Hawk is here, yay!
 

Gratuitous photos. Cant wait to get it together and tinker.

Congrats!!! Let the fun began. Here's a little trivial information, Saia Motor Freight started right here in the little city of Houma, La. as a local trucking company. ;)

That's cool Jerry, I didn't know that. Got it running yet Megadan?

Congratulations on the delivery. I hope you enjoy assembly and getting to know your bike!

Nope, but I had to leave it be and just started working on it 2 hours ago. I had a date with a lady and her camera ( picture below of my Goldwing will explain.)

Getting it off the crate by yourself sucks lol. Hopefully tomorrow., but since I plan on seeing my mother, most likely Saturday. It is going to take me longer than usual because i am doing a couple of upgrades while I assemble it, and changing out all of the fluids, going over all the wiring and connectors with shrink tube, tape, and dialecteic grease. I am also taking all of the panels off and loctiting everything that needs it, checking the trueness of my wheels and tightening the spokes, as i found a couple of loose ones right out of the box. I am also going to pull the rear swing arm and bushings to put antisieze on the outer and inner sleeves. I am a bit meticulous by nature...

Things i have found so far. With the forks on mine, they come with a small 20 to 25mm preload spacer, and the oil in them was clear, but was full of fine particles. It has since been replaced with 15wt synthetic fork oil.

Also of note with my 2017. Brake lever and shifter do not come installed, but the kickstand and spring did.

EDIT: I also forgot to note, my bike did not escape completely unscathed from shipping. Thankfully nothing is broken or badly damaged. Some paint/powdercoat was rubbed off of the handlebars in one spot, as well as a couple of small spots on the left side of the engine case. In all, my experience so far has been great. I submitted my MCO request with Killermotorsports, so we will see how well that process goes.

New buddies!
 

I had to stop working and bring my Goldwing in because of a nasty storm system coming through. Calling it a night, and hopefully I can get it done this weekend. Until then, my two girls can get to know each other.

Lovely Wing pic, with the sun streaming through the trees.

I wish I could take credit for it! My girlfriend is a very artistic person and used to work as a professional photographer at one time. I can snap off one good picture in 50, while she can walk up, take 10 photos, and all 10 are amazing.

A look at the 2017 burrito tube. It is pretty small, and has no weather seal, but it is just big enough for the factory tool kit.

Also noticed that mine came shipped with the chain very tight. That is me pushing up on said chain pretty hard.

Side by side of IMS vs stock shifters

I know the post is literally above/below this one right now, but while taking apart the rear end, I discovered my rear sprocket was loose. I posted a couple of videos of it here, just in case you somehow missed it.
http://chinariders.net/showthread.php?t=19265

Got her together! Just waiting on the battery to charge fully before hooking it up. Still need to tighten up the rear spokes up, but I am hot and I cant ride it right now anyway. It's miller time...

A quick word. I was originally going to run the PZ30 carb on the bike, but ended up just putting the VM26 on. Since these carbs are essentially a like for like swap, I don't think there will be any affect on the power for a "stock" dyno run.

The only thing with the Mikuni setup, which I hope doesn't leave me too rich at low speed is that I left the 30 pilot jet in, but swapped the main back to a 110 and left the needle in the middle position. It shouldn't be too rich, but we will have to see.

Also, a point of humor with me during this process. I pulled the stock plug to swap in a Denso unit and decided to check the gap. Stock plug was gapped at a massive .022

Tell her it's chinariders.net approved . Almost 3d like.

Happy birthday:yay:

MSR vs stock shifter
 

I thought it was just my shifter, or maybe I just got the wrong shifter. I guess RPS must have extended it. On a good note, the new shifter does have the folding peg!:tup:

The IMS shifter is just a hair longer, its for an xr400, but the peg also sits a bit more inward as well, and it gives me just a bit more room for my big foot.

It's Alive! Before you say something, yes, I have it idling at about 2100rpm. I did that intentionally for it's first break in run. Idle is now adjusted properly :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddgi9QCYb_4

As mentioned in the video, the valves need adjusted again. Clutch REALLY needs adjusted. I thought I had it right after pulling the cable to lube it, but obviously I didn't. Ah well.

Carb setup is just about spot on. Fired right up dead cold with half choke, and I was able to open the choke within 30 seconds of firing. 1 1/2 turns on the mixture screw. It will need a bit of tinkering, but not much, I am happy.

Your idle is too high, its obvious you don't know what your doing and you have no business working on a motorcycle :lmao:

Dangit! Guess I better sell them both! :p

Changed the oil, adjusted the valves to .004 intake .005 exhaust. I started at the recommended TT250 specs for break in .007, but it just didn't want to run right and was WAY too clattery. the .004/.005 combo is still classic flat tappet loud, but its the right kind of noise now.

