Planning to "Clean Up" the 1500, while I'm in the middle of all the other mods. The tank is off, so now is the time. Just trying to consider the best way. The "best way" is different for everyone - for me it's the combination of cheapest/best performance/simplest and of course, least likely to do "damage" or have negative repercussions.
So that leads me to a few questions:
1) what are the down sides to taking out/ disabling the idle solenoids? If I'm ok with maybe having to use the "choke" knob for cold starts (have to on the 800 anyway), is there any other down sides??? How about reasons to remove? They haven't actually caused me problems. The only "ill" I have read about them is a clattering sound - which honestly I haven't noticed much, unless maybe the noisy cold engine noises I'm getting are actually just those solenoids - hmm the more I think about it, maybe it is....
2) Air intake: I studied Troll's air intake mod, and am considering this. However, the bike already has a stock-configuration K&N filter element on the left side. So in order to be able to use that, I was looking at it and it looks like it would be simple and maybe effective to simply drill some holes in the left-side backing plate (outside the seal on the air filter of course) to allow it to draw more fresh air from behind the air filter housing. Does anybody see any problems with that?? Any thoughts on if it will actually give it much more air, say compared to Troll's mod switching to the right side and fabbing a new backing???
http://www.vulcandrifterriders.com/forum/index.php?topic=11026.0
3) Coasters vs. marbles: Obviously, the coaster version is a cleaner (looking) more complete doing away with the un-necessary stuff, but costs a little bit (JPCycles has Baron coasters for $22 or I could just make a set: Cost: about 1 hour of time) while the Marble (or pipe plug) trick is easier, quicker, and cheaper. As far as I can tell both would be equally effective, so not many other considerations. Is there anything else I'm missing??
Can't help with most of it, but I did do the marble thing and it was easy and cheap. The bigger benefit for me was that I could easily put it back to stock if I wanted to. Coasters would be much cleaner looking though.
The big restriction for air flow is the pipe between the cylinders...As far as the pulse air valve, I removed the big hose from the air cleaner up to the valve, and put a 1/2" rubber cap over it at the valve...About $.50 at the hardware store. NO air in, no pop out! Just so you know what my air box mod did, and is currently doing, yesterday's trip got me 193.7 miles on 1 tank of gas, and the needle is not quite on empty, yet. When I fill up with it in line with the "E", it tales 4.1 gallons....
Quote from: pcarrell on July 05, 2014, 11:22:30 AM
. Coasters would be much cleaner looking though.
That's the only reason I was leaning towards the coaster route, but leaning only slightly. Looks like the front cylinder valve would be a little more of a pain to get to- tight clearance with the cooling fan. Of course, there would be an extra inch there if we put a coaster in there... Decisions...decisions... :o
looked closer at mine today, and found what looks like a 1/2" bolt (or perhaps just a steel rod) cut off and stuck into the hole at the end in the right air box. So I guess it's already been "marbled" (or more precisely "bolted") so I wouldn't have to do anything.
Quote from: Troll on July 05, 2014, 11:55:18 AM
The big restriction for air flow is the pipe between the cylinders...As far as the pulse air valve, I removed the big hose from the air cleaner up to the valve, and put a 1/2" rubber cap over it at the valve...About $.50 at the hardware store. NO air in, no pop out! Just so you know what my air box mod did, and is currently doing, yesterday's trip got me 193.7 miles on 1 tank of gas, and the needle is not quite on empty, yet. When I fill up with it in line with the "E", it tales 4.1 gallons....
So in other words, if I don't do something similar, you'll be stopping at 1/4 tank for me to fill up on the way to Drift-In ::)...
That would be really nice to stretch the time between fill-ups.
More questions::
1) Did you ever put a drawing on anywhere with dimensions for your back plate??? I could not find it anywhere, just the picture on your original post:
http://www.vulcandrifterriders.com/forum/index.php?topic=11026.0
Dimensions would sure be nice.... ;)
2) what did you do with your air temp sensor? didn't see it in the picture on your post.
3) you did all this with-out a power commander, right?? I'm surprised the EFI can compensate for that much air w/o going too lean.
7" in diameter, the holes for the throttle bores are 1 3/4, the backing plate is made of 3/16 aluminum. The air filter is a K&N for an vn800 with the top cut out. Since you have an 800, you can look and see what I mean...I'll bet you could use the 800 cover in this application. I machined a small clearance on the cover to increase the space between the edge and the bottom of the gas tank. The air filter is 1/2" thick, so you need to be sure you have that much between the top and the center bolt of the throttle body, but NO MORE that 1/2"....The AIT sensor is installed at about the 4 o'clock position about 1" inside and the breather is in the middle at 6 o'clock. I filled it up tonight...and I got 47.2 mpg, so yes, I'll probably have to stop a little less than you...but I'm a patient man.....