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Hawt Motorcycle Talk

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  • SwayeSwaye Moderator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 41,494 Founders Club
    I have a boner.
  • PurpleBazePurpleBaze Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 29,919 Founders Club
    I want to go keyless on the Ninja 400 for the convenience. The cool factor thing wasn't a consideration.

    As for the throttle, I was thinking about installing the Norton race spec quick-turn throttle. A buddy did this with his Ninja 400 track bike and recommended it. Plus, it would go with the Norton keyless start system. As for the grip removal, I've seen the compressed air trick.

    As for the Lacomoto fairings, they are indeed nice. But, I'm thinking about installing 3M style vinyl on it with the carbon fiber pattern on it. I have been thinking about some kind of paint scheme, but can't decide. Plus, I really don't want to deal with painting them myself or paying someone else to do it.

    I look at the Ninja 400 as a fun project. Sure, I'll take it to the track, but I just want to have fun modifying it.

    Ducati does not limit your RPMs during the break-in period. They expect you to keep things below 10000 RPM until you get to 650 miles and the oil change.
  • 1to392831weretaken1to392831weretaken Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 7,630 Swaye's Wigwam
    Swaye said:

    I have a boner.

    Wanna cyber?

    This sucks, because I have some more thoughts on that Ninja build, but I have chores to do, so it'll have to wait until I get to work. In the meantime, they're going to look at me weird at the dump when I hop out of my truck with a motoboner...
  • 1to392831weretaken1to392831weretaken Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 7,630 Swaye's Wigwam
    Alright, finally have a break at work. First off, if we're bashing "cool factor," I'm out. Didn't mean that in a disparaging way at all, rather pointing out that every extra billet part that's added to a bike is, indeed, cool in a way that I fully support.

    That being said, there's a hierarchy of needs when it comes to building the ultimate track weapon. Your recent baller level board donation and expanding sweet Ducati collection suggests to me that there's a lot of whynotboth.gif choices to be made here, but the list of bike upgrades in order of how beneficial it is goes (as far as getting a N400 onto the track):

    1.) Tires: ~$400.
    2.) Suspension: ~$1500 or cheaper if you're willing to fuck around with emulators.
    3.) Brakes:
    ---Stage 1: $100 for pads, $130 for lines. I like Spiegler's rotating fittings.
    ---Stage 2: $300 for 6mm rotor
    ---Stage 3: $290 for Brembo RCS master.
    ---No mater what, you'll need a $240 ABS delete plug if you want to fully remove the ABS module and still have the speedo work.
    4.) Ergonomics: $700 for Woodcraft rearsets and clip-ons. Can also add levers and throttle tube* to taste.
    5.) Bodywork and protection: You already have bodywork. Call it ~$500 for case covers and frame sliders.
    6.) Mandatory convenience: Swingarm spools and front and rear stands for tire/brake maintenance.
    7.) Grip pads.
    8.) It's debatable, but you might put lightweight forged wheels here. At somewhere around $3000, price is high, but there's benefits for both acceleration and handling. Only reason I hesitate is that I imagine these bikes already have a fairly light wheel and the cost might make for lower bang-for-buck than things below. If you just have a shitload of money to spend on the most fun track bike possible... Let's just say wheels either go right here on the list or not at all depending on budget.

    After all that is done comes performance mods...

    9.) FTECU bike side tuning harness: $380 gets you the interface and a license to hook up your laptop and go nuts. Mostly, having this allows you to add on other things like a quickshifter, exhaust, race air filter, etc. And it's cheaper than a PCV anyway.
    10.) Quickshifter: $240 from FTECU. I'd take a quickshifter over moar power any day.
    11.) Exhaust and air filter: You can't do this until you have a way to tune afterward, hence down the list. Saves over 7 pounds and you get a >10% power bump, so not bad. I like Hindle exhausts even though they're MIG welded (and ugly MIG welds at that...) because they're great power and sound per dollar and you can get a replacement extremely quickly if needed.

    Things that are cool but not necessary...

    12.) Cool paint job or vinyl***
    13.) Billet bling like gas caps, chain adjusters, brake lever covers, etc. Ignition key delete**.

    ...

    65.) Glue-on winglets.

    ...

    10459.) Helmet mohawk.