I backed off the idle mixture screw half a turn as well, so now it is at 1 turn out. Plug was rather sooty for the brief 20 minutes I first ran it. Not overly sooty, but definitely on the rich side for sure. Still hangs just a teeny bit before going back to idle so I may back it off another quarter turn and see how it behaves. That aluminum thumb screw for the idle mixture is a lovely thing, I must say.

Took it for it's maiden voyage around the neighborhood and up a major street here for a total of 5 miles, doing the typical break in thing, up shifting and down shifting constantly, engine braking, throttling up. I wouldn't call what I am doing a hard break in, but not really gentle either.

That said, she gets up and scoots. I was expecting the bike to be rather doggish being brand new with 17/45 gearing out of the box, but it pulls my 260lbs of chewed bubblegum rather well. Surprisingly comfortable too. I gave the suspension a mild test and it performed way better than I was expecting. Overall, I must say I rather love my Hawk. I don't regret my decision to buy it one bit.

Please tell us more about that! Where did you find an aluminum thumb screw for the pilot mixture screw?

One of these guys. http://www.ebay.com/itm/111981067209...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

So, after logging some actual miles and getting the bike nice and hot and playing with some settings. 1 turn out was a touch too lean for the mixture screw. I have a feeling the 30 pilot on a stock bike is probably a touch too big, so it is going to make getting it dialed in a bit tricky. Now at 1 1/4 turns out and it improved some.

The 110 main jet is a touch on the rich side. after checking the plug, but only JUST a little. I am going to try and move the needle clip up 1 spot/needle further down and see how that goes. If it is still a bit rich, I will go back to the middle position and try a 105 main.

Current max speed reached is 50mph... only because the speed limit is 45 on the road I went down and well... it's not registered yet because I still await the almighty MCO.

That said, it got up to 50 pretty quickly and was pulling strong. I did end up ordering a 43 tooth rear sprocket. I want just a bit more leg room in the gears than what it has now, but not much more. I am going to take out 2 links when I install that new sprocket for a 128 links total, along with 4 Honda SL350 sprocket/cush drive studs also on the way.

Also of note, the factory shifter is now installed on the bike. With the sprocket cover bolted on, the top bolt position of the IMS shifter means the bolt can't be installed. You can install it and then the cover, but then you can't get the bottom cover bolt in because the shifter is in the way. I need to figure out some formula to make this work, as the stock shifter sits too far out for my liking, and well I bought the IMS so I would like to use it.

It is taking every ounce of my willpower to not install the exhaust and do the airbox mod/filter. My "more" complex doesn't like stock. I do it for the sake of the dyno though... That is my chant.

EDIT. Random side observation on the 2017's, at least mine. No turn signal beeper/buzzer. Maybe mine is just broken, but my signals work, so it came broken in the right way.

Hey megadan my solution for the shifter was to cut the end off it and weld it to the MSR shifter. Took longer to set up and clean up then to weld and install. Just an option to consider.

I thought about options like that, but I like finding simple solutions to issues that your average young person might be able to accomplish. I am going to try a couple of very simple approaches first, such as replace the flange head bolt with a standard bolt and washer, or quite possibly a button or cap head allen bolt. Without the flange on the bolt it may buy just enough room to finagle it in.

EDIT: I went ahead and ordered an EMGO aluminum shifter as well (Heck, it was only 19 bucks) which has the bolt on the bottom. I can compare the two, and in the end I will probably just turn around and sell the IMS shifter to somebody at an obvious discount.

Yes, it is my lazy way of doing things lol. I didn't order it to begin with, it was just sent to me when the actal shifter I did order was out of stock.

Thanks! May we see a pic of it installed?

Of course. Will have to wait until I get off of work, but i will definitely snap a pic.

Awww heck. You need a break. :)

What is this "break" you speak of? :lol:

Anyway, as requested...

With mine, I ended up using the spring that was on the original mixture screw combined with a small washer under it to get the spacing to match. It may be able to be run the way it comes, but I figured I would stick with known variables. A note on said small washers... the one that it comes with, at least on mine, would not work because the center hole was not centered. I ended up having to use my jewlers files to oblong the hole so it would work.

Thank you very kindly! I just ordered two.

Hey MegaDan, I've searched all over for capacity of front fork oil and want
to see if that is still fresh on your mind.
I've already put 200 miles on my Hawk 250 but I'm going to pull front end apart to service forks this week. Also I'm going to install the Hawk cluster as the oem speedo is a joke. Thanks for your advice.

I started with the specified amount of 210ml in each fork, for fork oil. A lot of people like to say "put back in what comes out" but you will find that each fork most likely has a different amount of oil in them. My left fork had almost twice as much as the right.

Make sure to pump the forks through their full range of motion a few times, and if you want to ensure you get as much out as possible, leave them upside down at a slight angle for a few minutes.

If you want to take the extra steps like I did, then I also flushed the forks with parts store brand ATF by filling them, cycling the forks right side up a few times, and then repeating the draining process. I did this for two reasons. First, to get as much of the factory oil out of the forks as possible. Two, my forks had a bunch of contaminants/debris in them.

