BD125-8 ZS190 swap and EFI conversion

[glavey]

Thanks, dude. I really appreciate the kind words. It's posts like yours and others here who have encouraged me to keep building and posting.


<3

[glavey]

I salvaged the voltage converter from my DIY bluetooth module and wired it up to the AFR gauge. 90% success! The arduino did what it was supposed to and the voltage converter didn't go up in smoke, however for some power-related reason, the arduino couldn't communicate with my computer. It would work when the voltage converter was disconnected. Just a small thing I'll have to be mindful of when updating the arduino.

The different voltage converter was bigger than the last one I used; too big to fit in the gauge housing, so I needed to elongate the gauge to fit all of the electric modules. I decided to cut the gauge housing in half and glue/tape/epoxy something between the two halves to make more room. I cut apart the plastic cover for some old blank DVDs and made a rectangular-ish shaped piece that I could use as the "filler" piece. After I dremeled the gauge in half, I taped the gauge pieces and the filler piece in place with electrical tape. I tried to use super glue, but the filler plastic was too shiny and slippery.

The gauge, as it is now, is about 90mm/3 1/2 in. deep and about 55mm/2 3/16 in. diameter. It will update the display and the LEDs 10 times/second. I found that any faster than that, I can't make out the numbers in the display. I'll probably temporarily mount it somewhere along the top of the speedo cluster so I'll be able to quickly glance at it while riding. I haven't decided exactly how I am going to attach the gauge to the speedo, but preliminary thoughts are either more electrical tape or zip tie to speedo case.

Sorry there isn't much in this update but my brain is kinda foggy right now and not that much really happened. Lots of thinking and planning about how to do certain things, but not much doing things. If for some reason the AFR gauge doesn't work in the form factor that it is in now, I have plans to make it much smaller, simpler, and blend in much better with the styling of the bike.

Except for tomorrow, the next 5 or 7 days look like good riding weather. Stay tuned...

[glavey]

Apologies for the poor-quality post previously, I was really out of it but I felt like I needed to post something.

I think the few rides I have taken on the bike have given me enough information to give a bit of feedback/observations on the 190 engine.

Like most of the pit-bike-sized engines around, the 190 doesn't really idle smoothly... It doesn't idle roughly, just not smooth. By that I mean the engine is going putt-putt-puttputt-pu-pu-putt-putt-putt instead of a "normal" idle of putt-putt-putt-putt. I don't know for sure, but it think the combination of little-to-no intake piping, low speed, and no load make the engine kinda miss once every... 3-7 complete engine cycles.

The carb that came with the 190 is a Chinese copy of a keihin PE28 carb and (I am 90% sure of this, but check your jets to be sure) uses these slow jets and these main jets. I think, but am not positive that these keihin main jets will also thread in to the main jet tube and work MAYBE. My carb came with a #40 slow jet and a #115 main jet. I didn't record the needle# or the clip position.

I don't have any information on the AFR ratio for these jets; I still have yet to install the AFR gauge on the bike. I've either been too eager to ride it or busy with something else. I can say that the engine responds very well in all running situations I have put it under except one. There is a miss around 4-6k rpm regardless of throttle position. I don't know if this is an ignition or fuel problem, but I have read of other people having the same miss at around the same engine speeds. Other than that, there has never been a fueling issue.

The engine starts up with the choke on within 2 revolutions every time. With the choke on and the air temp ~67F the bike idles at about 4-5k rpm. after about a minute of running, the engine will start to sound a little boggy and rich. That's when I turn off the choke. I have the idle set around 1500-2000 rpm. A little high, I know, but the engine likes it there and responds very quickly to all but the most violent of throttle snap-openings. Since, as described above, the engine doesn't idle smoothly, using an AFR gauge to tune the idle would probably be futile. I've read about mechanics using a vacuum gauge to set the idle mixture, so I'll give that a try. Also something to note about the keihin PE28 carbs - the low speed mixture screw, NOT the idle screw, meters how much air goes into the engine at and around idle speeds. Adjusting an air-mixture screw, in my experience, is a bit more finicky than adjusting a fuel-mixture screw. When I was using a VM22 carb that also has an air-adjust screw, I was running about 1/4 to 3/4 turn from fully closed to get the idle just right.

At in-town speeds of <35 mph, up to 6k rpm the engine, as geared (I think 16/34?), feels much like my scooter felt after I put a big block kit on it; feeling the same amount of torque, just add 3-5 mph to whatever speed you felt you were doing with the smaller engine. I don't know if it is my lack of experience with bikes or perhaps a poor fuel mixture, but I have to rev the engine up to about 6k rpm when taking off and SLOWLY release the clutch or else it will stall. It could also be the new clutch is being broken in as well. I'll choose me and my lack of experience as the main cause of feeling lack of torque on take-off. In situations like this that have many possible causes of a certain symptom, If I am anywhere in the "might be the cause" list, I just automatically choose myself as the cause of the symptom. I'm usually right, as well.

