TecateDan and Fabio's joint 480R effort

[fabiodriven]

I got the head pipe all welded up today. It's a really tight fit but it's in there. The exhaust wrap is actually going to have three purposes; It's going to contain heat, it's going deaden sound, and it's also absolutely essential for covering up the ungodly frankenpipe that lurks beneath it. This bike will have a pipe professionally made for it at some point along my travels, but this will do for now. I'm going to guess that the method used by HondaRidr in post #67 would be a far better way to go at this as opposed to the way I've done it. It makes a lot more sense in my mind to use both the ATC and the bike pipes and combine the two than it does to just try and cram the bike pipe in there as I'm doing. I haven't seen his in person so I don't know, but it looks pretty good in that one picture.

I'm waiting for the silencer to arrive and then I'll be able to continue on with this.

[big specht]

You aren't going to know what to do when you can hear your self think while it running. You've never heard it that way.

[fabiodriven]

If redneck ingenuity is your thing, you've come to the right place. I spent some time trying to mount the silencer today, and I've been using stuff that I have lying around. It's made from 1/8th diamond plate, which is overkill obviously, but it's what I have. Aluminum would be a much better choice of material but I don't have a tig welding machine nor do I know how to use one. I'm not highlighting this mount because it's particularly exciting, but because it was fun spending time creating it and I like how it has come out. This bike is cut and weld, that's how it is, so throwing crudely fabricated stuff at it wouldn't be anything new.

I threw these two pieces together real quick.



Made this little T and I had the rubber piece on the shelf.







For spacers I used a wrist pin from an LT50 as well as another small spacer, both on the shelf.



The bracket will be able to spread the load of the weight of the silencer as well as keep it tucked up high. I will build another mount for the rear of the silencer likely tomorrow.

[fabiodriven]

I have found an 83R swing arm for sale. I know there are differences between the 83-84 rear suspension. Does anyone know if the swing arms are interchangeable?

[atc007]

You would need most of the rest of the 83 Pro Link. The link mounts about an inch higher in the 84. You could "probably" whack the mounts off and move them up.

[fabiodriven]

Well the entire exhaust system is fairly complete at this point, save for some work involving mounts and fine tuning, but it is on the bike and I was able to run and ride it.

First of all, regardless of muffler wrap and an intentionally quiet muffler, this friggin thing is loud. There is no stopping that. The cylinder is massive and the sound just reverberates off the giant fins, it's not even exhaust noise. It's engine noise.

It is going to need jetting, as it is very rich right now. I'll likely have to upgrade the carburetor instead of messing with the old round slide PE. It works fine and the bike runs well, but obtaining the right jets for it might be tricky and I know I can get a jet kit no problem for a PWK.

It will gain a bit more sac once properly jetted, but just scooting around here it seems very tame and manageable. I was trying to picture in my head how much faster than a regular air this would be and although it's gotta be faster, it didn't really feel that much faster. I'm curious to see. It wasn't until I got off of it that I remembered how much longer this swing arm is, and with the stock swing arm I would have known for certain the monster that lurked between my legs. Also the three wheeler has a lot of power.

I didn't want to post another picture until it was complete, but I'm going to post a couple anyways. Don't judge the welds that haven't been ground yet and whatever other incomplete parts you might happen to see. My welding machine was very "affordable" and it whales on the middle and heavy gauge stuff, however it lacks grace when trying to weld thinner stuff. I'll continue dicking around with this thing and honing it. I have to rebuild the forks and I'd really, really like to get a compression release on it. That might be kind of a priority.

[Shawn Powell]

Fabio , wrap the pipe all the way to the muffler. One it covers up the welds / protects them, two it will help flush the exhaust vapor out. Sounds small and insignificant but I did it on my custom SupertrApp on the 350x and it made a difference not only in sound but bottom end pop also. I originally did it to cover up my ugly custom made mid pipe. Just my .02 cents. Looks good. Love the bike.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[fabiodriven]

Thanks for the advice and compliment!

