Firedragon

Knees and shoulders hurt more with age but still a very comfortable bike compared to alternatives

Well you can't say I didn't try. "Work" is done to get air into a cylinder. We can all agree on that I hope. Anything done to reduce that is beneficial as is anything done to stabilise the air flow. A 60 cubic foot plenum would be better that a 6 cubic inch and somewhere between the two, while we are deciding the the exact perfect theoretical size, HankXXX is riding past on his turbocharged Bird!

Since it may be important, I have never built a turbo bike and I love reading books. Allowing for the fact that both HanksXXX and Superhawk996 are keeping the terminology simple I believe they are both right. Fluid dynamics shows that work has to done to move a fluid(air) through a port whether by sucking it or blowing it. Any extra work brought about by not flowing the manifold has to be generated by the system. Since however the thing has to be fitted on a bike these niceties are way down the list. If a bit of extra work(in the physics sense) is needed that is just too bad as long as the plenum chamber pressure has the ability to supply the extra work. As far as conrods go the BMEP with turbo would not range as widely but would be higher but that extra loading is in the direction that the rod usually has plenty of spare capacity and less in the direction the rod is weakest assuming revs are the same. Even a small increase in revs induce large extra stresses for the rod, turbo or N/A.

For ecu Birds the pair switches off at the point that the ecu switches to using the lambda readings for fueling. (Otherwise the ecu would just keep making the fueling richer to allow for the excess air in the exhaust.) This is for very little time in the useage cycle. So for most of the time the presence of pair is not adding air but it may still theoretically affect pulsing to an incredibally minor degree.If it does then Superhawk996 is right. If anyone believes that their riding is restricted by this ultra minute possibility then do as you please. I have never been in the situation when the functioning presence of pair has had any effect. If every possible weight saving has been done and every performance mod applied and rider excess weight has been eliminated and skin tight leathers are used (the list is endless) then I doubt anyone would gain a practical advantage without pair - but whatever floats your boat. At least it is always a topic for a forum.

Injection Birds can just switch off pair -if that is what you want. I wanted to see what and when it actually did, allowing that you could gain almost 500 bhp and be 20 years younger by doing away with it. The little mod showed me that it functioned only at very low rpm <1500 and overrun and were switched off by the ecu at all times above that. For dyno use I left the circuit in place. The lambda sensor can also be switched for dyno. I split the circuits at the ecu for tidyness with the leds on the bar. Ignore translogic refs they are for a powershifter . The leds just show when pair is enabled and demanded by the ecu (green activated, red ecu asking for pair but manually switched off)

My point is Honda, renowned for build quality, use the cheapest option available for even critical stuff like steering. So what on earth do the cheapo manufacturers use? Honda did not even offer the option of a super delux version with proper steering head bearings for an extra $30 .

The Honda main dealer says my bearings are shot. I find that a bit unreasonable at 3112 miles from new. The taper bearings kits would seem to need a higher degree of headstock machining than the standard balls to align accurately. The headstock may well be machined to that accuracy anyway but then why did Honda not fit them? Just asking.

Of course I don't need a shift indicator, or anything else I've fitted. Nobody actually needs a Blackbird but ( did I say that out loud?)

I have a TRANSLOGIC Q3 quickshifter (with gear indicator, lshift light, lap timer etc) fitted. The price was right on e-bay. The recomended shift fixing is the race pattern fitted behind the fairing but this one was a road version and went on ok (after a while)

They only tppk a few days to get to the UK. Beautifully made, well packaged, and they work. As a bonus they allow better operating angles on my Translogic quickshifter. With the incredible dollar exchange rate they must be my best buy ever.

I have foam grips installed over the existing grips. Cost about £2.00 ($4.00) and feel great.

Max Weight capacity UK and Euro -185 kg (408lbs) US 49 +Cal 174kg (384lbs) Canada 178kg (392lbs) ???

[attachmentid=1596]I have an MS Excel spreadsheet set up to calculate required HP given some input values. Some values that are "unknown" can be worked backwards from what you know your bike can(really) do and then be used for "what if". I have attached it and can explain anything that is not clear PieterPower.xls