In contrast, once the engine is above 6k rpm, the torque and the pull from the engine increases precipitously all the way to 10k rpm. Seriously, with how much the 190 pulls at wot, I am thinking that the 125 was very held back by the factory quiet/restrictive exhaust. It pulled as hard at 8k rpm as it did at 4k rpm. I might temporarily put the factory 125 exhaust on the 190 and see just how bad it is.

When the engine is up at those higher rpms, the entire bike and engine buzzes, vibrates, and shakes and I can't hear the intake or exhaust over the mechanical engine sounds. Now, I don't mean the engine is vibrating the mounting bolts loose, I mean the lack of a counter-balance shaft makes this engine, the bike, and everything touching or connected to either of those vibrate. Nothing on my bike has come loose except for a cell phone holder. Don't worry, I didn't have a phone in there at the time.

The transmission shifts quickly, smoothly, and effortlessly. Only twice have I accidentally shifted into neutral instead of 2nd. It is still difficult to get into neutral with the engine running and the bike stationary. I suspect that will improve with continued use.

I don't know if, again, this is either my fault with lack of experience or just the way things are, but it has been very difficult to keep the engine at a steady operating state in lower gears at lower speeds. What I mean by that is below 35mph in any gear but mostly in the lower ones, the engine wants to accelerate or decelerate (as well as jerk the bike when going from decel to accel), NOT run at a steady speed. I really don't know if that is inherent to this engine or just engines above a certain size. It has certainly given me cramps in my throttle hand, having to try and precisely control input.

The exhaust system I am using is too loud for my tastes. I have only run it with the silencer in the muffler, I don't dare take it out. I'm going to try and modify the silencer to reduce the volume a bit. The silencer that is in the muffler now only has a narrower diameter pipe for the exhaust to exit through (like this but without the holes drilled in the sides of the tube.) I want to drill holes, like in the linked piece, to force the exhaust gases to flow through smaller, but many more small holes. I also want to try cutting slots in the pipe instead of holes and see what happens with that. If none of that cures my sore ear's woes, then a muffler re-pack and possible baffles are the answer. At the extreme end, I could buy and install a different muffler. Now that I have an exhaust system that comes in pieces instead of all welded together, I can change out mufflers with the same pipe size, but that is only if everything else fails.

I have ordered some filament for my 3d printer so I can attempt to make a "backpack" for the speedo/dashboard. The big round taped-up AFR gauge, while perfectly working, is a bit too... it's just not what I like to see when looking at my bike. I am going to try and make something that will ziptie/glue/something to the front of the speedo (the part that all the bugs hit) and have the numeric AFR readout, some number of colored LEDs to indicate AFR at a glance, numeric battery voltage, and maybe either a numeric temperature display or just a temperature warning light.

[bogieboy]

Probably still idles better than a 110 with a race cam (6.6mm lift and long duration/overlap) and vm26 carb... that was a fun bike though...LOL

[glavey]

Its honestly not too far off from that - it sounds almost exactly like the engine in this video:

[glavey]

The exhaust silencer and the filament came in!

The exhaust silencer, as compared to the one that came with the exhaust system, has a larger diameter outlet pipe, a cap on the inside end of the exhaust inlet, and holes drilled along the length of the pipe. The holes are, I'm guessing, about 1/4" diameter, at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock. You can move the exhaust inlet cap closer or further away from the wide part of the silencer for less or more noise and power respectively. I went for a ride today with only the last four holes in the silencer letting exhaust gasses through. During warm-up with the choke on and at idle there was little to no difference in the perceived volume of the exhaust as compared to the silencer that came with the exhaust. However, at higher rpms the silencer was without question choking the engine. I knew the loss in power would happen, I wanted to see what the worst performance with this silencer would be and then hopefully get to a point where restriction-to-flow and decibel levels are good enough.

Oh and if you want to know the size of silencer to get for the exhaust system I have, the exhaust tip Internal Diameter is 48mm/ 1.8". The tip is angled so don't get a silencer that is much longer than about 71mm/3".

I recorded a very short clip of the engine idling and revving after I got back from a ride. The microphone in my phone does not do the low-end bassy portion of the audio justice, but you can hear how the engine and exhaust don't have the steady put-put-put other engines do. The video bogieboy posted sounds very much like how my bike idles. I suspect my phone was doing some compression/processing to the audio to make it sound like it did.