I just priced jets, I didn't realize how cheap jets are. I'm going to try and jet the old PE before I run out and buy a PWK. I'm keeping things cheap for now.

[El Camexican]

That's not your machine that's you. Pretty ugly welds homie. You know I'm not gonna lie to ya about it so don't let it hurt too bad.

Not to derail this thread, but they sell different types of welding machines for a reason. Welding thin base material with a MIG unit meant to weld up to 1/2" thick plate is not easy at all. The amount of heat required to melt .045" or .060" wire will blow a hole through thin walled tube almost instantly. Even .035" wire is a lot for what I assume is no more than 16ga. tube. Would love to see some of your welds posted up Dude.

The trick I use to weld thin metal with an over powered machine is to spot weld the whole thing one zap at a time and to stop every 2 or three spots to let the material cool. If you do blow a hole in it you can take a piece of bare electrode or even a coat hander and zap it into the hole. The down side top this method is that it's almost impossible to do it without a few pin holes popping up due to the impure air that is expanding inside the tube as you weld and contaminating the back side of the weld. There is a procedure that eliminates this called purging that involves filling the tube with inert gas, but that's usually used for TIG welding.


Fabs. make sure that if you get that thing wet you don't park it with any moisture on that pipe. That wrap is notorious for promoting corrosion. Also, is that a 4 stroke silencer? I seem to recall reading something about restriction differences between 2 and 4 stroke silencers. Might want to check on that if you haven't.

[fabiodriven]

Nico thank you for saving me a lot of writing, lol!

It is the welding machine, not me, trust me. It's made in Italy and it's very cheap. I used a Miller 250SX for years when I worked in an exhaust shop spending my days WELDING EXHAUST. Not everything I welded was clean, new metal. I welded stainless to aluminized steel, old to new, old to old, and paper thin "metal" which had become more rust than anything else. If I can weld anything, I can weld exhaust. This machine stutters and stammers until you get the bead going as if it's not enough power on the lowest setting, but once it clears up it blows right through the work. There are only six heat settings, it is not infinitely adjustable. 1 is almost too cold (but then gets too hot) and 2 is way too hot. Also it has a slight issue going on with the gas delivery I'm trying to sort out.

It is a two stroke silencer Nico designed to fit a KX500 and it is US forestry approved. The exhaust itself isn't that loud, it's the engine that's loud.

Also, if the pipe rots to pieces it is what it is! Lol!

[fabiodriven]

Why ?.......I`d get the pwk 39mm .......whats the reed block ? stock ?.......boysean ? .......Moto Tassinari say ......you buy my sh!t ......it run better ashole ! (he make it ...a buck fiddy arsehole) .......it should make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and take notice .......can you ride it long distance or is it vibrato maximuss ? ......... if it`s just drag`s fogetaboutit !!!!! .........drill bits for jet kits .....for the right now .....ya know now !!!..... hi Shep !

The reeds were new when we built this Glamy but I don't know what kind they were. I don't know who Tassanari is, but I saw Jess Tassanari really drunk at a bar a couple of years ago with a hot lesbian friend in tow. They made a scene and were very openly affectionate with one another until the manager kicked them out. I suggested they ease off the drinking and calm down over a Fabio sandwich, but that didn't happen.

I don't have many long distances to ride here to find things out, but now that it's slightly quieter there are a ton of rattles you couldn't hear before. I'll be addressing all of those. It does vibrate obviously, but I don't have near enough time on it to know how much of an effect it will have on me. There's a crappy little place I can ride up the street and I'll be taking it up there to scare the kids soon.

[El Camexican]

Nico thank you for saving me a lot of writing, lol!

It is the welding machine, not me, trust me. It's made in Italy and it's very cheap. I used a Miller 250SX for years when I worked in an exhaust shop spending my days WELDING EXHAUST. Not everything I welded was clean, new metal. I welded stainless to aluminized steel, old to new, old to old, and paper thin "metal" which had become more rust than anything else. If I can weld anything, I can weld exhaust. This machine stutters and stammers until you get the bead going as if it's not enough power on the lowest setting, but once it clears up it blows right through the work. There are only six heat settings, it is not infinitely adjustable. 1 is almost too cold (but then gets too hot) and 2 is way too hot. Also it has a slight issue going on with the gas delivery I'm trying to sort out.

