Pretty much new ninja nut von Chicago land

[MFNcody]

Howdy mates!
I joined the forum a little while ago but I've only been in from time to time until recently because the bike wasn't near ride-able and I moved and blablah... you know life n' stuff.
This is my first bike by the way so nearly brand new rider.
I bought my 1990 ninja off an acquaintance about 5 years ago with about 10,000mi on it and have been fixing it up as much as possible as time permits. It was in pretty cruddy shape when I got it. I'm slowly getting to be decent again. I plan to hang onto this thing for a decent while.


That's what it looks like right now

One set back I just knocked out was the ignition pick-up coil which repeatedly failed once the engine warmed up. I finally replaced it with one from an '07 and that problem is gone! Really happy my half-hazard diagnosis was right on that one.
So now its definitely running although I have another project holding me back from riding it. The airbox that was in it was broken and well I don't want to use it anyway. The battery I bought for it doesn't fit with it and furthermore I got this retarded idea in my mind about making a crazy intake for the bike, which is mostly done but now I need to alter the carbs' jetting and so-fourth to run properly with it. I was kinda counting on being able to set it up as if it were using uni-pod filters and be ok but I'm not sure that's the case because It just breaks up badly with any more than maybe 40% throttle or so. Obviously I've been spending some time in the threads dealing with jetting and the sort to figure it all out. I might need some help before this is over with.

Oh here's the intake. Feel free to laugh as much as you want.




This part of it is actually temporary until I figure the other stuff out. I have polished intercooler pipe that's gonna place those filters right in front of the fairings sticking out just enough to avoid the hot air from the radiator/exhaust/engine and get ambient air. It's also out of the way of my legs.

Right now, I'm playing with carburetor settings to see if I can get it running right. With unmodified healthy carbs, it didn't like to idle or really run at all, unless I restricted the intake tract. I went ahead and installed a whole jet kit with 40 pilot jets, 110 main jets, and 2 thin washers for the needles and it starts easy as butter, idles fine, and blips & revs great without load but if you try to throttle under load, it completely breaks up about about 40% throttle or more than about 6-7k rpm no matter what. From there I tried 3 thicker washers which I'd say is equivalent to 4 of the washers I got in the jet kit and I don't think it's changed much. I might have a tiny tiny bit more throttle ability but it still does the same thing pretty much. Just totally quits at a certain amount of throttle or rpm it seems like. It's almost like it's running out of fuel or something like there's a fuel obstruction. The next thing I'm going to do is just try to check out my pet cock and see if anything's up with that. I wish I had some actual pod filters to test with the see if there isn't some dynamic difference between that and my tubular intake plenum that the carbs don't like.

Anyway, I'll update with more pics and whatnot some time. This intake sounds really cool - I'll say that. Any advice/ideas would be greatly appreciated!

cheers!

[Snake]

Hello and welcome.
The air cleaners look awesome.

[JohnnyBravo]

Welcome... Looks like your coming along. Love those filters! Hope ya have it settled and on the streets soon.

[BlueRaven]

Welcome. Looks pretty good for a 1990

[KJohnson21]

Looks like you've got some "interesting" solutions in the works. Let us know it's going!

[MFNcody]

Thanks for the greets folks!

I had this whole intake thing all figured out with 2" polished aluminum intercooler pipe and stuff and it was looking awesome but some more preliminary testing suggests it's not going to work right. A pretty big jetting change didn't make a great deal of difference on the upper end of the throttle range. All it did was allow the bike to run properly idling to mild throttle. Nothing is helping the absolute lack of top end. After I confirmed that the petcock wasn't a concern, I tried running it without the intake piping and it ran all the way up to the top of throttle (still with the much fatter jetting). So I have to assume there's some air flow dynamic in affect with the long length of tubing/bends that the engine or carbs just doesn't like even though the tubing ID is larger than the carbs. I ordered pod filters (52mm neck which I hope is right) and I'm just going to try to work on perfecting the carb tuning to run on those. If I ever do the EFI retrofit, I'll probably revisit this intake project but for now, I'd like to get on the bike and start riding! I've spent a good amount of time fixing this bike and very little riding it. This season, my goal is to get more hours riding it than fixing it for once. haha
I will post a pic or two of the basically finalized intake as it was once I can