When I took that video, I noticed that what I suspect are the valves are getting a wee bit loud. Before I go out on my next ride (in another week, cold weather) I need to at least check the valve clearances. I think I remember I put them both at .006". I posted the number I used, I'll go back and look. Whether or not they are still at or near .006", I think I will try them both at .005 and see how much that quiets the valve train. While I'm doing that, I can give the engine its 100 mile oil change. I expect slightly metallic oil from the break in period, hopefully not silver paint or chunks and bits of... anything.

Three more things I would like to get done on the bike are:

1. Deal with fuel tank vent hose leaking/dripping fuel. The stock fuel tank vent on my bike - the one on the top of the tank with the hose barb bent 90 degrees will, with or without a hose and/or filter attached to it, sputter/drip/spray fuel. I am starting to suspect a purposeful or accidental restriction in the hose barb on the fuel tank. The fuel would be able to splash/roll up there and if the tank happens to have a positive pressure inside it, it will push the fuel through the restriction into the hose barb and not let it back in the tank because more fuel/fuel vapors are being pushed out. I don't think there are any baffles inside the tank around the venting hose barb. There are however, MANY baffles around the fuel filler area. I am thinking I might either buy/make a gas cap that has an integrated vent tube thingy (the kind that are quite common with dirt bikes, like this one) OR just drilling a small, maybe 1/16" hole in the fuel cap that I have now - enough to equalize pressure, but not invite dirt, dust, debris, and bugs into the tank all while keeping all of the fuel inside the fuel tank.

2. See if the $15 grom shock mod can me done on my forks. I already bought the hardware and the fork oil. Even if the mod doesn't work, I'm still going to get rid of the factory "oil".

3. Connect and wire the dash wart to the speedometer. I finished designing and making a housing for the AFR gauge, wideband status LED, and a voltmeter. More on that down below.

I have noticed that the area on my exhaust that is directly beneath the starter motor has what looks like.. not rust, but something like a water stain. The Only what I could think of the exhaust starting to corrode in that specific area is if somehow... (wild guesses about sciencey stuff that I barely understand coming up, be warned) when the metal of the exhaust and the starter motor get to a hot enough temperature, they do something like... emit particles? atoms? ions? The exhaust could, I think, be at a different voltage potential than the engine block (I am including the starter in the engine block) because of all of the particles of air that are striking the exhaust while the bike is in motion. That difference in potential voltage might allow what ever the hot engine block is emitting to adhere to the metal of the exhaust and cause it to tarnish.

Or maybe it's magic pixies and unicorn farts. That was just an exercise in letting my brain go as far as it wanted to with a certain train of thought.

Whatever the cause of the tarnishing, unless it gets worse, I'm not worried about it.

I started making the housing for the gauges by making educated guesses on the contour of the top of the speedometer. I tried taking pictures straight-on and using them as references for modeling, but that didn't give me a good-enough result. I do have the capability to 3d-scan an object with an old xbox kinect and use the resulting model as a reference, but that would require me digging out the kinect camera as well as a lot of work post-model-capture to clean up the model to a usable level. I decided to go the old fashion route of guess, make, check, curse, repeat. In one of the pictures you can see some of the contour test prints as well as items I printed to get my printer calibrated to a new roll of filament, including a throttle-hand wrist rest.

I ended up with an off-to-one-side, bolt-to-the-speedo cluster. The face of the cluster is angled about 20 degrees higher than the speedometer so it is easier to see and maybe less likely to reflect the sun into my eyes. The AFR gauge face, arduino, power regulator, voltmeter, and status LED all get stuffed inside from the outside throuth the AFR gauge face hole. The power and signal wires come out the right side and the whole thing gets zip-tied/bolted/otherwise attached to the speedometer housing through 8 holes drilled in the cluster (and soon to be drilled in the speedometer case). I didn't intend for this case/cluster to be water or weather-proof. I will probably silicone or hot glue the AFR gauge face and the voltmeter housing in place and plug-up the wire exit hole, but I am going to leave the holes for the zip ties/bolts/whatever unplugged, as-is. I want the case to be able to breathe and vent air and moisture.

I attached a lower-quality .stl file of the cluster if anyone wants it. Also, here is a link that will let you look at the part in your web browser as well as download a high-quality copy in many different file formats.

[glavey]

With another ride under my belt, I have a little bit more to report.

Before the ride I just took, I checked and adjusted the valves. The intake valve had loosened up to about .007" and the exhaust valve was still .006". I decided that I would set the valves to .004" on the intake and .005" on the exhaust. At the end of the ride, when the engine was well into operating temperature, the valves were audible at idle, but not loud. The best way I can explain it is tick-tick-tick, not click-click-click.