    Anyway, everything costs money, everyone has a budget (especially for a "cheap" track bike that's going to be ridden sparingly and expensively), so, having built (and occasionally rebuilt) four track bikes at this point, this is exactly the order of operations I would go after if I had a Ninja 400 and wanted to have the most fun at the track.
  • 1to392831weretaken1to392831weretaken Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 7,630 Swaye's Wigwam
    My coworkers are all sleeping, so I guess I have time for a tripleshitpoast to cover two more tidbits that might be of interest:

    1.) Not sure if you went to the Superbike races in June, but one of the better races was the Junior Cup race on Sunday. Kayla Yaakov won the race on a Ninja 400, making her the second woman ever to win a professional road race in the United States. What blew me away was that she did so with a best lap time of 1:53.6, which is two seconds faster than I've ever gone around that track and using less than one-fourth of the horsepower (never mind the disparity in chassis and electronics). To add insult to injury, I see them interviewing her afterward on the big video screen, and I say to me kids, "Holy shit, she has to be maybe 14 years old!" Turns out that's exactly how old she is. So, yeah, I'm a pussy, whatever. Point is, it's entirely possible to make a great bike out of a Ninja 400. Hell, the one she was riding even had to conform to series rules. After seeing that, I started really wanting one. I'd probably be able to ride one for more than seven laps without collapsing from exhaustion! I bet you're going to have a ton of fun on that thing once it's finished.

    2.) Panigale break-in. A long time ago, I stumbled upon an article online that really made me think about my break-in process. I've built several engines (mostly dirt bike singles, but not always), and I completely changed the way I was breaking them in after reading this. I know it looks like a Geocities page that's so old none of the picture links work, and I guess that's probably because that's actually what it is. But the information checks out and jives with what I learned when I was studying these things in college.

    Anyway, with dirt bikes, I start the bike up for the first time with cheap, shitty mineral oil in it, let it get warm, then run it down the street and back really hard, doing several sustained WOT pulls through all six gears. Come back, dump oil, put in expensive synthetic, bike is ready to go. With my track bike, it was the same thing. Bought new with zero miles, took it straight to the track and went full send in the morning session. A track session is a perfect hard break-in. Dumped the oil and filter between sessions, replaced with new, and I've had seven trouble-free years since. The bike made more power on the dyno than a guy there the same day with a full Graves system.

    I would be seriously pissed to buy a bike and have it nanny me until 600 miles or some such nonsense. I'd have that ECU flashed before the first mile ticked off...
  • 1to392831weretaken1to392831weretaken Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 7,630 Swaye's Wigwam
    edited August 2022
    Swaye said:

    If my garage burned down and took out the 85 Jeep Scrambler and the 911 I'd kill everything. Mostly for the 85 Scrambler. 911s are easily replaceable. Your Dad's prized Jeep you spent countless hours doing trails with him on is not replaceable for any amount of money. I'd fucking lose my shit. I hope you didn't have any heirloom grade stuff in the fire. That's awful.

    Having your house/shop/dildo collection burn down is a surreal experience, for sure. Nobody expects it to happen to them. At least it wasn't on my radar. In my case, it was my shop, about 20 feet away from the house. Which is a bummer, as I'd have much rather had the house burn down... If you haven't experienced a big fire and the aftermath (dealing with insurance and investigators and rebuilding), I found it to be really fascinating, and my fire in particular had a lot of funny elements (my wife's response to discovering the fire definitely had Yakety Sax playing as the backing track). Not gonna tell that story here, though, because it's longer than three sentences and that sort of thing doesn't fly... (@swaye, I believe I passed you a link to where you can read all about it if you want when were were talking Porsches.)

    Luckily, there's not much about my childhood to be sentimental about, and I'm a way more practical than sentimental person anyway, so nothing in the fire was irreplaceable. In fact, the fire gave me the motivation and opportunity to replace a decade and a half of random tools and toys collected over my adult life--from cheap, shitty tools that were all I could afford in college on up--with a more cohesive collection of tools and things that I'd buy now as a decently-paid adult. It also gave me the motivation and a little seed money to finally get off my ass and rebuild that shop into something much bigger and better, which I'd already planned on doing but things kept getting in the way. It was a five-year process...

    Closest to a sentimental loss was a 1980 Yamaha MX80 that I found in a shipping container on my FIL's property while my wife and I were still dating. I drug it home, removed the rodent's nest from the airbox, replaced the carburetor, threw a new piston in it, cleaned out the tank, and it became my yard bike. It was my brother-in-law's bike when he was a kid, and it became the bike I'd ride my kids around on. It was the only thing I was really bummed about losing at first, but I replaced it shortly after the fire with a new KLX110, rode it one time, and changed my tune to, "Fuck that old Yamaha; this is WAY better!"

    So, yeah, no killing spree from me. Ended up being a pretty positive event overall, and, getting back to the thread, allowed me to build yet another track bike, the experience gained from which I can pass on to @PurpleBaze!
  • MikeDamoneMikeDamone Member Posts: 37,781

    Swaye said:

    If my garage burned down and took out the 85 Jeep Scrambler and the 911 I'd kill everything. Mostly for the 85 Scrambler. 911s are easily replaceable. Your Dad's prized Jeep you spent countless hours doing trails with him on is not replaceable for any amount of money. I'd fucking lose my shit. I hope you didn't have any heirloom grade stuff in the fire. That's awful.

