Soonerbillz Low Budget Track Build

[soonerbillz]

Originally Posted by CZroe

So, how did you get fairing clearance for the clip ons? I know that the tubes are longer, but it looks like you still mounted under the triple top clamp and it still has that design that sits lower on the tube to accommodate the base from the original bar risers.

I've always wondered if the 37mm 500 tubes fit the J-bike's fork lowers.

I changed out the oem 36 mm forks for a set of EX500 37mm. There is no difference in the top and bottom clamps other than the tube diameter. As for the fairing, it still mounts in the factory location and I am currently using the stock steel fairing bracket. I did cut the fairing a substantial amount to allow the use of those clip ons and they are designed for under the top clamp use.
It took some back and forth marking, cutting, mounting, remarking, cutting to get it right! but it works good now! Eventually I am going to be putting a aftermarket fairing stay and set of aftermarket fairings on...

[soonerbillz]

So now the reason for my problems with the bikes performance is evident!

The bike, when I got had been sitting outside in all kinds of weather for God only knows how long! The tank was indeed somewhat rusty and I had done what I thought was a good job of cleaning it. I used the electrolysis method which meant using distilled water and a sacrificial cathode submerged in the tank and attached to a 12v power supply.
The cathode was destroyed and a large amount of rust and trash was removed and it looked pretty good.. so I thought ..that was that.

When I took the carbs and tank apart later this is what I found:

[soonerbillz]

The tank obviously was still rusting and particles were getting past the two filters...!

It was pretty bad!



The petcock was pretty well plugged up to!

[soonerbillz]

And I believe this was causing problems too...



I'll never use one of these again!

[soonerbillz]

I did not get a chance to take pics of the tank.. i was pissed and just wanted to get it fixed for good!
so I took a bunch of these...



Threw them into the tank and shook it to hell for a long time! I could not believe how much crap came out when I flushed the tank!

Then I took some of this ....



This was pretty stout acid! I plugged the holes, poured the whole gallon in the tank and topped it off with distilled water.
I let the tank sit for two days.. I read some say 4-8 hours but I wasn't taking any chances this time! I was either going to melt the tank or get rid of every bit of rust! I will say the damn thing was burping, bubbling and stinking like my gut after a night at Ron's Chili Palace.
when I emptied the tank so much hot, nasty crap came out it was amazing.. and after I finished flushing everything out and clean.. The tank was looking like brand new inside!

I didn't waste any time.. I put a blower on the tank and got it totally dried out and then poured in some thinner and sloshed that around, drained it and let it flash dry.

[soonerbillz]

I went out and bought some tank sealer to finish off the job.. I did not want to take any chance of the tank rusting again...
this is the stuff I bought.. from O'Reilly's for around 25 bucks..

[Alex]

[soonerbillz]

I followed the instructions to the letter! It took about an hour to get it done and cleaned up..
the stuff is pretty nasty and it was around 90 degrees so I had to work pretty fast so the stuff would not harden before I fully coated the tank and allow the excess to get a chance to drain out..



It ended up taking about half of the can to do the job completely. I canned the rest and they say it will stay usable for quite while..

By the way.. here's what's left of the metal plug I made to cover the petcock hole to do the acid bath part...

[soonerbillz]

Here's a couple of pics of the tank afterward...

[soonerbillz]

I never had a leak in this tank.. but maybe I was lucky! All I know is this may have been a little help from above.. saving me from something worse than a crappy running bike...
I say this because afterwards i found this on close inspection!







It's the only spot on the tank I found weeping but it's sealed now!

[soonerbillz]

Obviously hat area had been repaired with fiberglass before.. so the sealer just found a spot that the acid exposed..
either way ...

I left the tank to dry for a few days... and went to work on other things.

[MrAtom]

Amazing thread. I'm really enjoying it! Keep it up! I really like your build!

[soonerbillz]

Been a while since I have had thee time to update this thread...
I left off with the tank issue.. it was a total mess. The sealer did dry but the acid cleaning really brought to life some problems with the tank as far as it's previous life.
After the sealer set up for about a week I went and put gas in it. All looked good until a day or so later. then three separate leaks appeared in the same area as the first one. The tank had been repaired from a crash I guess as there was bondo in the area where the leaks occurred. I drained the tank, pulled it back off the bike and ground off all the bondo to the bare metal and I found the tank had rusted all under the repair. There were perforations all over the area!