I drilled a small hole, I think 1/16" into the fuel tank cap right behind the pivot for the "lift open" tab for the fuel tank vent. The hole opens up on the underside of the cap, in a recess that should prevent fuel from getting pushed out of the hole. That solution appears to work well, fuel hasn't leaked out of the cap and no fuel is leaking our of the capped vent nipple on the tank.

However...

After the ride, even with the tank vent port nipple capped off, the carb and some of the surrounding area was wet with gas. The picture I attached shows a vent hose coming down; I took that picture when I was using that hose as a vent, I no longer have that hose on the bike, but the wetness of the carb is still representative of what is happening. Only the side of the carb that faces forward is wet, the other sides and the top are dry. It almost appears that the most wet area is the choke lever. Perhaps something isn't completely... torqued? internally in the carb. Maybe there's a leak in/around the choke area. Maybe the carb is tilted forward a bit and I haven't noticed it because I always look at it while the bike is one the center stand. Maybe the float level is too high. Maybe the o-ring for the float bowl is pinched. Quite possibly a combination thereof. I'll have to find out at a later date.

I had intended to try the shock mod after I had done all of the above, but I had the realization that since I don't have a front-end motorcycle stand, I would have to do some shady, sketchy stuff to keep the bike off the ground while potentially the front wheel and both front shocks are off the bike. I managed to do something like that once before by using a floor jack right on the meaty piece of frame that is just inside the kick stand, lifting the rear of the bike off the ground and then weighting the back of the bike down with cinder blocks, stepping stones, and bricks. Like I said, sketchy. A different way I could get the front lifted is put the bike "inside" a folding ladder and suspend the front from the top step of the ladder with rope/straps/chain. The only folding ladder I have is an inherited, old wooden, creaky ladder; not very safe or sturdy. I do have two saw horses of roughly the same height... I don't know exactly how I'll do it, but I'll do it. Also, one more smallish thing that kept me from attempting the shock mod sooner was the bolts in the triple tree were already starting to strip, so I bought some new ones to replace them.

I finished designing and printing the gauge cluster. I had originally planned to hold the cluster to the speedometer with just zip ties, but they just wouldn't hold tight enough, so I ended up using small bolts and nuts with rubber grommets between the cluster and the speedometer to eliminate any vibrating and to "absorb" any differences in contour between the two pieces. I haven't wired the gauges in yet, for the time being they are just there, but not functioning.

For the past few days, I have been mentally planning out circuitry for a quick shifter. Not just the switch that gets triggered by the shifter, but all the electric components that go in to giving the ignition system a sub-second cut out. At the time of writing, I have just a overview of the specific ICs (integrated circuits, those little black chips you see inside anything technological) I might use and how to clean up the input signal to prevent false re-triggering and/or switch bouncing. I don't have anything tangible to show yet, it is still all brainstorming.

I had originally thought about using an arduino for the quick shifter, but arduinos CAN crash. If the arduino inside of a quick shifter crashed while you were riding the bike and using the quick shifter...

1. On the next attempted upshift, the bike would probably, depending on load, either shift very harshly, damaging the dogs in the transmission in the process, or it would go into a false neutral. So the gears as well as the arduino would crash and probably made a sad sound.

2. Upon hearing said sad sound, you would probably turn around, go home and investigate what happened. Once you realized what happened, you, as well as the gears in the transmission, would have made a sad sound.

I decided to use dedicated ICs for the quick shifter because, to the best of my knowledge, non-programmable ICs (the kind that you can't upload code to) cannot crash the same way an arduino can. There are still reasons the ICs might not work properly like a quick dip in supply voltage or a floating input/reset pin (floating in this context means not connected to the positive or negative voltage rail).

Things are getting to the point where I am running out of new things to talk about regarding the bike. Posts might get even more spaced out since I won't have much more than a few lines of information to share.

[Weldangrind]

Originally Posted by glavey

Or maybe it's magic pixies and unicorn farts.

People type LOL a lot, but I genuinely had a good laugh at that. Your writing style consistently brightens my day.

I love the concept of having a real time AFR display; that speaks to my inner geek. I also love the little Theodore tugboat.

[glavey]

I'm glad I could make you laugh.

The tugboat model came from here and the throttle wrist rest came from here.

Smallish update on the leaking carb - I believe the float level was too high. When I took off the air filter, the bottom of the rubber intake boot and the foam filter was wet with gas. I had originally adjusted the float so that the seam on the float was level with the bottom of the carb body when the fuel-inlet-valve-plunger-thingy bottoms out (not bottoming out the spring on the plunger, just where the rubber tip touches the mating surface on the carb). Apparently that was too high, so now the float is angled downward roughly 10ish degrees.

