shovelstrokeed

Could be clutch primary or transmission input shaft gear whine as well. Mine is a bit loud on both counts. Earplugs pretty much solve it. That and 15w50 oil.

Nothing on the 12 volt side of your electrical system will generate much of an arc. I would venture a guess as a bad spark plug wire.

That tire looks exatly like the Z6 on the back of my bike awhile ago. Looked fine 200 miles before. It is the reason there are Pilot Roads on my bike right now. That and at 5500 miles they look to have another 5K left in them. With all the slab riding I am forced to do here in Florida, using the cord for a wear bar is not my idea of good practice.

I bought my '01 with 13K miles on it and the OEM chain. At 18K the chain was pretty much toast, noisy and would not hold an adjustment, so I replaced it with an RK, didn't do the sprokets, in fact, never even pulled the front cover, I just used the old chain to drag the new one into place. That chain only lasted about 8K miles, despite religious lubrication and adjustment. The short life was certainly from putting a new chain on old sprockets. This time, I changed both chain and sprockets, DID X-ring, OEM sprockets. Switched back to Chain Wax as well. So far, things are holding up pretty well. I'll have about 4K on it by the time I get home. I have been riding quite a bit of late and have developed a drill for end of day. Bike up on center stand, tools out of the top case, yeah, I carry a big assed 1/2" drive ratchet and a combination wrench with me. Give the chain a wipe, spray on some lube while it is hot and check tension, adjusting as needed, 3x so far. Typical day for me is between 4 and 600 miles so that works out to right what Honda recommends. Who would have thought? Start to finish time on this routine is right at around 5 minutes, including cleaning my hands. I look forward to a long service life from this one. I'm probably going to settle into a routine of chain and front sprocket for every chain and rear every other. I'm looking at in excess of 25K miles a year on this bike, so probably 2 chains a year.

That sounds like the clock isn't getting enough voltage. Bad connection somewhere in the harness or to the circuit board. It also could be your battery but I'm thinking you might have starting problems there. I would check all the connectors related to the dashboard for corrosion and the like. Are you sure it switches to the 1 am point when you first turn on the ignition? Or is it doing it when you thumb the starter button? I think there is a separate fuse for just the clock or maybe the clock and some other gauges. It is quite common for corrosion to reach into those little mini fuse holders. Might want to pull the cover of the fuse box, there should be a label under there telling you which fuse is what. Remove and replace the fuse a couple of times and see if that improves things.

That's the ones. I have one niggle with them in that the pegs are very short. Necessary, I suppose, for ultimate ground clearance but my feet would be a lot happier with about 3/4" more peg length. I may have to pay a visit to one of the local machine shops. I doubt, unless caught unaware by a decreasing radius turn, that I would ever touch one of these down in street riding. I can lean over to very near the edge of my rear tire and have never had so much as a toe touch down. I do, of course, ride with the balls of my feet on the pegs to better control my weight and balance while cornering. I was lucky, when I bought my bike, the pegs were already mounted and the stock stuff came in a box after the purchase. I don't feel any need to go back.

I would tend to think the stock gearing is about perfect for highway running. There is a sweet spot on the tachometer on mine between about 4800 and 5500 where the engine just seems to settle into a very low vibration mode. That equates to somewhere between 88 mph and 95 mph indicated, low to mid 80's actual. Mine is just a bit buzzy below about 4500 which is where I would be at the same speeds with the 18 tooth front. 82 mph actual, 90 indicated seems to keep me out of trouble with the LEO contingent, which, with all the travel I do on the bike gets to be pretty important.

+1 on the gloves vs grips thing. Grips are nice but, I ride with a very light grip on the bars and much prefer using my Gerbings glove liners under my BMW Summer Rain gloves. The combination is not at all bulky and my hands stay toasty. I also have the early version of the Gerbings heated gloves but they are for really heinous conditions only as they are pretty bulky. They have a newer version now that is not bad at all.

1.0 x 10^9 watts. Or just about 1315789.4736842105263157894736842 HP. Might even be enough to get an XX to run 200 mph. Just to be pedantic, the actual spelling is Gigawatt.