[green_bread]

Good lord... so many issues with that tank. I understand youre going for "budget" but you might not have any other choice than to replace it, at this point.

[soonerbillz]

So I cleaned all the rust and prepped the area for a new repair. I bought some JB Weld Marine Fuel Tank quick repair. This stuff comes not as a 2 part epoxy but as a semi-solid bar of material. Your take a bit of it and knead it around with your fingers until it starts to warm up. Then I put it on the repair area and formed it to the tank. It took about 3/4 of the bar to cover an area about 6 inches in diameter and about a 1/4 inch thick.
I left the tank to dry for three days.. after the JB Weld was completely dry I re-coated the inside of the tanks again with more of the tank sealer... I then let the tank dry for a couple of days.
An then I went ahead and sanded the tank and the repaired area to make it ready for another spray bomb job! After the painting I let the tank sit for a week before I mounted it back on the bike.

[soonerbillz]

Originally Posted by green_bread

Good lord... so many issues with that tank. I understand youre going for "budget" but you might not have any other choice than to replace it, at this point.

Understanding your point!
But I looked at a few other tanks.. even had a fellow member offer me a couple possibles for sale but after thinking about it I decided to just try and work with what I had.. besides I am looking at some other options for next year as far as a budget homemade tank replacement.. I know.. I'm sick!

[soonerbillz]

Sorry for the lack of pics on that.. was just trying to get that finished up and over!
So anyway I got the tank on and then filled it up. I ran the bike for a while and seeing no leaks felt pretty good.. it's been a bit since then and no issues! This past weekend I took the bike to TWS and ran a couple events and even had a little low sider which put a dent the the tank but again zero leaks! so for the time being I think that issue is behind me!

[soonerbillz]

The bike ran ok but seems sort of under powered.. I chopped the plugs and they looked good.. tan.. maybe a little light. I had the jets at 112 mains, 40 pilots and 2 washers under factory straight needles. I am running 93 octane and the plugs are 1 step hotter than oem.
So I decided to do some work and try to get a little more pep from them...

[soonerbillz]

Pulled them off and disassembled them for the thousandth time.. By now i was getting pretty quick in this!

I started first by doing something I have researched but never done before...
Drilling the slides. The bike was fairly responsive on the throttle but in the grid it was not real snappy.. I wanted more and this mod supposedly would speed up the rate at which the slide would raise across the board..

This is accomplished by drilling a small hole on the top of the slide. There already is one as seen here...

[jkv45]

Originally Posted by soonerbillz

The bike ran ok but seems sort of under powered.. I chopped the plugs and they looked good.. tan.. maybe a little light. I had the jets at 112 mains, 40 pilots and 2 washers under factory straight needles. I am running 93 octane and the plugs are 1 step hotter than oem.
So I decided to do some work and try to get a little more pep from them...

I don't think you want to go to a hotter heat range if you will be running WOT a fair amount. Typically a colder plug is used with extended high RPM and load or with an engine producing significantly more power than stock. For road racing the standard heat range is probably good.

If the compression ratio is still stock, you will get more power from 87 octane (without ethanol) as long as you are not detonating, unless you are using an oxygenated race gas.

In certain race classes they are required to use a specific high octane fuel, and on the dyno the engine will produce less power with it than it will with a standard lower octane fuel.

Heat range reading - http://members.uia.net/pkelley2/sparkplugreading.html

NGK plug info - http://ngksparkplugs.com/tech_suppor...lugs/index.asp

[soonerbillz]

You really want to use a very small opening for the added hole.. too much and you lose the benefit and the bike will run like crap.. the plus is you can super glue the hole closed if you go too much or don't like the results..
I say all this because I really did not know if this mod would give me the results I was looking for and i was also a little nervous drilling a $100 set of slides!
But anyway mostly I was informed that a #60 or #70 wire drill was best suited for the mod. I did not have any so I looked to the web to find out what the inch size that equaled. Turned out that ran between .040 to a .028 inch drill size. I used to do auto glass repair and had a few micro bits for drilling the glass before resin injection.. I took one and measured it with my calipers..





That put the drill bit right at a #66 wire drill and darn near smack dab in between the #60 & #70 wire sizes... good enough for me!