The engine started up and idled fine with the new float level. I don't know if it was because the ambient temp was high enough, or the carb was/is overflowing a wee bit, but I was able to start the bike and have it idle with < 1 second of choke. I hadn't tried to start the bike without the choke before, so I don't know if it would have worked before; just a tidbit of info. I forgot to tip the bike side-to-side while running to emulate turning sharp corners at low speeds. The idle smoothed out a little while adjusting the idle air screw.

[glavey]

Continuing on the carb story; while I was cleaning all the little metal carb bits I took of the choke plunger to see if it was possible that fuel could be leaking from there. Once I unscrewed it I noticed that there was no sealing o-ring between the plastic plunger housing and the carb body, just the clamping force between the plastic and the carb body. The choke still works fine and it doesn't appear to be leaking any fuel, so I'll leave well enough alone.

While reinstalling the choke, a thought came to my head, "It wouldn't be to hard to make a little adapter piece for the choke that can hold a barrel termination from a choke cable". I had to cannibalize the carb-end barrel termination on the choke cable that originally came with the bike so I could use the 90 degree adapter on the 190's throttle cable, but 99% of the cable and the sleeve are intact. I might need to buy or make another 90 degree adapter and I will need to make a bracket that will bolt to the carb body and hold one end of the choke cable's sleeve in place. After that it's just route the cable up to the controls and see if it works.

When I was putting the air filter back on the carb, I made a mistake and poked a large hole through the top of the air filter. The foam there was probably only about 5mm thick. The best repair option I had at the moment was super glue. I put a few drops on one part of the ripped foam and pressed it together... with my fingers. Yep. The foam from the air filter stuck more to me than to itself. After evacuating a rampant brain fart I grabbed a pair of pliers and used those to seal up the hole. That worked moderately better, foam still stuck to the pliers but the air filter was good enough to be put back into service.

I finally figured out a way to hoist the front of my bike in the air so I could have at the front shocks. The garage in which I store my bike has a ceiling for the ground level and an attic. There are 4-7 holes in the ceiling and in the floor of the attic, all in a line, spread out across 12-18'. I have no idea what these holes were used for, if they were used for anything. The attic's floor braces ran between the holes, so I had 2-3 very stout pieces of lumber between each hole. I fished a thick, but crap quality "paracord"-type rope up through one hole, wrapped it a few times around a 4"x4"x4' to spread out the load and pushed the rope back down the next hole. I had about 24' of rope coming out of each hole in the ceiling, more than enough wrap around the handlebars. I didn't use any knots to tie the rope to the bars, I'm no boy scout, the only knot I know is the square knot and I know enough that using just that will end up with a bike on the floor. What I did was just lash the rope around handlebars with as many loops as I could put on to increase the friction and keep the rope in place.

I had the bike being held upright by the ropes, but not lifting the front end. I went back up to the attic and shimmed the cross-brace piece of wood I was using another... 3 1/2-ish inches off the ground. That raised the front off of the ground by about 1/2 inch. Perfect. The picture I attached shows the... very... Wile. E. Coyote setup I ended up with. It was sketchy as all hell, but never once did the bike move without me being the thing that moved it - the rope stayed in place the whole time.

On to the front shocks! Both front shocks came out without problem. On the shocks that came with my bike, there is a bolt on the bottom of the shock, behind the front axle so you have to remove the axle to get to it. I initially thought that this bolt somehow held something internal to the shock together. Nope, it just holds the bottom big metal bracket piece to the shock. You don't have to remove those bolts to get access to the internals of the shock. The top cap unscrews then you are met with... just a rod threaded into the top cap with a jam nut, nothing like what you see inside of a honda grom shock. Unless the bits I needed to modify were on the other end of the shock rod assy., then the grom shock mod will not work with these shocks.

I think the best value upgrade to the front suspension (as well as the back suspension) seems to be to buy used stock grom shocks. They'll probably be better than what I have now, and you can do the shock mod on them. After market grom shocks are easily $500+. I'm sure the ride would be sublime with them, but it's not worth more than 1/3 the cost of the bike.

I measured about 4oz of shock fluid in each shock. It seriously looked like a mixture of metallic gunmetal paint and Terminator splooge. And it stunk. I replaced it with some 10wt fork oil I bought at a local honda dealership (hehehe). Since my bike's owners manual doesn't say at what height the shock oil should be, so I just added back however much came out of the shock. That came out to be between 35 and 45mm from the top of the shock with the shock completely compressed. I also weighed both shocks before so I could use that to estimate the amount of fork oil I should add, but the margin of error was too great to be useful.

