Buccaneer SRT250 Classic or Cafe Purchase - Page 13

ChopperCharles · 03-03-2019, 10:05 PM

Saturday was a 246 mile ride all told. Except for a stop for lunch, I was in the saddle from 1230 to 545

Charles.

ChopperCharles · 03-12-2019, 01:08 AM

Good news and bad news!

Good: I've found an LED headlight bulb that fits the SSR.
Bad: The bulb itself needs modification to fit
Good: Once modified, it works GREAT
Bad: You need to make a new wiring subharness or hack apart your existing harness.
Good: LED has an excellent pattern in the OEM reflector, and only uses 20 watts!
Bad: LED bulb is so good it shows that the OEM reflector is made for right-hand drive countries, and will dazzle oncoming drivers in the USA. (USA is left-hand drive, on the right side of the road)

So there's that.

The bulb is the Evitek E1. It's often re-branded and re-labeled and sold on Amazon, but there are a LOT of copies of middling quality, using poorer LED emitters that are not precisely located.

Here's where I found some:

https://evitekhid.en.alibaba.com/pro...1a4d1ee6RxNRFO

They're also available from Amazon, but for a lot more money:

https://www.amazon.com/Headlight-ALT.../dp/B07F11TYDZ

They're rated 24 watts each, and they've been measured at 20 watts under normal motorcycle voltages. That's 15 watts less than the stock Buccaneer headlight bulb, for orders of magnitude more light.

This bulb has no fan and no ballast, just a heat sink. However... the heat sink takes up all the space where the H4 connector normally goes. There is a cable out the back of the bulb with an H4 male connector on it. This, plus the H4 connector on the existing harness, is just too much to fit into the headlight shell. To get this bulb to work, you're going to have to cut the H4 connectors off, and then crimp and solder bullet connectors onto the harness. OR just solder the sub-harness directly to the bulb wires. Since the sub-harness can be unplugged easily, this is the cleanest route and makes for the most space inside the headlight shell.

That said... there's no going back once you cut the sub-harness. That part is not available separately, you have to buy an entire headlight assembly to get it. So if you want this to be reversible... then you'll have to source a bunch of connectors and a #195 socket, and build yourself a new subharness.

I went that route because I didn't know if it was going to fit, or if the beam pattern would be acceptable (LED bulb patterns are greatly affected by the reflector design. Far moreso than a halogen bulb is). If I knew it was going to be a blazing success, I'd have just cut and modified my harness. There's no need to ever go back, IMO.

So yeah, the price of admission on this is knowing how to solder (and heat shrink! Don't forget the heat shrink!) and modifying your headlight subharness.

Now onto the reflector... These are the patterns for a good headlight reflector.

The top DOT pattern is what most motorcycles have, and it sucks.

The middle one is what I wish all my motorcycles have. That's the same pattern as a Volvo's lights. Very sharp horizontal cutoff, and then an angled cutoff to the right, to illuminate the right side of the road.

Unfortunately, with a good LED bulb in the reflector, the Buccaneer is shown to have the bottom pattern. Instead of lighting up the right side of the road, the left side is lit up, and this can dazzle oncoming drivers. In practice it's not nearly as much of an angle as in the drawing, but it's still enough to see. There's really nothing we can do about it except contact SSR and complain. Or keep to the stock dim bulb.

In practice I rode it for a half hour or so in the dark and nobody flashed their lights at me, so perhaps it's not that bad.

I also replaced the parking light bulb with an amber LED #195 bulb. I got the 0.5 watt version from the auto parts store. They also make a much brighter 1.0 watt bulb in the same #195 form factor. You can get it white, blue, amber, or even red, but I suggest either white or amber for a forward-facing bulb. Forward facing red and especially blue can get you in trouble with the po-lice.

The amber stands out with this bulb, and looks good. I kinda wish I had gone with the 1.0 watt brighter bulb, and may return these and go with that. Or I might keep with the existing bulb.

So, 35 watts halogen + 5 watt parking bulb is 40 watts of power... and the current setup is 20.5 watts. That's a savings of 14.5 watts!

Charles.

ChopperCharles · 03-12-2019, 11:28 AM

Just got info back from SSR. The stator is rated 140 watts "nominal". Which likely means at 5000rpm. So a bone stock XV250 stator, at 350 watts, should be a huge improvement.

Question is, can that little voltage regulator handle it? I'm thinking probably not. Unfortunately, looking for universal voltage regulators is troublesome because our regulator has 2 14V DC outputs.

