fricking Honda V4's!

i should have kept my word, in October 2011 i said never to touch a V4 honda engine again, but i forgot all about it when my neighbor asked me to fix his SuperMagna.
it ran like shit, wouldn't hardly start and some one had looked at it and couldn't find a problem..
"ah well" i thought, let's be a good neighbor and help him out..
so once in his shed i saw a magna with lot's of stuff taken of it.
i cleaned the carbs, replaced a broken fueltransfer tube and started the big fight with the V configuration carbs.

but behold, the Magna is a cali import, so it has all the environmental hoses and BS on it.

and there were a lot of hoses. so first i tried to discover what should go where and once i thought i had it allright i started the fight to place the carbs. after a few hours fighting them i thought it would be more easy to use ratchet bands (those to tie down your bike or other heavy stuff to a trailer) and a crowbar.
brute and blunt force was the answer! within 10 minutes the carbs were placed! woot!

crab! the hose sticking out in to the air is the main fuel line. and i couldn't find a place to stick it on the carbs..
off with the whole shabang and start my search again.. damn cali rules! i used the wrong hose on the wrong plug. as soon as i found the culprit it was time to put the carbs back with the aid of my blunt force tools!
and replace all those hoses and crap again..

once it was all in place i rebuild all the missing stuff on the bike rolled it outside and started it.
BAM! it fired right up! woehoe!

fun was of a short time.. as i opened up the throttle there didn't happen much, the engine reved up to 2000RPM and that's it.. at wot??
damn, i told you i hated this kind of engines! so my guess is i fucked up a vacuum direction in the california environmental bullshit and the slides in the carbs can't get a descent vacuum to lift..
or the timing advance is all wrong. 

fuck it! next week i'll tear all that hoses from that bike and see what happens! 

still alive.

dangit! i had some rough times and some good times. all that's important is that i'm still here! granted, i have been awfully quit on this blog for the last year, and i also have been scary little in the garage. some of the rough times were that all my tools got stolen. the tools i collected in the past 18 years were gone. and since i collected them in 18 years i had not much proof for the insurance to claim enough to get my tools replaced. this my friends was such a bummer i stayed out of the garage for way to long. so not much work on bikes and not one spanner on my own bikes. i have ridden a lot with the digger though..

 also the XJ got his needed miles at high speed. ;)

 Peter Pan (you know the dude with the franken pan (european) scored a nice little suzuki but it looked like crap. he is in love with Daddy Cool (the digger) and wanted a quick fix.
so with a little grinder action and white paint he was satisfied for the time being.
 

i promise i will try to ride and share more of these rides and build more on my bikes! i'm back! and i'll keep on riding and chopping!

hope to see you soon on the road or the blog!

Toxic gets it again! (aka rebuilding Toxic again)

ever since i had Toxic (the evo sporty) it changed appearance at least once a year.
but for almost 2 years now Toxic hasn't changed. i was occupied time and financial wise with the build of Daddy Cool .
so.... time to start a new build with toxic!
i had changed the rotor for a full floating disc, and this little change made me think. (now you can have a little look in the thinking process of my twisted mind!)
an upside down front end will look nice, and a custom swingarm would balance the front and rear.so i need to find a nice matching set from a supersport bike and rebuild the whole deal to make it fit a sporty! (no, no, no! i will not use a buell setup! that is done plenty of times, and is almost a straight drop in.. to easy!)
now if i change that, the rest of the apparel has to change to.. thinking in a little streetracker style.....you know.. Strorz style seat and such?
but... although the little 883 engine is smoking 1200 sporties with ease, it is almost mandatory to give it even more power in a bike looking like it's going to look like..
my first rule of chopping/building is: First you need to have the engine working perfect and need the specs you want/need before you build the rest of the bike. why you might ask? the engine is the base of the bike, and the engine will tell you what is the best suited build style for the bike. you just don't build a bike in prostreet style when it has no power at all, and you don't build an easy going cruiser when you have loads and loads of power.  ah well.. that's my opinion..

so.. first things first!
time to get a little more out of the engine! first of all: i have very limited funds so i'm still debating on a 883-1200 conversion. the engine puts out around 62HP with no internal work done to it, just perfect tuning of intake and exhaust. a 1200 conversion is rated at something of 70HP with perfect intake and exhaust tuning and mild cams. so, i'll spend a lot of dough getting it to 1200CC's and not getting that much power in return.