After a quick ride to try and feel any difference in the handling (there wasn't any, at least I couldn't feel it) I came back to the garage and took a look at the carb while the engine was still running. It was still wet with fuel. WTF? After about 10 seconds of confusion, I saw the thing that was causing all the leaks... can you guess what it was? Nope. It was the left oil cooler connector leaking (picture attached showing which bolt I mean). It wasn't even fuel, it was oil. I thought the wet "fuel" on the carb looked at bit thick, but I just assumed that some part of the fuel had evaporated and left behind a sticky substance. Nope, oil. Fixing that will have to wait until tomorrow because the oil cooler is aluminum and the banjo bolt is steel. And the aluminum is still HOT. That sounds like a prime recipe for stripped threads right out of an oil cooler. The very first time I started the 190, that fitting was leaking oil so I tightened it up and it stopped. However, I've only been able to look at the oil cooler fittings while the engine is on choke, warming up, or at idle, never at higher rpms or under load. I'm guessing the oil pressure is rather low at idle as compared to 7krpm under load, causing oil to leak only when riding.

I've noticed that the shorter shifter arm that I am using, the one that originally came with the 125, isn't long enough for me to get a real good feel when I shift into a gear. At the moment it is more like I just apply pressure to the shifter arm to shift, not actually move it up/down. I think one that is a bit longer, like the one that came with the 190 would be better. However, I still don't like the crappy shifter that came with my 190 enough to use it. I just know it will break off and leave me stuck in 4th gear 20 miles from home. If I can find one of a similar length at a local swap meet* or online but better welding quality, I'll go with that.

I still haven't powered up the AFR gauge yet. I am procrastinating on this because I really don't want to have to take the fuel tank off again just to be able to solder a few wires. Time will tell when that gets done.

The areas around the spots I had welded have begun to not just tarnish but rust. I suspect the welder did not use stainless steel filler to make these welds. Eventually I will have to do something about that.

There has been a small bit of progress on the quick shifter. I have the circuitry that can cut the ignition for... some amount of time every up-shift. I just need to work on the electrics/electronics for getting a signal every shift. I am waiting for a few IC's in the mail that should help me making said circuitry. For the physical switch, I am using what I think is a end-stop for something like a mill. The business end of the switch only moves about 0.01mm before the switch action happens, and then it can continue to move for another ~2.5mm after the switch action happened without harming any of the internals of the switch. So, I could (this is my current plan) fabricate a bracket to hold this switch just behind the shifter arm, bolted to the left foot peg bolts, so when I go to up-shift, the motion of me pulling the shift lever up will also push on the switch, triggering the ignition cut, the transmission hopefully shifts, Bob's yer uncle.



*With all of my anxiety, you might think something like a swap meet would be a death sentence to me, but for some odd reason, no. I've come up with a few reasons why I think this is so.

1. Usually swap meets are outdoors, in open fields. I don't normally have claustrophobia, but my need for my personal space bubble increased at the same rate my anxiety does. Being outdoors, completely open helps.

2. You aren't one-on-one with anyone unless you walk up to a booth/table and ask questions. Even then, the seller probably has 3 more people at is station. Being able to easily duck out and become one of the crowd is appealing.

3. If you are at a motorcycle swap meet, you are either there to sell motorcycle stuff, buy motorcycle stuff, look at motorcycle stuff, or tag along with someone who wants to buy motorcycle stuff (child/significant other). 99% of the people you see at a swap meet will be more or less into what the swap meet is about. Motorcycle swap meet? Talk about motorcycles. Gun show? Talk about guns. Strip club? Contemplate the choices in life that have brought you here. Car show? Talk about cars.

4. You might meet someone interesting. An old timer with stories galore. A motorcycle mechanic that has tricks o' the trade. A pretty lady. A hot dude. A suggestive fern.

I'm sure there are many more reasons I'm so screwed in the head. I can plan out and build a computer from parts, design and fabricate a laser engraving machine, go grocery shopping, and go to a doctor's visit, but I cannot talk to the opposite sex, make a phone call, go to an interview, open a ketchup packet without looking like a murderer, or attend family gatherings.

[Weldangrind]

I am now going to practice opening ketchup packets.

[glavey]

Back in high school, I was known (rather fittingly) in my small group of friends as the socially inept computer geek. I was doing things with computers than I probably shouldn't have been. One day during lunch I bought a hotdog w/ ketchup and mustard. I was eating it with friends outside and I couldn't for the life of me get the damn ketchup packet open. Mutterings became curses and delicacy became HULK SMASH!

Friend 1: "Poor Glavey, he can hack into an NSA mainframe with a paper clip, but he hahahhhHAHAAHA... he can't open a freakin' ketchup packet"

Friend 2: "Didn't Einstein forget to wear pants sometimes?"