It is a two stroke silencer Nico designed to fit a KX500 and it is US forestry approved. The exhaust itself isn't that loud, it's the engine that's loud.

Also, if the pipe rots to pieces it is what it is! Lol!

I've been out of the game for a while, so I'm not sure what's out there now, but when we used to build hinges for bus doors, you know the ones that pull up on the side of a Greyhound bus? All that stuff was super light tubing, but we had to weld it to 1 inch thick forgings. The guys were having all kinds of hell switching back-and-forth between thick and thin without stopping to adjust the machine's every 30 seconds until our consumable supplier suggested we try a pulse welder. $3000 bucks for a tiny little welder, but holy crap I swear to God a monkey could weld Kleenex with that thing.

[fabiodriven]

I had some friends over yesterday and I ended up running the 480 a bit. One friend in particular was able to ride it and he was absolutely blown away, he loved the machine. Rave reviews from him.

After riding it for a second time, I really wanted to update this. In retrospect, my description of this bike being more tame than I expected was a relative description. I have to remember, I am somewhat used to this bike and I spend a ton of time on my Buell, so I'm used to having a lot of power. Even my Buell has seemed slow to me lately but I know it's not the bike, it's just me getting used to the power that bike makes.

So the 480 ran great yesterday and it almost seemed as if the jetting wasn't as far off as I had originally thought. It is absolutely much faster than a 250R, there is no question about that. My friend was obsessed with the bike and we spent a long time gathered around it shooting the shite last night. He's a life long Banshee guy and he has/had plenty of other bikes. He swore the 480 would walk all over a Banshee, there was no question in his mind. Obviously that would depend on how the Banshee was modded. He was curious how it would do against 450 quads, but I've walked right away from many 450's at the drag strip.

We realized yesterday that the way I routed the exhaust is absolutely perfect in regards to the kick starter's action. It looks like I did that intentionally. The truth is I didn't cycle the kicker once while I was fabricating the exhaust, I didn't even think about it. I'm very pleased my subconscious mind was looking out for me and routed the pipe perfectly.

I still have to remove the exhaust again for final fitment and sealing and to clean it up a bit. Other than that, there are some alarmingly loud rattles that must be addressed. Some of them are the front engine mounts, others might be exhaust, others are TBD. The vibration is strong and the rattles very prevalent, but the power is insane. All you have to do is look at the the throttle and the thing just stands up!

[Dirtcrasher]

Hey, sometimes in fabrication you just get lucky!


It's easy to overlook a couple of all the details making this stuff fit, but sometimes, time is of the essence...

[RubberSalt]

I just priced jets, I didn't realize how cheap jets are. I'm going to try and jet the old PE before I run out and buy a PWK. I'm keeping things cheap for now.

Be careful with some of those Chinese jets. Supposedly, they arnt always true to the size they say they are. I just picked up a Chinese 38mm PWK Air Stryker. Took some time jetting it. Both the pilot and the main were way out of whack. After getting it jetted, it runs better than my Keihin 38mm PJ I had. The Chinese carb does use OEM jets/parts, so that is nice.


As for the jets being the wrong size, the ones that came in the carb I got claimed to be a 170 main and a 50 pilot. Neither had markings and both were under sized compared to name brand jets. I got a bunch of Chinese Jets that are smaller. I've got larger ones showing up later this month. I'll be comparing their sizes to the real deal once they get in.

When it comes to Keihin main jets, their sizing is very easy to follow. The diameter of the hole is the size of the jet. If the jet is a 100, then the hole is 1 mm in size. A 150 is 1.5 mm. A 170 is 1.7 mm. Chinese are useful when drilling them out to get the size you need. I'd hate to ruin accurate jets for jetting purposes. <3 my jet kit.