Also found out the headlight circuit out of the regulator is not fuse protected. Not a big deal for running halogen bulbs, but for an LED bulb I'd feel a lot better if it were protected with a fuse.

Charles.

ChopperCharles · 03-12-2019, 03:56 PM

Today I added a pair of NGK Iridium plugs. Started it up and the idle was slightly higher, and after a few moments the EFI corrected it. I can't say it's not just wishful thinking, but the bike does feel like it has slightly more power. It's not a lot. The behavior is subtly changed when closing the throttle and then immediately re-opening it slightly. Before it was a small lurch. Now it seems to be a small lurch with a tiny surge of power. It's subtle, but I definitely feel this has improved the power across the board by a tiny amount.

Charles.

2LZ · 03-12-2019, 04:09 PM

This is cool keeping up with your chronicles. Thanks.
I run iridium plugs but more for longevity reasons. Not sure if they make any difference in performance. It's more mental just knowing i have a good plug. Old habit from my 2 stroke days, i guess.

ChopperCharles · 03-13-2019, 10:41 AM

The way I see it, is if a plug can offer a performance boost, it's going to be in the form of fractions of a horsepower. If you've got a 50 or 60 horses you're not going to notice it... the fewer ponies the engine puts out, the more you notice even small changes in power output.

The iridium plugs do offer a more complete burn, especially if you're running a little rich (which the Buccaneer is most definitely NOT). This is what I attribute the subtle difference in the bike after the plug change.

Charles.

Buccaneer · 03-16-2019, 05:26 PM

Charles,

It would be a help if you would measure your voltage under different loads with your stock stator and any new stator. I measured mine with four different loads today: low beam, high beam, driving lamps (70w total), and high beam plus driving lamps. The driving lamps approximate the load of your vest, as I recall. The attached graph shows the results.

One big surprise for me was that the "35/35W" H4 Philips HS1 12636 bulb draws more current on high beam than on low beam, even though the designation is 35 watts each. I pulled it and indeed measured different resistances (cold bulb) between the two circuits.

I was surprised by my measurements overall: the system does an excellent job with the stock loads, all the way down to idling speed. Although I have tried to come up with a prediction about how the XV250's Nippon Denso 25 amp stator would do, I've given up.

By the way, I came up with a method of making these measurements that you might consider. I propped up a digital voltmeter below the speedometer and then used my phone's camera to take videos while I revved the engine to different rpm's under the different loads. I did this while the bike was on its paddock stand. Later I started and stopped the video to record rpm and voltage values at different points.

Also by the way, and it probably goes without saying for you, the difference in performance of your vest on your two bikes would be due to different supplied voltages under the load. You could easily measure this too.

Buc

P.S. Based on past measurements, including the resting voltage of the battery today, I think the voltmeter I used is pretty accurate. If so, the whole set of measurements shows that my driving lamps are not a big enough load to drain the battery, even at idle. However they would be brighter with more juice, just as your vest would be warmer.

P.P.S. As I recall, the relationship between voltage and lumens is strongly nonlinear, so that an increase of 1.25 volts would be very noticeable for my lights. If you get the volts up near 14 with a new stator, under load, I'll be following your lead.

B.

Buccaneer · 03-16-2019, 08:22 PM

Here's an update on that "35/35W" H4 bulb, the Philips model I just mentioned above.

I started the bike, hooked the bulb up to my battery through an ammeter and measured the battery's voltage at the same time. The results:

low beam: 14.17 volts * 1.93 amps = 27.35 watts

high beam: 14.04 volts * 2.68 amps = 37.63 watts

!!

So, it's about 35 watts on high beam, but only about 25 watts on low, even though I can clearly read "35/35W" on the base of the bulb (photo below).

Some possible explanations: 1) it's a one-off manufacturing error on this example; 2) it's one of those Chinese knock-offs everyone worries about; 3) it's a legit Philips bulb, and they're all like this.

Votes?

I vote (3), but I'll be interested in more data.

Buc

By the way, I don't want to cause topic drift here. I am much more interested in Charles's experiment with a new stator than I am in how Philips labels its bulbs.

ChopperCharles · 03-18-2019, 04:22 PM

Just FYI, I got 165.5 miles on a tank today. At that point there was still fuel left in the bike, but when I stopped it would uncover the fuel pump and the motor would cough, and once right before I got to the gas station it even died as I came to a stop. There was still fuel in the tank, and I think if I had run on level ground with no stopping I could probably have gotten another 15 miles... at most.

