Learning as I go, a log of my first bike

[donimo]

Some new pictures after a super quick detail session:

[spyug]

Looks very good and sounds right. You've done a lot to that little puppy.....good on you! I remember your first posts and it was up in the air whether you'd keep at it. Glad you did.

What else do you have in mind?

Keep up the "blog" its great to follow along with your success.

Cheers,
Spyug.

[donimo]

Thanks spyug! yeah I have come full circle from "cheap bike to ride till I get used to it then sell and get a DRZ400-SM" to "keep and make it awesome"

It really looks worse in person, but having said that it looks 100x better than when I bought it. Washing it made most of it look better, but made some of it look way worse, turns out a lot of the fins on the cyls have the paint flaked off and the grime had turned black and hid it, ha ha.

I used this "gunk orange engine detailer" stuff (could not find the POR 11 or whatever that everyone uses here) on the motor and the black parts, it woked AWESOME on the black part of the wheels FWIW, it worked well on the motor too, but its still smoking a bit 3 days later .

Short term I am done for the most part, I have about 200 things on my list that I have been putting off due to bike stuff and my wife is going to stab me if I dont do them.

Long term I want to try out spoke wheels, repaint pretty much all of it and way down the road do a GS500E motor swap keeping the tscc head off my 400 (solves the exhaust routing problem). Other than that just try to keep er tween the ditches.

[Charlie G]

domino,

She sure is looking good. Sounds like you've had some fun, and learned alot. Did you use the ss pads as a "screen" to block the insulation from blowing out the tail pipe? From the video it sounds a bit deeper than mine. Good luck!

Charlie G.

[BentRod]

looking good! gsx400's have a tendancy to grow on their owners I find.

I don't know if you would be able to use the 400 headers on a 500's cans. what gasket would you use? may be the gs500 head gasket, and then scrape and polish the edge off of the header bottom? you are going to need bigger carbs too. the gs500 uses 40 or 42mm Mik. CV. you can use the gs400 carbs, but if you wind it out the float bowls will run out of gas.

[donimo]

domino,

She sure is looking good. Sounds like you've had some fun, and learned alot. Did you use the ss pads as a "screen" to block the insulation from blowing out the tail pipe? From the video it sounds a bit deeper than mine. Good luck!

Charlie G.

Yes, sorry I didnt mention that, I put 2-3 of those SS pads at each end over each other to make them tight, then I used the pipe insulation (the actual muffler packing will never work with this baffle the way it is) in there too, it took a LOT of the high freq buzz out of it, I tried it without the pipe insulation and the buzz came back quite a bit so both parts were needed. I will take a better video soon when no weddings are happening next door haa.

[donimo]

looking good! gsx400's have a tendancy to grow on their owners I find.

I don't know if you would be able to use the 400 headers on a 500's cans. what gasket would you use? may be the gs500 head gasket, and then scrape and polish the edge off of the header bottom? you are going to need bigger carbs too. the gs500 uses 40 or 42mm Mik. CV. you can use the gs400 carbs, but if you wind it out the float bowls will run out of gas.

HMM, I will have to take a closer look at the 500 next time I see one, I thought it was pretty much the same as a 450 from under the head down, and these headers work on a 450...

I was hoping to get a donor bike or something and have the carbs as well.

this may just be a pipe dream anyways

[donimo]

After a comment from another member I think the gs500 uses 34mm CV's as well, any takers?

[Charlie G]

Acording to http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/Index.htm the GS 500 has 33 BST and the GS450 has 34.

cg

[donimo]

I think they will be fine, its only 79cc more than my bike, and it has 34mm carbs too so...

maybe a jetting change or 2.

Just a matter of getting the tscc head on there

seems the head gaskets are almost the same:

gs400:

http://www.cmsnl.com/products/11141-44110-h17-gasket_1114144200/

gs500:

http://www.cmsnl.com/suzuki-gs500-1990-el_model13450/partslist/FIG-02.html

few small differences, not sure which gasket would work better...

[Skateguy50]

I heard a rumor that despite all the clouds it is in fact summer, ride it how it is and enjoy. Engine mods are for the winter

[donimo]

this is my winter project.