The Orange Hulk!!!

[Somchai]

Originally Posted by psych0hans

I'm getting a static sag of 35mm in the front and 15mm in the rear. Rear spring preload is on the 5th setting.

Rider sag is 50mm in the front and 35mm in the rear.

Rear sag seems about right to me, but front sag definitely seems WAY off. is a static sag of 35mm normal?

Bike has progressive springs front and back.

Hans I'm not sure about the sag with progressive springs, but my Ninjette was setup by the Kwaki-Race-Mechanic with static 35mm front and 27mm rear and she feels great.
So I think if you setup the rear with more sag and give it a try maybe you'll be happy?
Good luck

[psych0hans]

Hi guys, it's time for another update on the Orange Hulk. I'm thoroughly enjoying riding her and she's totally an awesome bike. That being said, there are some issues which I need to get seen to, sooner than later. I had installed a radiator guard on the bike, which involved removing the original splash guard installed and installing the radiator guard behind it. This has led to some rattle noises and increase in vibration noise, I'm assuming, thanks to lose bolts? Also the bike is really jerky at low revs, so I'll have to have the fueling taken care of as well.

Another more important issue which probably needs attention first is the brakes. I was almost satisfied with how the brakes originally functioned and didn't feel the need to change anything too soon. This changed as soon as I changed my levers. The Initial bite became hard and the pull became much better. I was getting awesome feedback and braking as soon as I started pulling on the lever. This, I now realize, was thanks to an incorrectly installed brake lever, which jammed on me while riding yesterday. Luckily, this happened at a stop light and I wasn't standing in the middle of the road. I couldn't move my bike an inch after that. Luckily, my bike had it's toolkit and after some roadside DIY, I managed to reinstall the lever and free the brakes. The problem is, now the brakes have become the opposite, it's gone from having a viagra induced hard-on, to a 90 year old shriveled up d**k... The lever pull is mushy at best and any level of braking only comes after pulling the lever dangerously close to the bars... I'm planing on replacing this with an OE brembo unit, probably a PS16 or something similar.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331652128878...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

This is the most economical one I could find, also it's not likely to have any clearance issues, unlike the radial ones, which most certainly will.

Another aspect I want to work on is the suspension, I'm not doing the RC8 mod yet, as I don't want to risk my stock suspension. I'll use the heavier springs and oil that I have and hope for the best. Once I buy an extra set of forks, I'll try the RC8 mod with those. For the rear, I'm looking at buying a used penske unit for an R1 and installing that. I also have a stock R6 unit with me, but I'm not too sure about installing that till I rebuild it. Also, it will need a much heavier spring, as the 390 doesn't have a linkage.

She Hulk

[psych0hans]

Another minor update, did the "zip-tie" trick by tying my brake lever to the bar overnight and checked in the morning. It seemed to have reduced the mushiness by a good margin, will need to confirm after a short ride.

[psych0hans]

Post my recent fiasco with the brake lever jamming on me, I decided to drill out the bore hole which pushes the master cylinder piston. I bored it out by about 1.5 mm using an 8mm drill bit in a drill press. I held the lever in my hand and sort of just pushed it up into the drill. I made 3-5 passes removing between .2-.4mm each time. This made the difference I needed and my brakes are much better now. Still a little mushy, but not alarmingly so. Also, I think some of the mushiness has got to do with the huge amount of play in the levers. Something I'll sort out next.

Another minor but significant mod I made was to have a layer of gel added to the seat. I no longer have to walk funny after any amount of riding and that made it totally worth it. A friend did it for me and only charged me about 40$ so it wasn't too pricey.

[Klondike1020]

You should print that She hulk up on some vinyl wrap and that would look great custom on a KTM

[psych0hans]

That's actually not that bad of an idea. Though I was planning on going full black with a carbon Fiber vinyl... Either way, I don't want to spend too much on the looks of this bike. That is to say not too much more than I've already spent... Lol

[Somchai]

Hey Bro please don't think I wanna make you envious, but after riding my Ninja this week I realized that she's lost something...
there are absolute no more vibrations coming from the engine
I think the reason is that I remapped the fuel of each cylinder separate.
Sometimes it's hard to realize anything that's not happening (anyway I didn't care about that)

[psych0hans]

Originally Posted by Somchai

Hey Bro please don't think I wanna make you envious

I call bluff! I think that's exactly what you wanted to do... Hahaha glad your bike is doing well. I'll post more updates on my recent mods to the bike later today. Safe riding!!!

