asked the guy I bought the new bars from if the grips I have will work with them and the said they should be fine.  Worse case, I get the bars on and they don’t work…so I’m waiting a couple of days for grips.  We didn’t have practice yesterday (wednesday) and I was all worked up about fedexing the paperwork and checks for the house sale to the realtor (I’ll type up this story one day) so I had time and needed the distraction.

The process didn’t look too difficult, but it was my first time through it and I didn’t want to scratch anything.  As the article suggests, I did drap an old blanket over the tank so things don’t get scratched or dented up.  I started unbolting things in the order it tells you too, and much to my surprise everything came off fine.  The grips were a lot easier to get off than the article says they’ll be.  I am assuming it’s because the guy that put them on did a piss poor job of glueing them down.  I ended up bolting the bars on and taking them off a couple of times.  The article mentions one piece who’s cable isn’t going to be long enough to slip on the end of the bars after they are attached…turns out there were a couple of pieces.  I snugged things down and climbed on the bike to get them adjusted where I thought they would be comfortable.  It might be a little bit of a process to get them in the position I want…but I’ll need to put some miles on the bike before I know they needs to be turned.  While I was bolting things together I would stop occasionally and fire up the bike, rev it, flip the switches…just to make sure things were working.  Turns out the grips are weighted fine..which was a relief.  It wouldn’t have bothered me too much to spend the 60 bucks on grips, but waiting a few days for them would have been annoying.

After I bolted things together, I sat down and was really surprised just how much of a difference there is.  These new ones will let me sit back and up right quite a bit more than the old ones.  Since I was working on the bike, I decided I would change the oil as well.  I don’t know what kind of oil they had in the bike, but it was shifting ridiculously hard.  It clunked into 1st and 2nd like a grain truck.  I had problems with this on my 650, and changing to the Rotella t6 made a huge difference.  I’m hoping for the same out of this bike after things get worked to all the areas.  The oil is a little more expensive than the regular stuff, but we’re looking at 20 bucks compared to 15 bucks per change.  It seems to me if it’s clunking less it must be better for it…so that’s pretty cheap insurance.  I doubt I’ll put on more than 5k miles a year…so I’ll only change the oil once a year.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a change to test ride the bike last night.  As I was working on it, I pulled a muscle in my back.  Given my advanced weight I do have a bit of back problems.  I had a cramped muscle there for a few days that I expected would work itself out…but apparently it decided to just pop (or whatever it does).  I’ll be fine in a couple of days I’m sure.  It looks like it’s going to be wet for a little bit, so the couple of days shouldn’t be a big deal.

The next thing I’ll need to do is loosen up the drive belt.  It is whining when I give the bike power and from what I read that indicates it is too tight.  If it was too loose there would be more of a chirping sound.  I looked at it briefly last night, but I was running out of time to work on things.  I also need to have the valves adjusted.  I’m not entirely sure if I want to do this on my own or not though.  I’ve read through some stuff….but I’d have to tear quite a few things apart to get to it.  I’m sure it would cost me a few hundred bucks for shop time though.  Maybe this project can wait for winter when I’ll have days on end when I won’t be able to ride.

I have bitched and moaned on here constantly over the past couple years about my perceived “need” of a bigger bike.  While I was living in Fargo, the 650 was decent to get around town.  It ran good, sounded and performed well and was easy to toss around in traffic.  Last summer out here I rode the bike in to work a few times and it sucked.  Given the size of the bike…and my size, any head wind at all pretty much shuts it down.  With a fair head wind I can maybe get 80 out of her.  That seems like it should be enough, but the problem is with a top end of only 80, if you are cruising down the highway, getting from 70 to 80 takes a few seconds…and then being able to do only 80 you don’t pass very quickly.  Also, the bike isn’t a very comfortable ride for more than 45 min or so.  Granted my ample ass doesn’t help things, but one of the big deals for me is how the wind hits my legs.  As I’m sitting there normally, the wind will constantly push my legs off of the gas tank.  With this going on I have a couple of options, I can let the wind push my legs apart until they naturally stop…which isn’t comfortable, or I can hold my legs against the tank…which will eventually lead to some pretty significant muscle fatigue depending on the length of the trip.

I had looked around a bit and found a really nice looking bike at umotors.  It was an ’02 1700 roadstar, pretty well setup…within my price range.  Since it was after hours, I emailed them.  To my disappointment the bike was sold.  The wife and I were making a trip to minot for a dr. appointment, and on our way back I decided to check out a few dealerships.  The first ones didn’t have much for used inventory.  At the last stop, purehonda, we found a 2007 1300 v star with 17k on it.  The bike had quite a few of the niceties that I was looking for, hard bags, high windshield and floorboards.  It looked sharp and seemed to have lived a fairly easy life.  I decided to explore financing options for the bike. Read the rest of this entry »