Me: "I'm not that dumb or that smart"

[glavey]

A hot day in the sun and a mild sunburn later, I finally have the AFR gauge installed and wired up! According to the too hot/too cold LED indicator from the wideband controller, the o2 sensor reaches operating temperature in about 20-30 seconds after power-on. Freshly started and still on choke, the engine will be around 13ish AFR going down to low 12 AFR at idle. Adjusting the idle toward ideal mixture (14.7) makes the idle smoother and less burbly. I think I'll need to go down one size on the pilot jet to a 38; with the air mixture screw on the carb out 3 1/2 turns, the engine was still running around high 12 AFR.

One thing I quickly noticed is that I underestimated how bright mid-day direct sun is - the numeric AFR display is visible if you focus on it for about a second and the AFR indicator LEDs are somewhat visible except for the yellow ones - those are nearly impossible to see. Oh well, it doesn't really matter to me all that much. As long as I have a working AFR gauge of some sort, I'll be fine. In fact, the difficulty is seeing the gauge was probably for the better; if I could have seen it clearly just be glancing down at it, I probably would have been looking at it too much and not keeping my mind on the road.

I took the bike out for a ride after the gauge wiring was done. Throughout the entire RPM range, the engine stayed in and around 13 AFR except when I did a acceleration run on a lonely country road. With the bike in 2nd gear at about 4k rpm, I twisted the throttle wide open. The AFR went down to 12.x and climbed back up to about 13.5 as the rpms rose up to 10k rpm.

I realized in that ride that I really need a good... 3 or 4 hours in a parking lot so I can practice my low speed and start-from-a-stop clutching. However, to do that I'll need better headlights. As it is now, at night the high beam's illumination range is 35ft... maybe. I don't know if these headlight housings can handle the temperatures of halogen lights; the scooter I have has a headlight holder that would melt if you used anything hotter than the stock headlight. I can do the usual replacement of the LED headlights, or I could do/make something that might work better! (or possibly much worse)

I've been tossing this idea around in my head for a few weeks now - ruckus-styled headlights on my grom clone! I don't remember exactly how the idea got into my head, but it's there and it's staying! If you don't know what ruckus headlights look like or can't imagine it on a grom clone, here are two links to drow sports and steady garage where they have pictures of ruckus headlights installed on a grom and a lil duc grom clone. Remind anyone of The Dirt Bike Kid?

I won't be using genuine ruckus headlights as those are >$200 for the whole headlight assembly, nor will I be CNC routing a piece of aluminum (oh how I wish I could, though). I'll most likely be using flat either steel or aluminum strips. I have a very rough mental idea of how I will bend the metal into the frame for the lights, I can't really put it into words yet. If I do make this headlight assembly, I'll have to do something to cover up all the ugly wires and connectors that are behind the headlight housing already on the bike. All of this will probably be my next project, I have one that I am just finishing up (and yet another on the side) -

Quieter exhaust! Hopefully! I bought two muffler re-pack kits from amazon; one with just a very thick ceramic packing sheet and another one, more of a includes-everything kit with a stainless steel screen, stainless steel wool, stainless steel wire, fiberglass packing material, rivets, and #00 and #3 steel wool for polishing/cleaning. You can see in one of the pictures everything that is included in the kit on the pink box lid, the thicker ceramic packing material is next to it in a zip lock bag. My intent was to use everything from the all-in-one kit except for the fiberglass packing material - I used the thicker ceramic packing material.

Getting the rivets out of the muffler wasn't too hard. I don't think they were stainless steel, though. They didn't spark at all when I ground them off. Nevertheless, the rivets were removed. Now, I had to somehow pull the end cap/baffle off of the muffler without going ham-fisted on either. I had to drive a screw driver between the baffle and the muffler to break the silicone seal. Then I ended up bending a small piece of steel that once was one of those cheap wrenches you get with flat-pack furniture into a flat bladed screwdriver-ish-looking-thingy and pounded that between the baffle and the muffler and when I pulled it out, the baffle came with it.

The packing material that was in the muffler looked kinda cheap and had already started to... I'm not sure if fiberglass burns, but maybe just degrade from constant exposure to extreme conditions, but I don't really have enough knowledge about packing material to say for sure. What I can say for sure is that the packing material wasn't completely filling the muffler, so there is at the very least a small gain to be had by repacking the muffler... after only 120 miles.

I started repacking by cleaning up the perforated muffler core with the steel wool that came in the kit. After that, the stainless steel screen was wrapped around the core (not easy; stainless steel doesn't bend like meant-for-keeping-bugs-out metal screen does, and you WILL impale yourself at least 3 times on the stray wires). The wire that I used to secure the stainless steel screen isn't stainless steel - you can see the rust on it. I had to use something to keep the screen from unraveling. The muffler core is steel and is already rusting. The core and the wire are the only two non-stainless pieces of metal in the muffler (excluding the silencer), and are relatively easy to replace. I can live with the inside of my muffler rusting out a wee bit quicker if it means a much easier time assembling it now.