[toEleven]

Beautiful bike. Keep the updates flowing

Impressive deal as well; I couldn't find one at all near me - including blank stares and silence from the few KTM dealerships around - let alone one near that price.

[psych0hans]

Hi guys, apologies for the huge gap between updates, but I've just been plain LAZY... No other way to put it... Let me just wrap up what I have done to the bike since my last update.

1)Clip ons + Grips + Mirrors install - I received and installed my set of chinese clipons, messing up the whole process, because I bought the wrong set of clipons, more details here. Along with the clipons, I also installed the bar end mirrors and orange grips. This whole session of mods was a disaster for various reasons... The Clipons didn't work well and now, thanks to the mods I made to them, have a certain degree of "play" in them, meaning I can physically move the bars up and down while they are still attached. I have ordered a new set, but this is all I have till they come.
Wrong Clipons


Correct ones



The grips are too hard and get annoying after a while, but they did reduce vibrations considerably. Also the extra rubber in the grips can get painful after a while. That being said, they don't look too shabby, but will still be replaced with a set of red driven gel grips.


The mirrors were a set of cheap ebay bar ends like the pic below. While being of a decent enough quality, the rubber bush supplied wouldn't fit into my bars(don't know who to blame here) so had to be ground down. Once they WERE installed, they were quiet bad, as the mirror quality wasn't up to the mark and it was flat, giving a very limited field of vision.


These were replaced by another set of cheapo chinese mirrors, but this time of much better utility, as they are convex and have a much bigger surface area than the other ones.


2) Fender Eliminator, LED Turn signals, powertronics, Air Filter, Brake Bleed - Last week I dropped off the bike at the service center to have some work done to it, this included installing the powertronics I purchased used for about 130$, an eBay K&N rip off air filter, LED strips to replace the mirror turn signals and my fender eliminator kit. I also had them bleed my brakes for me.

The powertronics has made a huge difference to the bike and it no longer has that jerky throttle response at low revs. It's also a much smoother ride overall and has made riding the bike a more pleasurable experience. I'm not sure what difference the Air Filter made, because I think it probably flows as much air as the stock one.


The Fender Eliminator kit looks pretty awesome on there. I bought mine in anodized orange to keep with the orange theme of the bike. I'll probably get rid of the rear turn signals as well and go with the LED strips, some time in the future. Contrary to what was posted earlier(in the RC390 Forums), the LED strips don't flash faster than the stock mirrors signals and work perfectly in conjunction with the rear LED lights.


I'm not convinced the service center actually bled my brakes, because it feels pretty much the same. Also, now that I come to think of it, they haven't even charged me for any brake fluid, so now I'm certain they didn't bleed the brakes. I'll call the owner of the center and let him know.

Also, in case you're wondering, the entire bill from the service center for the work done was a grand total of 13$ US. Yep, all hail cheap labor...

[psych0hans]

Hi guys, I did some more upgrades to my bike recently and here's a review of each of them...

Something that I was very eager to do on my bike, was the quick turn throttle mod. For this I sourced about 4 different after market throttles and eventually landed up using the same one as DCMoney. Super short throw and looks good to boot. Did I mention it comes in orange too? lol




After doing some night time/early morning riding, I could see a need for some extra lumens to make riding safer. Installed a pair of 10w CREE LED lights where the mirrors used to be. Works like a charm and I like the unique positioning of them too. Something I picked up from another rider on this forum.



Also added a USB charger, not used it yet, but I figured something like this it's better to have and not need than need and not have...



Next mods will be RC8 forks and complete braking system upgrade, including Master Cylinder, Calliper, Lines and Rotor. RC8 forks will need new springs and oil soon enough, as the stock springs are too stiff for me and I'm sure the forks will be over damped for the 390, so some lighter weight oil should do the trick. I'm thinking of a mix of 2.5w and 5w in equal amounts, giving me approximately 3.75w. I'm still trying to figure out a way to install the R1 shock, not going to give up so easily, especially considering I have upwards of $500 invested in it.

[MBZuki]

I still haven't seen one of these around here but I'd like to try one of them out.