Tail paint.

Breathing

At current settings, my plug was pretty black and sooty. I knew the Uni filter I had squashed into a space too small for it was clogging air flow. This new system breathes much better.

It's been a while...

The latest and greatest of the Tracker.   I hated, hated, hated the less than 2 inches of travel from the stock Ryca fork lowering kit.  Chipped my teeth everytime I hit a bump. I looked at all the options that would allow upright standard handlebars and the ability to raise the fork tubes in the triple to lower the front end so that I could get rid of the spacers that limit my travel to 2.0 inches.  I finally sprung for a new triple set with stem, from Cheney Engineering.  Love it, works a dream.  I now have full travel up front and the bike is like a new motorcycle. Oh ya, got Rycashawn's front brake caliper upgrade and a Nissin 14mm master cylinder.  It will lock the front wheel now. Love it, R1 brakes on the tracker haha.

 What's next?  Probably painting the tail, maybe extending the exhaust and hopefully a TM36 pumper carb for maximum pleasure.  Already heated and bent the kickstand so I don't need a hockey puck and 2x4 to keep it from tipping over.  Longterm plans:  Lithium battery, new battery box, hinged seat with storage below and some more traditional old school flat track bars.

The definition of a thumper...my kind of thumper.

Singles Going Steady:  a 'thumper', a single cylinder motorcycle that takes a lickin' and  keeps on tickin'.  Also a kickass best of compilation by the Buzzcocks.  Also a kickass record store in Seattle.

  

If I only had 9 lives...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1dInhZvy7o

Decompression Lever

 I almost forgot to mention, I broke the stainless decompression rod from the Ryca kit trying to rig it, they are prone to crack where they neck down to the threads if you bend them too much.  These are old pics with the old motor, but, I have the same setup on it now.

Anyway, to keep it old-schoolish, I put a mountain bike brake lever on the bars and ran a bicycle brake cable to the decompression arm under the tank.  I had to mod a few pieces, but, it works like magic.  Pulls smooth as butter. 

I do have a bit of a rats nest of wires there, my coil didn't fit under the tank like it was supposed to...

 No posts for months, I've been hooning around on the bike since I got it running (poorly) in August.  Anyone notice the new motor?  The old one had a bearing out, but, at least I learned how to tear down an engine.

After lots of pissing around, I finally got a spacer machined to put the Supertrapp on the Ryca kit elbow.  Whatever '80s aluminum Supertrapp can that is, it fits perfectly and sounds the business.  That on, the fueling was still overly rich, so it meant time for a trip to the Dyno. 

That's Nels Byersdorf running my bike on his Dyno.  He's a super cool guy and the price is right, $50 a run.   I have a 47.5 pilot and a 152 main in right now.  Even after fiddling with the fuel screw it ran terribly rich.  The first run it didn't even register on his air/fuel ratio.  He recommended dropping down to like a 35 pilot and 135 main - I was saying WTF!!!  He wisely noticed maybe the Ryca provided K&N filter is restricting air flow too much.  He noted that filter is sized for a scooter or something.  We popped it off and ran again and power jumped from 27.89 (with K&N) to 32.53 (open).   Needless to say, that filter is useless on this bike.  It's obvious Ryca uses it because it's the only thing that fits in that tiny space between the battery box and the carb.   I rode home with a big grin, a 20% jump in power and a much better performing bike.  To keep it from bogging when coming to a stop, the idle is set up around 1600 RPM I believe. 

My next objective was to get a decent air filter on it.   My velocity stack looks cool, but, like a set of Firestone Champions, it's all show no go.   It will go well with a big filter over it, but, no space until I redo the battery box to make room.  I don't want to go filterless.

I wanted a Uni after seeing how light and simple they are.   I went to Bent Bike in Lynnwood an found this PERFECT rubber intake manifold in the parts bin.  My carb O.D. is 57.1mm or 2.25".  Amazingly, loads of the intake rubbers are 2.25". 


So I went to the filter aisle and found this 7" x 2.25" Uni filter.
Just a foam sock over a coil spring, brilliant.   It sticks out behind
my leg just like a dirt tracker, even better.  Soaked it in motor oil,
rung out the excess and popped it on.  It ran like a top.  And with
the deep POP-POP-POP bark from the Supertrapp,
it sounds like a KTM barreling down the road.  I love it.  To top it off, it (barely) clears the regulator/rectifier on the front of the battery box. 



The Supertrapp was a bit of work.  I had to get raw aluminum stock for my buddy to machine, but, turning it down was easy and fast.  I alodined everything like a nerd to minimize potential corrosion.  I kept the 6 discs and put an open flow disc on the end as seen below.  "COMPETITION USE ONLY"

This also meant my rear brake rod wouldn't fit around the exhaust, so I flipped the arm up and bent it a bit so it wouldn't interfere with the shock. 
























Still plenty left to do.  For starters, my gearing is tall enough to run 150 mph if I just had the power.  I have the stock belt drive with a 2" larger diameter rim and a bigger tire to boot.  With the chain installed and my 18/45 gearing, she should hoist the front end pretty handily.  I changed the grips from the Ryca kit ones.  Again, like Firestones, they look the business, but, are not practical.   I like to ride in traffic with a finger or two on the brake and clutch and I had the bars bounce out of my smallish hands more than once with those HUGE vintage grips.  I got some $5 Scott motocross grips.  Vibes are just not a problem on this bike, unlike my old ZRX1100...

Speaking of harsh, the front end feels like it has about 2" of travel.  I need to get some proper length springs, I seem to be bottoming them out on any bump at all.  I assume the overly-long (after putting in a 2" spacer in the forks) spring coils are just bottoming out on themselves.  I need to get the forks apart to find out. 

The proof is in the pudding, red line is with no air filter and the blue one is with the K&N moped filter.  You can see the run below, it was a cool day, about 53 degrees, so she's still a hair rich, but, not enough to worry about (and for a total of $50, cheers Nels!):