Spec says 3.43 gallons. I filled up and it took 2.96 gallons. There should have been .47 gallons left in the tank. In practice, it felt like there was maybe half that left. One of these days I'll strap a gallon fuel can to the bike and see how far I get get before I'm completely out of fuel.

I'm getting about 56 miles to the gallon with premium.

Charles.

ChopperCharles · 03-20-2019, 11:10 AM

Hey Buccaneer, what is the sequence number of your vin? Last 6 digits... mine is 000086, which implies it's the 86th bike off of the assembly line.

Also the 11th digit on my VIN is 6, which is the plant code for Cixi Ningbo China. So mine was made there. I'm guessing all of them are, but I'd be curious to know if any are made in another plant.

Mine had missing parts, and I'm wondering if it's because it's early in the production run or what later, or just not relevant.

What's your sequence number and plant code?

Charles.

Azhule · 03-20-2019, 02:07 PM

Those are "EFI" with a fuel pump right?

Maybe add some kind of fuel system and upper cylinder lube/cleaner to the fuel if you plan on running it to the point it kills the engine from running out of fuel... will help keep the all the tiny fuel pump parts lubricated if the fuel can no longer do so

Or rid until you get the first "cough/hesitation"... should be close to "running on fumes" by then

ChopperCharles · 03-20-2019, 06:09 PM

Yup, EFI with a fuel pump. Not wanting to hurt the pump, so I don't intend to run it out as a matter of course. But I want to know what my worst-case, "oh shit I'm in the middle of nowhere and this gas station is closed can I make it to the next one" situation is... BEFORE I'm up shit creek!

Charles.

ChopperCharles · 03-24-2019, 09:37 PM

Is there a cross-reference for the rear sprocket yet? I'd like to go up a tooth or two for a little more acceleration.

charles.

ChopperCharles · 03-25-2019, 03:15 PM

So I ran it again and ran out of fuel completely. This time it took 2.92 gallons. I was definitely out of gas. I had to slosh the fuel remaining in the tank to get it to start, and then I ran out of gas on the way to the gas station, and had to slosh it around on the side of the road. I'm guessing when I got 2.96 before it is because i was in minor traffic with stop lights and lots of accel/decel, and the act of speeding up and slowing down did the sloshing for me. Or because it was colder outside (50s instead of 70s). Who knows. But 2.9 and some change is run out completely. Depending on your fuel mileage, that can be anywhere from 145 miles to 174 miles.

That brings up another thought; riding WFO on the highway for long distance, with a headwind and no traffic to draft behind, I got just over 50 mpg. That's the lowest I've gotten. Highest is 59mpg so far.

Charles.

ChopperCharles · 03-25-2019, 05:28 PM

wow... has anyone seen the Caffeina on Italjet's page? It looks like a far, far uglier version of the Buccaneer. FAR uglier.

Far.

https://www.italjet.com/moto/en/caffeina/

The yellow one appears to have a 17" rear wheel instead of the 15". The black shows the 15" rim. Specs say both wheels are 17" now, but the black bike definitely has the 15" rim on there. Or maybe a 16 considering the tires its running.

USD forks are a nice touch and I love the headers... but god damn the rest of that bike is hard to look at. Especially the black one.

Charles.

03-12-2019, 04:09 PM	#185
2LZ Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Volcano, Ca Posts: 7,101	This is cool keeping up with your chronicles. Thanks. I run iridium plugs but more for longevity reasons. Not sure if they make any difference in performance. It's more mental just knowing i have a good plug. Old habit from my 2 stroke days, i guess. __________________ "Light a fire for a man, and you heat him for a day. Light a man on fire, and you heat him for the rest of his life." 2007 Suzuki DRZ400S (SM convert) 2009 Q Link XP 200 1967 BSA B25 250cc Starfire 2022 Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 2023 Royal Enfield Scram 411 1948 Royal Enfield Model G 350
	1

03-20-2019, 02:07 PM	#191
Azhule Join Date: Dec 2015 Location: CO Posts: 1,525	Those are "EFI" with a fuel pump right? Maybe add some kind of fuel system and upper cylinder lube/cleaner to the fuel if you plan on running it to the point it kills the engine from running out of fuel... will help keep the all the tiny fuel pump parts lubricated if the fuel can no longer do so Or rid until you get the first "cough/hesitation"... should be close to "running on fumes" by then __________________ "Think as you like... but this self proclaimed Professor is always right" - Buckshot "You never know what someone is hiding beneath their smile..." - NinjaTom - R.I.P.
	0