    Having your house/shop/dildo collection burn down is a surreal experience, for sure. Nobody expects it to happen to them. At least it wasn't on my radar. In my case, it was my shop, about 20 feet away from the house. Which is a bummer, as I'd have much rather had the house burn down... If you haven't experienced a big fire and the aftermath (dealing with insurance and investigators and rebuilding), I found it to be really fascinating, and my fire in particular had a lot of funny elements (my wife's response to discovering the fire definitely had Yakety Sax playing as the backing track). Not gonna tell that story here, though, because it's longer than three sentences and that sort of thing doesn't fly... (@swaye, I believe I passed you a link to where you can read all about it if you want when were were talking Porsches.)

    Luckily, there's not much about my childhood to be sentimental about, and I'm a way more practical than sentimental person anyway, so nothing in the fire was irreplaceable. In fact, the fire gave me the motivation and opportunity to replace a decade and a half of random tools and toys collected over my adult life--from cheap, shitty tools that were all I could afford in college on up--with a more cohesive collection of tools and things that I'd buy now as a decently-paid adult. It also gave me the motivation and a little seed money to finally get off my ass and rebuild that shop into something much bigger and better, which I'd already planned on doing but things kept getting in the way. It was a five-year process...

    Closest to a sentimental loss was a 1980 Yamaha MX80 that I found in a shipping container on my FIL's property while my wife and I were still dating. I drug it home, removed the rodent's nest from the airbox, replaced the carburetor, threw a new piston in it, cleaned out the tank, and it became my yard bike. It was my brother-in-law's bike when he was a kid, and it became the bike I'd ride my kids around on. It was the only thing I was really bummed about losing at first, but I replaced it shortly after the fire with a new KLX110, rode it one time, and changed my tune to, "Fuck that old Yamaha; this is WAY better!"

    So, yeah, no killing spree from me. Ended up being a pretty positive event overall, and, getting back to the thread, allowed me to build yet another track bike, the experience gained from which I can pass on to @PurpleBaze!
    They Balla Twins had their place burn down a couple of times. I think each time they turned it into a go fund me grift.
  • MikeDamoneMikeDamone Member Posts: 37,781
    I fancy myself as more of a motocross guy.
  • 1to392831weretaken1to392831weretaken Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 7,630 Swaye's Wigwam

    I fancy myself as more of a motocross guy.

    That's funny. My YZ250FX is currently for sale, as I'm hanging it up in the dirt. Never been as good at it, so it's always turned into mostly me bench pressing my bike off of myself in the mountains. I've only ridden MX three times, and it's super fun but insanely tiring. No way am I fit enough for that at this point!
  • MikeDamoneMikeDamone Member Posts: 37,781

    I fancy myself as more of a motocross guy.

    That's funny. My YZ250FX is currently for sale, as I'm hanging it up in the dirt. Never been as good at it, so it's always turned into mostly me bench pressing my bike off of myself in the mountains. I've only ridden MX three times, and it's super fun but insanely tiring. No way am I fit enough for that at this point!
    The 250 dream race is today. Look it up
  • PurpleBazePurpleBaze Member, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 29,919 Founders Club
    Damn, dude. That's incredible. I admire the talent, knowledge, and skill to pull all that off. Very impressive!
  • YellowSnowYellowSnow Moderator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 35,435 Founders Club

    Nice work! As long as the bars don't vibrate too much, the bar-end mirrors give you a view of something other than your shoulder, too.

    Already sexted you most of this, but in case anybody else is interested, my current project currently looks like this:



    It's a Yamaha TT500 from the '70s, and a buddy of mine wants to build it into a flat tracker for the One Show in Portland. No way we'll make it for the upcoming show, but shouldn't have a problem with 2024. So far, the engine is rebuilt and a lot of parts are ordered and measurements taken, but still a lot to do. The major engineering problem is that this is a vintage metric bike that's going to have 19" HD Sportster front mag wheels both front and back (with different size tires). On top of that, we're converting to disc brake in the rear, and the front end is being swapped out for one from a 2015 Yamaha FZ-07 (that bike had a GSXR600 front end swapped onto it several years back).

    Step one: Get modern metric brake discs spaced out properly from an old imperial rim:







    Step two: New triple tree to clear the fatter tire and rotors:



    Still virtual at this point, but should turn into metal soon, as I have a pile of 7075 burning a hole in my shop floor. The other advantage of this triple tree is that it is made to accept eccentric inserts to change the offset and rake angle. Apparently, you want to de-rake this bike up to 5 degrees for flat tracking, so -5 degree inserts are what I'll machine first:



    After these parts are cut and the stem is turned, it's back to the rear end of the bike for sprocket, rotor, and wheel spacers. At that point, it'll be a roller, and he can take it back apart and get everything powder coated.

    WC Choppers !
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