[MFNcody]

I know I haven't been around much. Just thought I'd share with the group while I search around for stuff. I lost control and put my bike down memorial day weekend. I was doin' about 85mph at the time and the front just got super squirly all of a sudden. I didn't really notice anything in the road to throw the front up or anything. It was a pretty much a done deal as soon as I got the wobble of death though; Bike sorta wondered into the left shoulder and I kinda slid against the highway divider for a while then slid on the ground with the bike. There's a fair amount of damage on the bike and my comprehensive insurance deal didn't pan out anything for the it. I basically just got a lot of road rash on my left extremities. I'm pretty much recovered now after some delayed wound closure/skin grafting.
I've been busy lately with the car but the bike, since I'm stuck with it will get fixed. One thing I needed since day 1 (when I got the bike 5 years ago...) is tires so I'm kinda doin a little research on that now.

[LNasty]

Originally Posted by MFNcody

I know I haven't been around much. Just thought I'd share with the group while I search around for stuff. I lost control and put my bike down memorial day weekend. I was doin' about 85mph at the time and the front just got super squirly all of a sudden. I didn't really notice anything in the road to throw the front up or anything. It was a pretty much a done deal as soon as I got the wobble of death though; Bike sorta wondered into the left shoulder and I kinda slid against the highway divider for a while then slid on the ground with the bike. There's a fair amount of damage on the bike and my comprehensive insurance deal didn't pan out anything for the it. I basically just got a lot of road rash on my left extremities. I'm pretty much recovered now after some delayed wound closure/skin grafting.
I've been busy lately with the car but the bike, since I'm stuck with it will get fixed. One thing I needed since day 1 (when I got the bike 5 years ago...) is tires so I'm kinda doin a little research on that now.

good lord man, glad your ok for the most part. Were you wearing gear at the time of the crash? skin grafts suck! Any pics of it (Bike, Etc.)?

[Proteus]

Damn, that sounds rough! Glad you're OK.

Hope you can get it back up and running soon!

I work about 10 min from you in Elmhurst.

[snot]

Welcome

[MFNcody]

That's 3 days after. I was wearing slacks, hoodie, full helmet

The bike pics are blurrier than I thought - sorry. I was trying to kinda hurry up and document damage and stuff because I was eager to start taking it apart.








Just paid $40 for another left front peg used



Suffice it to say it's going to be a naked bike now all the way back. I have no intention of doing anything with the gas tank or left muffler. My plan is to use the stock headlight and instrument cluster and just get some mirrors with integrated turn signals and make a nice adapter to situate them exactly like stock. I was thinkin about trying to do a nice streetfighter headlight and stuff and make it look cooler but I figured screw it since the rest of the bike is gonna be left with rough spots - I want to keep it simple, easy, & cheap as possible.

[csmith12]

oh snap! Heal fast and good luck with the bike.

[MFNcody]

I decided to try out some aftermarket mirrors in order to get the cleanest possible solution for having front turn signals without the fairings. They came with universal style brackets that will mount but only allow one pivot direction and they face the wrong way so I made some adapters at work to mount them right on the original ball knuckles. They came out great. I have a lot of other stuff to fix on the bike before I can ride and see how these mirrors are to live with.


The mirror with the included bracket taken off next to my oem base

[MFNcody]

Ok I got bored at work and revised on the original failed intake idea with a new one that has to be better. still have yet to find out how much better but it fits great first try so here's some pics of the junk I made. It installed just fine and I will take pictures of that if I get that far


upside down side view

bottom where the long tubes connect to

back

back again upside down

front (connects to the carbs and crankcase)


wrench to tighten the elbow adapters

yeah over-engineered, underfunded wanker junks

Bike sprung and oil leak when I started it today so yeah... might be a second before I dip into the intake more