RadioHowie
I Miss Beemerdons!
Took Frankenbike on a little 700 mile ride today. Anyone who's ridden around Florida knows there's nothing pictorially interesting, so no pictures. Worked an especially long and taxing week and told MissusHowie just don't look for me to be around the house Sunday.
STILL haven't put on the AVCC I bought 4 years ago, but someday.....someday.
Before I took off pre-dawn this morning, I decided to give the Barbarian Jumper Mod a try. Just for the heckuvit.
Easy-peasy on an '04 with all the plastic off...just pull the white plugs on pins #25 & #29 and stick a paper clip jumper between the two pin holes, like Ionbeam did here with a resistor:
My original CO settings, cylinders 1>4, were 4, 8, 6 & 15.
Since I had my fuel injectors flow-matched earlier this year to <1% variance between the 4, instead of just going up +7 on each one, I used cylinder #4, at CO 15, as my "baseline" and put them all at 22. It's easy to put back, so I thought I'd just try it this way a few hundred to a thousand miles and see what's up.
Honestly, I wasn't expecting a big diffrence in normal operation, and attributed reported glowing reports of improved engine response as mere voodoo.
But I gotta say, I can feel the difference.
First of all, the idle is now dead smooth. Before the mod, what I would call smooth would be 8-10 seconds of steady, solid idle with an occasional "blip" down that immediately corrected. Not annoying. Not even worth noticiing, but not "perfect." Now, though, my Frankenbike's idle is dead solid smooth. ROCK solid. Something that makes you go "hmmmm."
Second, low speed maneuvers in higher gears are also glass smooth. I never really considered the throttle action on my '04 to be sloppy, notchy, surge-y, whatever you might want to call it. Let's face it, even at 900 pounds, bike and rider, there's still nowhere near the mass even a small car has, so throttle inputs could sometimes be sensitive. Like going through a parking lot at 10mph in 2nd gear, give a little gas and the bike might lurch a bit. Not any more. Give a little throttle and the bike reacts smoothly. Back off the throttle and the bike slows down without any driveshaft lash. Again, not that I EVER thought there was a problem before, but now, it's almost like a different motorcycle.
Thirdly, rolling on the throttle while in a gear maybe too high for your actual speed. Again, it's like I mentioned in the previous paragraph. It's simply smooth. Like turning up the rheostat on an electric motor. No notchiness at all. The bike simply surges forward, even though it may be lugging slightly. Typical in-traffic driving, where you might not be rowing the gearbox as much as you should be. You probably should be in second, but if you're in third and the traffic opens up, the bike accelerates without hesitation.
Finally, gas mileage.....47.9 on my 700 mile "loop." I've seen better, and I ain't complainin' for sure, but there's about a 70 stretch of US Hiway 441 that runs from near Kissimmee, Florida to Lake Okeechobee that is about as empty as they come here in the Sunshine State and I kinda, sorta....well, I wasn't completely ignoring the speed limit -- I was aware of it -- I just wasn't complying with it. I did the 70 miles in about 36 minutes. But don't tell anyone.
Right now, unless my gas mileage in normal, everyday driving goes in the shitter, or my plugs carbon-up and die an early death (NGK Iridiums, thanks Grumpy) I don't see any reason to change back.
I guess you can add my name to the BJM Believer's list.
'Howie
STILL haven't put on the AVCC I bought 4 years ago, but someday.....someday.
Before I took off pre-dawn this morning, I decided to give the Barbarian Jumper Mod a try. Just for the heckuvit.
Easy-peasy on an '04 with all the plastic off...just pull the white plugs on pins #25 & #29 and stick a paper clip jumper between the two pin holes, like Ionbeam did here with a resistor:
My original CO settings, cylinders 1>4, were 4, 8, 6 & 15.
Since I had my fuel injectors flow-matched earlier this year to <1% variance between the 4, instead of just going up +7 on each one, I used cylinder #4, at CO 15, as my "baseline" and put them all at 22. It's easy to put back, so I thought I'd just try it this way a few hundred to a thousand miles and see what's up.
Honestly, I wasn't expecting a big diffrence in normal operation, and attributed reported glowing reports of improved engine response as mere voodoo.
But I gotta say, I can feel the difference.
First of all, the idle is now dead smooth. Before the mod, what I would call smooth would be 8-10 seconds of steady, solid idle with an occasional "blip" down that immediately corrected. Not annoying. Not even worth noticiing, but not "perfect." Now, though, my Frankenbike's idle is dead solid smooth. ROCK solid. Something that makes you go "hmmmm."
Second, low speed maneuvers in higher gears are also glass smooth. I never really considered the throttle action on my '04 to be sloppy, notchy, surge-y, whatever you might want to call it. Let's face it, even at 900 pounds, bike and rider, there's still nowhere near the mass even a small car has, so throttle inputs could sometimes be sensitive. Like going through a parking lot at 10mph in 2nd gear, give a little gas and the bike might lurch a bit. Not any more. Give a little throttle and the bike reacts smoothly. Back off the throttle and the bike slows down without any driveshaft lash. Again, not that I EVER thought there was a problem before, but now, it's almost like a different motorcycle.
Thirdly, rolling on the throttle while in a gear maybe too high for your actual speed. Again, it's like I mentioned in the previous paragraph. It's simply smooth. Like turning up the rheostat on an electric motor. No notchiness at all. The bike simply surges forward, even though it may be lugging slightly. Typical in-traffic driving, where you might not be rowing the gearbox as much as you should be. You probably should be in second, but if you're in third and the traffic opens up, the bike accelerates without hesitation.
Finally, gas mileage.....47.9 on my 700 mile "loop." I've seen better, and I ain't complainin' for sure, but there's about a 70 stretch of US Hiway 441 that runs from near Kissimmee, Florida to Lake Okeechobee that is about as empty as they come here in the Sunshine State and I kinda, sorta....well, I wasn't completely ignoring the speed limit -- I was aware of it -- I just wasn't complying with it. I did the 70 miles in about 36 minutes. But don't tell anyone.
Right now, unless my gas mileage in normal, everyday driving goes in the shitter, or my plugs carbon-up and die an early death (NGK Iridiums, thanks Grumpy) I don't see any reason to change back.
I guess you can add my name to the BJM Believer's list.
'Howie