After thinking about it for a year, I installed the GAK (Gonzo Air Kit) on my bike.  The previous carb adjustments and intake mods I had completed with quite a bit of success gave me the confidence to tackle this mod.  To be fair, if you can turn a wrench and read directions it’s not something that’s very difficult, you just need the confidence or attitude that you can complete something you started.  You have to not be afraid of “breaking” it so to speak.  You can order this kit from a guy online that has a couple of different handy things for the vstar.  The kit contains everything you will need to install the equipment sans tools…actually it does contain an allen wrench for the replacement screws for the carb.  There is some over lap between what this kit contains and what the carb kit, from the same guy, contains.  In his carb screw replacement kit he gives you the cap screws and allen wrench to replace the crappy brass screws that are stock on the vstars.  I’d ordered the carb kit from him last year when i set out to rejet and “RAK” my bike.  I priced out ordering just the filters and the jets from various sources and it was at least the same cost if not slightly more than ordering them from ziv.  I got no problem giving this guy a few bucks for an all in one solution so I don’t have to order from various places…plus I’d end up with an extra set of jets if I wanted to sell/reuse (I’ll probably sell all the jets I have now…4 sets? I think).

As I said, the box contains everything you need to complete this mod…a filter for each carb plus clamps, filter for the breather hose, plus clamp plus extra little plastic fitting so things stay together.  A set of both 127.5 and 125 jets, replacement screws for the carbs and an allen wrench for said screws.  A drill bit to remove the plug for the PMS screws…and even a shop rag.  For around 80 shipped…it’s not too bad.

I’d read over how to install this thing a few times, and I had been in and out of my carbs several times.  The only problem I had/have is that I didn’t have my sync gauges or tach to verify settings when all was said and done.  I stopped in a shop in town here to ask them about the cost of a brake job (200+…think I’ll do it myself) and if they could just sync the carbs after I completed some work.  They said they could so I figured it was worth a shot.  I had yesterday off (have I said I dig on working for a school?) so I decided to install the kit.

Everything went as I figured it would right up to the test run.  I took off down the road and she lost power on the mains.  When the throttle is in the idle position it’s on the pilot jets, as you increase the throttle it decreases the pilot jets and opens up the mains…when you get the throttle to a certain point the bike is running entirely on the mains.  It’s at that point where you should be able to tell if you have a jetting problem.  I had seen this issue before when I did a previous modification without changing the jets.  I figured I was getting too much air and not enough fuel.  I went back to my shop and started working on the PMS screws to give it more fuel.  Gave it a test run..same…rinse repeat.  I did this over and over again for about 1.5 hrs and -finally- it seemed like it was running decently, but I had the PMS screws all the way out.  At this point I knew there was something I missed, and I was pretty sure I knew what it was but I wanted to make sure.  I opened up a how-to online and sure enough…I hadn’t moved a hose to the proper position.  There is a vent hose that comes off the carbs that runs down to where the old bagel (air intake) used to be.  Since this bagel is gone, air whipping by it can cause a negative pressure situation in the bowls.  I moved this hose so it is pointing forward, causing it to pressurize as the bike moves forward…turned the PMS back to 3.5 turns…blamo everything is working great.

At this point I should sync the carbs.  I had read about a different way to sync them up that I wanted to try out.  What you do is put the tach on one jug at a time.  You start at a given point (3.5 out in my case) and slowly turn the screws watching the tach.  You are looking for the point where the RPMs hit their max, then you want to turn it back about 1/4 turn to compensate for temp variations.  The screws are going to be set differently for each jug, but this is fine and will apparently allow you to sync the carbs through a broader RPM range.  This should give you better performance and an overall smoother ride.

I can’t expect that a shop will take the time required to tune my bike in this manor, and if they would I’m not sure I’d want to pay them for the time it would take.  The wife wasn’t able to find my tach or the sync gauges before she came up this past weekend.  I was pretty sure I knew where they were but she didn’t see them there.  She looked around a bit, but I’m sure they got dumped in to some box during this move process.  I’m heading back mid may, at that point I can take a look for what I need.  There are only going to be a couple of weeks worth of riding between now and then, so I don’t think I’ll waste the money on them doing something that I would redo as soon as I have my equipment.

The information I read about this seems a little conflicted on the performance gains.  Everything said you see at least a 15% increase in horse power, but some say the upper end is 18% while others say it’s 20%.  Either way, at 15% I gained 6 horses…so that’s not bad for such a small engine.  If I bought a turbo for the bike it wouldn’t be a whole lot more than that at 3x the price.  Also, getting rid of the bagel and the airbox gives the bike a cleaner look through the jugs.  I’m hoping one day to have another bike so I can turn this one in to a “bobber”…this is the first step down that road.

I took a cruise up around the lake yesterday before I did these modifications and while it pulled decently up and down those hills, I’m really hoping this adjustment will help it pull a little better.  I’m hoping to get some coaching jobs at the school here, and my plan is to throw that money into an account and sit on it till it’s big enough to buy a shinny new bike.  It will take a few years, depending on pay and what positions I’m able to earn…but I think over all it’s a pretty good plan.