[soonerbillz]

Originally Posted by jkv45

I don't think you want to go to a hotter heat range if you will be running WOT a fair amount. Typically a colder plug is used with extended high RPM and load or with an engine producing significantly more power than stock. For road racing the standard heat range is probably good.

If the compression ratio is still stock, you will get more power from 87 octane (without ethanol) as long as you are not detonating, unless you are using an oxygenated race gas.

In certain race classes they are required to use a specific high octane fuel, and on the dyno the engine will produce less power with it than it will with a standard lower octane fuel.

Heat range reading - http://members.uia.net/pkelley2/sparkplugreading.html

NGK plug info - http://ngksparkplugs.com/tech_suppor...lugs/index.asp

Right you are! I came across some of the same info and was going to do some back and forth tuning to get a better idea what works and what does not.. The CMRA does not enforce any kind of octane use.. they just require the use of gasoline without any kind of alky or other additives.. I think the oem range otr -1 plug may well be a better solution.. I will see on that. Thanks! I have had a fair bit of luck using the 93 octane fuel but all of this has been seat of the pants tuning.. I don't have a dyno near my location to verify anything...

[soonerbillz]

I used a hand drill with the micro chucked up and drilled the holes...









As you can see I drilled the holes opposite the oem hole.

[soonerbillz]

I went and put the carbs back together...
I put 3 washers under the needles...



I went back with the 112 mains but because the bike tended to blubber off idle no matter where I set the idle mixture screws I swapped out the #40 pilots for a set of #42's. It would most likely be leaning to rich like this but if so I can always back up. I really think the exhaust is way more free flowing than I gave it credit for.. plus the custom airbox too.. thus leaning out the motor quite a bit.. a little extra fuel may be the ticket.

[jkv45]

Originally Posted by soonerbillz

Right you are! I came across some of the same info and was going to do some back and forth tuning to get a better idea what works and what does not.. The CMRA does not enforce any kind of octane use.. they just require the use of gasoline without any kind of alky or other additives.. I think the oem range otr -1 plug may well be a better solution.. I will see on that. Thanks! I have had a fair bit of luck using the 93 octane fuel but all of this has been seat of the pants tuning.. I don't have a dyno near my location to verify anything...

This is some info about octane from a builder/tuner/racer that has a dyno at the shop.

Quoted from this page - http://www.motorcycleperf.com/TechTips/BadGasoline.html


"1.) OCTANE

This is the resistance to detonation the gasoline offers. The most common grades of gasoline are: REGULAR at 87 Octane; MID-GRADE at 87-90 Octane; PREMIUM at generally 93 Octane. Other custom-built racing gasolines can offer up to 125 Octane. Octane is an indicator of the speed at which the gasoline burns in the engine.

The higher the octane, the slower the speed of the burn; the lower the octane the faster the burn. If the burn is too fast, uncontrolled combustion can occur. This most often is heard as “pinging” and is commonly referred to as detonation. This is because instead of burning through top dead center of the combustion stroke, the entire charge is ignited too early and explodes in the chamber and acts as a bomb. Conversely, if the speed of the burn is too slow, it continues after the useful work can be done in the motor and manifests itself as poor throttle response, reduced power output and increased emissions and fuel consumption. An engineering fact: THE MOST HORSEPOWER IS MADE AT THE THRESHOLD OF DETONATION. We have often gained horsepower on the dyno and felt improved starting and driveability going from Premium grade gas to Regular. This change was recently quantified in a customer’s Ducati M900 by reducing the cranking time to start-up from 15 to 3 revolutions, although part of the improvement is explained below.

The multi-valve combustion chambers and their reduced flame front propagation distances in the modern engines virtually eliminates the need for high-octane gasoline."


If you don't need additional octane to control detonation it's costing you power (and economy on the street).

[soonerbillz]

Nice!.. thanks for sharing... as amateur builders/tuners we all can benefit from posts like that.
After reading that and other similar I am lead to believe that it may be possible that some of my issues are caused by too high octane fuel.. I feel a combination of methods may produce better power gains and will definitely try any and all to get there!
I ran TWS with these change this past weekend.. and used 87 in one sprint..
I can tell you that I had marked increase in bottom end power, throttle response and top end. I believe there is more to gain from this little motor but it will take more tweaking to get it.
The season is over and I have a few ideas in my head for next...