Next on the wrap was the stainless steel wool. This was fine strips of SS about 1.5mm across and... .003" or .004" thick (very rough guesses) matted together in a roughly common direction. Kinda like chip board. I needed a sacrificial set of scissors to cut the wool to size, as well as cut the ceramic packing material. I still had enough to do close to another entire muffler once I cut off what I needed. I used one single wrap around the perforated core - no overlap, just the screen and the SS wool are as thick as the old packing material was. While wearing kitchen gloves (I was already impaled, I didn't want to be lacerated) I tightly wrapped the SS wool over the screen and secured it with the SS wire from the kit.

Next up was the fluffy packing material. This stuff is sold as 1" thick and it is, but it can be compressed easily and readily. I could only put one wrap of the ceramic material around the core. I used blue painter's tape to temporarily hold the fluff in place while I twisted, shoved, and squeezed the whole wrapped core in to the muffler. I took the painter's tape off as I pushed the core in, I didn't leave any tape in the muffler. And then I forgot to put some kind of sealant on the baffle before I pounded it home. I was feeling lazy after having put the whole muffler back together, so I did what lazy-me does in these cases. I squirted sealant around the seem on the end of the muffler and poked some of it in-between the baffle and the muffler, then wend back around the seam again with more sealant to fill in and holes there were from the poking. Getting that baffle off the muffler was not fun, so if I can seal the muffler without effectively gluing them together I'll do it. The sealant has to set for about a day, so no vroom vrooms yet.

Now on to the second part of making the exhaust quiet, modifying the silencer.

I look online at cross sections of OEM car and motorcycle mufflers and most of them use 90 and 190 degree bends to dampen sound with minimal back pressure increase, along with sections with perforations and narrow-pipe choke points. I used some of these designs in a modification to one of the exhaust silencers I bought previously. I wanted the exhaust to go around at least 2 90 degree bends, preferably 4, and at least one section with perforations. I had to ride my bicycle to the hardware store, but no biggie, I needed the exercise. I bought two each of two different stainless steel sink drains that fit inside the exhaust silencer. One fits neatly inside the larger end of the silencer, and the other fits almost perfectly on the end of the larger end of the silencer. It turned out that I didn't need/couldn't use the larger ones, but I had opened the packages and mangled them before I found that out. Oops.

I don't think I will be able to explain in words how I expect the exhaust to flow through the silencer, so we'll both have to suffer through my poor illustration. I chose blue to represent the engine's ass gas. I don't know why.

The very nearly final order of assembly (pictured; left to right, top to bottom) for the additions to the silencer are:

Threaded rod bolted through the blocking piece on the small end of the silencer
Threaded rod comes through to larger side of silencer with backing nut for
First perforation section (with two rows of holes along the sides, difficult to see) to be directly riveted to
First blocking plate, secured with nut. Then comes
Second perforation section, spaced apart from first blocking plate with nut. Finally,
Third perforation section/second blocking section/keep-it-all-inside end bit, secured with two nuts

I tried to design this so each piece could be taken out and repaired/replaced easily; nothing is welded or adhered in place (although time and heat may effectively weld the threaded rod and nuts together), and the rivets can be drilled out or ground off. I have already cleaned and primed the two pieces in the silencer that are clearly not stainless steel with exhaust header primer and will be painting the larger of the two black with high heat enamel spray paint. I'll have to sure the painted piece in an oven at a few different temps. I'm not going to use the household one for obvious reasons. I do have a small toaster oven in the garage with lots of metal sheets that fit in it. I think (I REALLY don't know, but I think) if I shield the exhaust silencer piece from heat directly radiated from the heating elements and only let convection heat the silencer piece, the paint should cure as it is supposed to. Plus, even if the black paint doesn't work for some reason, all of the parts in the silencer are directly exposed to the soot from the exhaust gasses. A few rides in, and everything will be black whether you want it to or not.

That brings us to now. I am going to be painting and curing the pieces soon. I haven't yet started the engine with the new packing yet.

No progress has been made on the quick shifter project; I prioritized not worsening my tinnitus over a possibly working way to increase 0-60 times.

Oh and one more VERY small bundle of joy pictured.

[Weldangrind]

Interesting use of a drain plug; it's a good solution, particularly because it's SS.
I haven't seen the movie; I'll look it up.
What is kitty's name?

[glavey]

The frisky feline's name is Jack! I would have preferred digit or pinky or polly - Jack is a polydactyl cat. However, my mother's previous cat was named digit and she only had it for about a month before it ran away.