03-03-2019, 10:05 PM	#181
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	Saturday was a 246 mile ride all told. Except for a stop for lunch, I was in the saddle from 1230 to 545 Charles.
	1

03-12-2019, 01:08 AM	#182
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	Good news and bad news! Good: I've found an LED headlight bulb that fits the SSR. Bad: The bulb itself needs modification to fit Good: Once modified, it works GREAT Bad: You need to make a new wiring subharness or hack apart your existing harness. Good: LED has an excellent pattern in the OEM reflector, and only uses 20 watts! Bad: LED bulb is so good it shows that the OEM reflector is made for right-hand drive countries, and will dazzle oncoming drivers in the USA. (USA is left-hand drive, on the right side of the road) So there's that. The bulb is the Evitek E1. It's often re-branded and re-labeled and sold on Amazon, but there are a LOT of copies of middling quality, using poorer LED emitters that are not precisely located. Here's where I found some: https://evitekhid.en.alibaba.com/pro...1a4d1ee6RxNRFO They're also available from Amazon, but for a lot more money: https://www.amazon.com/Headlight-ALT.../dp/B07F11TYDZ They're rated 24 watts each, and they've been measured at 20 watts under normal motorcycle voltages. That's 15 watts less than the stock Buccaneer headlight bulb, for orders of magnitude more light. This bulb has no fan and no ballast, just a heat sink. However... the heat sink takes up all the space where the H4 connector normally goes. There is a cable out the back of the bulb with an H4 male connector on it. This, plus the H4 connector on the existing harness, is just too much to fit into the headlight shell. To get this bulb to work, you're going to have to cut the H4 connectors off, and then crimp and solder bullet connectors onto the harness. OR just solder the sub-harness directly to the bulb wires. Since the sub-harness can be unplugged easily, this is the cleanest route and makes for the most space inside the headlight shell. That said... there's no going back once you cut the sub-harness. That part is not available separately, you have to buy an entire headlight assembly to get it. So if you want this to be reversible... then you'll have to source a bunch of connectors and a #195 socket, and build yourself a new subharness. I went that route because I didn't know if it was going to fit, or if the beam pattern would be acceptable (LED bulb patterns are greatly affected by the reflector design. Far moreso than a halogen bulb is). If I knew it was going to be a blazing success, I'd have just cut and modified my harness. There's no need to ever go back, IMO. So yeah, the price of admission on this is knowing how to solder (and heat shrink! Don't forget the heat shrink!) and modifying your headlight subharness. Now onto the reflector... These are the patterns for a good headlight reflector. The top DOT pattern is what most motorcycles have, and it sucks. The middle one is what I wish all my motorcycles have. That's the same pattern as a Volvo's lights. Very sharp horizontal cutoff, and then an angled cutoff to the right, to illuminate the right side of the road. Unfortunately, with a good LED bulb in the reflector, the Buccaneer is shown to have the bottom pattern. Instead of lighting up the right side of the road, the left side is lit up, and this can dazzle oncoming drivers. In practice it's not nearly as much of an angle as in the drawing, but it's still enough to see. There's really nothing we can do about it except contact SSR and complain. Or keep to the stock dim bulb. In practice I rode it for a half hour or so in the dark and nobody flashed their lights at me, so perhaps it's not that bad. I also replaced the parking light bulb with an amber LED #195 bulb. I got the 0.5 watt version from the auto parts store. They also make a much brighter 1.0 watt bulb in the same #195 form factor. You can get it white, blue, amber, or even red, but I suggest either white or amber for a forward-facing bulb. Forward facing red and especially blue can get you in trouble with the po-lice. The amber stands out with this bulb, and looks good. I kinda wish I had gone with the 1.0 watt brighter bulb, and may return these and go with that. Or I might keep with the existing bulb. So, 35 watts halogen + 5 watt parking bulb is 40 watts of power... and the current setup is 20.5 watts. That's a savings of 14.5 watts! Charles.
	4

03-12-2019, 11:28 AM	#183
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	Just got info back from SSR. The stator is rated 140 watts "nominal". Which likely means at 5000rpm. So a bone stock XV250 stator, at 350 watts, should be a huge improvement. Question is, can that little voltage regulator handle it? I'm thinking probably not. Unfortunately, looking for universal voltage regulators is troublesome because our regulator has 2 14V DC outputs. Also found out the headlight circuit out of the regulator is not fuse protected. Not a big deal for running halogen bulbs, but for an LED bulb I'd feel a lot better if it were protected with a fuse. Charles.
	0