[soonerbillz]

I'll be be posting some random pics of things for a bit.. will comment as I can.
Some folks asked about the lower I did for the bike... mainly again just cut up the oem and modified it.. I added a custom catch pan to the bottom and stiffened it all up too..

[soonerbillz]

[soonerbillz]

[soonerbillz]

Here's some pics of the homemade rear set plates I made to get better position for my pegs...
I needed to get them a little higher and a little further back to give me more clearance. I started by making and cutting some templates from plastic...

[soonerbillz]

Then I went ahead and made up the plates with some aluminum plate material.

[soonerbillz]

Drilled and fit the pieces... then made sure they mounted correctly!

[soonerbillz]

And mounted the oem setbacks to verify fit..


The above is a pic of the plastic template being checked


This is the shift side being checked for final fit

[soonerbillz]

Here is the brake side after final assembly...
As you can see I had to fabricate a mount plate for the upper mount bolts. Also I had to change the exhaust hanger bracket.. too me it all looks cleaner now..

[soonerbillz]

So here is the shift side after final assembly..
You see I changed the pattern to GP shift. That gave me a little more clearance too



I made my own extension for the shift rod using stainless threaded rod and some stainless jam nuts

[soonerbillz]

I am very happy with this set up! It is pretty strong.. does not flex!
The position is pretty good, raises the peg around an inch and the set back is about and inch too.. The GP shift tool a bit to get used to but feels good.. shifting really gave no issues.
I low sided the bike (shifter side)after this mod and the plates held up very well. They did not bend at all but the shift arm did.. pulled it out and was good to go!
The brake side seems very stout even on hard braking too!
I happy with it all for the most part.

[soonerbillz]

Here's a couple pics of my fat butt at the track!



Now that I've completed this process I want to comment on the whole deal...
When I started this, like so many other things I was not entirely sure where it was going to end up. I had some idea of where I wanted to go but did not have a solid plan, a well thought out program or even the expertise or experience to fully understand what I was undertaking..
I like building things, I am handy with my hands and have a mediocre talent for fabrication. But that being said I had in my mind the saying of a good friend. It was always in my head..." Destitution may be the Father but Devotion surely is the Mother of Invention"
I believe that is what drives all of us to do the things we do.. and to follow our dreams to the end, wherever it may lead us. So this build, as simple and ungainly as it may be was a great thing for me. I want to race, but I want to do it on my own terms. Buying a ready made race bike is a perfect way to go when just starting but this was the perfect project to get me not just onto a bike that is good for learning but also turned out to be a lesson book in what it really takes to prepare and build one. I don't think anything is more important for a racer than to understand the machine he or she is going to trust their lives on... from the inside out.

The steps I took in building this bike gave me invaluable knowledge I could not have gained otherwise. The fabricating, the trials and errors and the decision making processes have gone a long way to prepare me for the task ahead.. I have built a bike.. now I have to build the racer. I have a long road ahead and much, much more to learn but now at least I am in control of the destiny and success does not seem as insurmountable as it once did.
The photo below is very special to me. TWS is not long for this world... the track soon will just be memories. I am so happy that I was able to compete in the shadows of where so many infamous names made history. My chance to build my own bike, bring it to this great place and carve my own memories into the asphalt is no small matter.. it is something a kid could only dream of.. but now it is my reality and I plan on building on that memory and become the very best racer I can.. I'll bump some heads, bars and elbows in the process,, make many friends and hopefully few enemies.
Thanks all for the comments, advise and look forward to next season... ride on friends!

[RogerPapaMike]

Who would treat their bike that badly?!?!? Its like kicking a dog! I'm glad you got that ninja back in fighting shape. Great work!

[spent_too_much]

Thank you so much for posting this thread. The pictures and write up are awesome! I have read thru this post several times, learning more each time. Makes me want to try racing for myself. Awesome creativity for the air cleaner as well! I want to try to install the rear sliders / lift pegs on my 2000. Thanks for the detailed write up and pics of the process!

[choneofakind]

Scott, for the EX500 wheels:

What's the diameter of front and rear rotors?

and how much was involved in mounting the rear wheel to the pregen swingarm? Hopefully it mounted right up, if not did you need to make spacers or anything?