Once I was satisfied that I got as much of the oil out as I could, I filled them with said 210ml, and then used a small tape measure to check the air gap. I had to add just a tiny bit more to one fork to get them even. If you are unfamiliar with this, you essentially add your oil, cycle the tube to ensure all of the air is out of the system, then with the tube all the way compressed, measure the distance between the top of the oil, and the top of the fork tube.

Once you have a figure, write it down somewhere for future use. I change my fork oil annually on my bikes, and without disassembling the forks you will never get all of the old oil out, so the levels will always be slightly off. Using the measuring method, you are ensuring that you get the same level of oil in the forks each time.

Are your kickstand Phillips-head screws rounded off like mine? (Looks like a gorilla installed those screws w/ an automatic screw gun?) I was thinking to pull the kickstand and "re-wire" the circuit... so I can have the engine idle while kickstand down. The switch comes from the factory with a circuit break which kills the engine when kickstand down.

No kickstand switch on my Hawk.

Got the MCO and bill of sale in the mail today. Woohoo. Have to wait a week or so to register her, but at least I have the paperwork.

I ran into an issue with my idle mixture thumb screw today as well and had to put the original one back in. Word of warning, make sure the little tip on the end is spaced properly. I was wondering why I was having such a problem with getting my idle to behave. Turns out I goofed up and ended up breaking the tip off. Not too bummed since it was so cheap, but it means I get to fiddle with it the old fashioned way.

In a related note, back to 1 1/2 turns out on the mixture screw and she runs ok. Time to start all over again...

I also changed to clear fuel line and added a small fuel filter from the parts store. Fuel hose is 3/16 so that it fits on the petcock and carb while reusing the stock spring clips in those locations. Filter has 1/4 inch hose ends so the line had to be persuaded on. No clips on it but it doesnt leak. I do plan on putting on a couple of clamps or clips here soon though for peace of mind.

Up to 76 miles now. Trying to work in riding when I can, but until it is registered I have to be cautious about when and where I ride.

Oh, and last thought of the day. My heavy butt got to 60mph on it. So it is possible with a fresh bike, tuned carb, and 17/45 gearing, but I had to push to get there. Not going to do that again for a while. As much as I am a proponent of a hard break in, even I wont push too hard too often.

Ah! The Hawk does not come with a kickstand switch... but the Magician does? WTH, I would have thought the wiring the same. Curious.

Mega... nice pic. The GF must have taken that pic too! (JK)

lol. I can take a good picture too from time to time, but this ain't one of them.

25 lbs loss is the quickest (and cheapest)way to 65mph:hehe:. My model is not set up for that power .

I put in that needle screw too and just f'ed it up cant, get past 45mph. Will put the original screw back in but wonder if I'm experiencing trash since I had a starting issue before thatthunbscrew install. Now it starts easy but bogs past 45mph.>:

What does that sticker say on f fender...if you crack your head it ain't our fault , no doubt.:hehe::hehe:

I could lose a good 40-50lbs for sure, but I'd still weigh 200-210lbs even at my lightest. Back in the days of young, I weighed 235lbs at 8% body fat and a lot more muscle. Back when I played football and did weight lifting... I miss those days lol.

It's kind of nice to know I am not the only person that screwed up thatthumbscrewthing. I will say this, my bike runs worlds better now with the original mixture screw back in. I almost wonder if the tip of the thumb screw has a different taper on it than the standard one on the Mikunis. Can't verify that with mine now since it's all messed up.

No idea what the stickers say, but I know that eventually I will dig out my heat gun to remove them. I am almost sure they say,"Danger, this is a motorcycle. Motorcycle Hot. May crash. Crash hurt bad"

105 miles now - Second oil change and checked and adjusted the valve clearances again, they were just SLIGHTLY out.

If you are wondering why I did an oil change so soon? Well, if you have ever done a hard break in, one key thing with the process is frequent oil changes, not just to flush as much metal particulate as possible, but also because new engines tend to have a bit more blowby until the rings seat, and this blowby saturates the oil with fuel. Fuel in oil makes the oil less lubricating.

At 105 miles, I could start to smell hints of fuel/hydrocarbon saturation in the oil on the dipstick. I was going to change it anyway, but it is just one of many reasons why.

That said, took it out for a quick little 5 mile run, and it's always amazing how good fresh oil feels.

In other news, bike has picked up a LOT more torque and power since day 1. I am going to do a compression test on my next day off and compare it to the numbers I had after the break in run.

On the carb side of things, as the motor breaks in more I have noticed that at light steady throttle at lower speeds I get a little hesitation with the engine hot. Plug chop during this condition revealed it is a little lean. I am going to pick up a 32.5 and 35 pilot jet and try those out. So far the 110 main with middle needle is spot on, but with a larger pilot I may need to move the needle down.