03-12-2019, 03:56 PM	#184
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	Today I added a pair of NGK Iridium plugs. Started it up and the idle was slightly higher, and after a few moments the EFI corrected it. I can't say it's not just wishful thinking, but the bike does feel like it has slightly more power. It's not a lot. The behavior is subtly changed when closing the throttle and then immediately re-opening it slightly. Before it was a small lurch. Now it seems to be a small lurch with a tiny surge of power. It's subtle, but I definitely feel this has improved the power across the board by a tiny amount. Charles.
	1

03-13-2019, 10:41 AM	#186
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	The way I see it, is if a plug can offer a performance boost, it's going to be in the form of fractions of a horsepower. If you've got a 50 or 60 horses you're not going to notice it... the fewer ponies the engine puts out, the more you notice even small changes in power output. The iridium plugs do offer a more complete burn, especially if you're running a little rich (which the Buccaneer is most definitely NOT). This is what I attribute the subtle difference in the bike after the plug change. Charles.
	1

03-18-2019, 04:22 PM	#189
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	Just FYI, I got 165.5 miles on a tank today. At that point there was still fuel left in the bike, but when I stopped it would uncover the fuel pump and the motor would cough, and once right before I got to the gas station it even died as I came to a stop. There was still fuel in the tank, and I think if I had run on level ground with no stopping I could probably have gotten another 15 miles... at most. Spec says 3.43 gallons. I filled up and it took 2.96 gallons. There should have been .47 gallons left in the tank. In practice, it felt like there was maybe half that left. One of these days I'll strap a gallon fuel can to the bike and see how far I get get before I'm completely out of fuel. I'm getting about 56 miles to the gallon with premium. Charles.
	2

03-20-2019, 11:10 AM	#190
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	Hey Buccaneer, what is the sequence number of your vin? Last 6 digits... mine is 000086, which implies it's the 86th bike off of the assembly line. Also the 11th digit on my VIN is 6, which is the plant code for Cixi Ningbo China. So mine was made there. I'm guessing all of them are, but I'd be curious to know if any are made in another plant. Mine had missing parts, and I'm wondering if it's because it's early in the production run or what later, or just not relevant. What's your sequence number and plant code? Charles.
	0

03-20-2019, 06:09 PM	#192
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	Yup, EFI with a fuel pump. Not wanting to hurt the pump, so I don't intend to run it out as a matter of course. But I want to know what my worst-case, "oh shit I'm in the middle of nowhere and this gas station is closed can I make it to the next one" situation is... BEFORE I'm up shit creek! Charles.
	0

03-24-2019, 09:37 PM	#193
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	Is there a cross-reference for the rear sprocket yet? I'd like to go up a tooth or two for a little more acceleration. charles.
	0

03-25-2019, 03:15 PM	#194
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	So I ran it again and ran out of fuel completely. This time it took 2.92 gallons. I was definitely out of gas. I had to slosh the fuel remaining in the tank to get it to start, and then I ran out of gas on the way to the gas station, and had to slosh it around on the side of the road. I'm guessing when I got 2.96 before it is because i was in minor traffic with stop lights and lots of accel/decel, and the act of speeding up and slowing down did the sloshing for me. Or because it was colder outside (50s instead of 70s). Who knows. But 2.9 and some change is run out completely. Depending on your fuel mileage, that can be anywhere from 145 miles to 174 miles. That brings up another thought; riding WFO on the highway for long distance, with a headwind and no traffic to draft behind, I got just over 50 mpg. That's the lowest I've gotten. Highest is 59mpg so far. Charles.
	0

03-25-2019, 05:28 PM	#195
ChopperCharles Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: RDU, NC Posts: 677	wow... has anyone seen the Caffeina on Italjet's page? It looks like a far, far uglier version of the Buccaneer. FAR uglier. Far. https://www.italjet.com/moto/en/caffeina/ The yellow one appears to have a 17" rear wheel instead of the 15". The black shows the 15" rim. Specs say both wheels are 17" now, but the black bike definitely has the 15" rim on there. Or maybe a 16 considering the tires its running. USD forks are a nice touch and I love the headers... but god damn the rest of that bike is hard to look at. Especially the black one. Charles.
	2