i am thinking i can get more out of the 883 with some serious headwork and cams.but still the 1200 isn't fully put aside though.. i'll let it brew in my head for a while, and maybe just maybe i'll make it a 1200..

so headwork! i had to do some work to the top end because i had some oil leaks.
time to start!

looks like i was just in time to fix the oil leaks!

after that it was time to take a good look at the heads and see what i could do to them and make my plans!

there is plenty of room for improvement! i just have to think about what i want: more grunt in the lower rpm range or more oemph in the higher rpm range. and offcourse... 1200 or 883?

decisions decisions...

new project.

it's that time of the year again, temperatures are dropping below freezing, rain and snow are waiting to fuck up a good ride. riding season is over......Chopping season is open again! 

this year there are 2 projects in the Garage.Toxic is getting some engine work and will change his appearance again.

but that's not the only project this year. Thijs has a rugged old Suzuki Savage, which he wanted to change.

the savage will go by the name of "Animal" the muppet show drummer.

so this week the machine has been brought to the Garage!

here's the savage brotherly next to Toxic in past:

once the bike was in the Garage it was undressed quickly!

10 minutes in the garage:

 and after one hour:

the bike had a nasty sound in the head and was leaking oil as a madman.

so i opened up the head and got a little sneak peak at HELL!!!

 

looks like it had been running without any oil feed to the head! total devastation in there!

before any chopping will take place first thing to do is make the engine healthy again!

yups, it's getting crowded in the Garage!

stopping power for Toxic.

i scored a full floating disc and caliper spacer, and it was time to put them on Toxic!
check out the difference in size!

i had to mill the caliper spacer a little for clearance of the floater rings, and after that it all fitted like a charm!

 

the disc hides almost the whole wheel!

i gives a way better feel in the handle and more bite. even with the stock caliper..

but... this winter it's time to do some work on Toxic. some hard needed maintenance and some head work. (porting and shit) also i'm thinking of giving Toxic another swingarm (from a supersport jap) and maybe an upside down front end.

so chances are big the whole floating disc setup is getting shelved again..

a well.. we'll see where the project is going!

chopping days are here again!

frankenpipe (aka Peters Pan)

today my colleague Peter came by to have me check his bike, he had some problems with his water temp gouge.

it's a Honda Pan European and he uses it as daily, any weather driver, so it is somewhat important that he could keep an eye on the engine temps.
before he arrived at the Garage i could hear him coming from far.. not a sound you'd expect of Pan European..
ah well, i would check that out later..
first up: the water temp sender. as i screwed the thing out the radiator no water came with it.. ouch.. the sender is in the lower parts of the radiator, so there has to be water surrounding it! and it has to pour out when you remove the sender...
that's an easy fix for the sender... fill the engine with some water again, so it's surrounded with water, and hope there was enough in it before to save the bike from serious damage. it seems no serious damage had been done.

now let's check out that loud exhaust sound!
after a short "finger feel" i could sink my whole finger in several holes.. wtf?
so off with the rightside pipes!
now that's odd.. it's a Honda so it's build to perfection right? wrong! the headers are stainless steel but the collector (which is a integrate part of the headers) is of plain steel. so that part was rusted to oblivion!

and trust me.. the other side was even worse!
but as long as the headers were of the bike i could always do some patching up, bastard style!! (my colleague is also a poor fucker like me and a new exhaust system is just to expensive)
so i took some scrap sheet metal, a hammer fired up the welder and started forming and welding..

so after a little while the Franken pipe was ready!

at first i thought i could patch up the holes with small patches, but the collector was to worn out, the metal was way to thin to weld something tight. so on the side where i started it looked like Frankenstein..

for the other side i started making a brand new side of the collector and welded it to the last thick parts of the collector.
also the outlet pipe was rotting away on the welds so i tackled that with some metal sheets to.

the Frankenpipe is air tight again and the Pan is a little more quit!
i used 0,8 MM (MiliMeters) sheet, so i think the collector will survive the bike!

helmet paint..

i got bored, and got bored with my helmet.
time to paint the fucker!
i took it all apart and sanded the helmet a little.

gave it a good base coat.

and made it toxic green!

took some masking tape..

shot some black..

masked again..

got a can of white and made the helmet nice and white to match Daddy Cool..

once dried it was time to reveal the green and black again!

came out nice if i say so myself!