You can start with a tape measure and measure from the swing arm pivot to the axle. Centerline on both. One of those little tapes fits nicely between the exhaust and the swingarm. Get both sides dead even regardless of the markings on the chain adjusters. Take note of any difference on the adjusters and strive to maintain that during any subsequent chain adjustment. Now go ride the bike and see if there is a tracking issue. If there is, I would look into the assembly of the front end. Where did you source that? Could be as simple as a slightly tweaked triple clamp or just poor assembly technique, or, it could be a tweaked frame at the steering head. A search for Computrack (sp) might find a shop in your area equipped to check out this very thing and you can put your mind at rest. Apropo of noting at all, my bike tracks dead straight with my hands off the bars.

OK, I just ran it through my gearing calculator. I have adjusted the aspect ratio for the tire to reflect what my GPS shows to be real mph as opposed to theoretical mph. 5K RPM on my bike, with stock gears, gives 82.3 mph. GPS, 90/91 indicated. 4000 RPM with stock gearing should give you 66.5 mph and, assuming your motor will pull 11K RPM, 182.8 on the big end. With 16 tooth front that is 62.5 at 4K and 172.0 at 11K. The 18 tooth at the same RPMs is 70.4 and 193.5.

+ 1 on the Pilot Roads. I have most of the head off my Michilin man now. I put on a new set of 'Roads right after FUXXT. 5500 miles since then, yeah, I've been busy, and I can't say enough about them. I am thinking of attending the Kieth Code thing at Barber and getting levels 3 and 4 out of the way and I might fit a set of powers for that. Then again, I might just rent a ZX6R again. I had a ball on that bike and I wouldn't have to worry about wadding my XX or scaring the sock monkey.

Hmmmm, having made one's bed, one does get to sleep in it, don't one. :icon_wall:

I have always changed the fluid in my hydraulic systems by fashioning a reservoir out of a regular brake cap. I haven't done one for the XX yet but will in November when it is due for the flush. The thing takes the form of a funnel and is used to replace the stock reservoir cap. Remove stock cap and diaphragm, replace with reservoir funnel. Fill funnel with fresh, clean brake fluid. I also use a Mity-Vac on the bleed nipples. This way, you just pump till fresh fluid is coming out of the bleed line and your done. Never an opportunity for air to get into the system. When the bleed is complete, it is a simple matter to suck the excess fluid out of the funnel and down to the proper level in the master cyclinder, I use a 10cc syringe with a long needle, available from most chemical supply houses. Replace the modified cap with the stock components and your done. Looks like the windscreen will have to come off on the XX to do this but that is no big deal.

My peg set is from Gilles Machine, I think they are in England. They have a pretty good range of adjustment but, I'm not sure they are what you would want as they are primarlily rearsets. I think the lowest and furthest forward setting is right around where the stock pegs are. Also, being racing gear, they don't fold and are a good deal narrower than the stock pegs. I'm 5'10" with a 31" inseam but I have been riding sport type motorcycles for most of the 45 years I've been at this. I still drop my legs off the pegs for a mile or so every tank, stand up on the pegs about the same.

The XX is really sensitve to air flow. Running in proximity to cars in city traffic or even out on the highway can cause large temperature fluctuations. Today, for example, I rode from Greensboro, NC to Tuscaloosa, AL, almost all on freeways in 100 degree temperatures. When running in the rare clear spots on I85 and I20, the temperture would hover at 186 degrees. Indicated speed, for the most part, was 90 mph. As soon as I would run up on the ineveitable clumps of cages, temps would climb to the 196 to 200 range. Move through the pile and right back to 186. Couple of brief thunder showers had temps running down into the high 170's. Given the high coolant pressure the XX uses, you don't have to worry about boilover until water temperature exceeds 250 degrees and I think the bike will shut itself down right around that. I routinely see 217 just sitting at a traffic light.

I'm away from my normal resources but basically, every 90 degree turn in the drive train will incurr about a 5% penalty in drive efficiency due to friction losses in the gears. The BMW design involves two 90 degree turns as two sets of bevel gears are used, one at the output of the gearbox and the second at the final drive on the wheel. So, you incurr a 10% power loss to the rear wheel. It ain't all for free though as a chain drive is only about 97% efficient as well so the difference between the two drive methods works out to about 7%. Those are some pretty rough numbers and the smaller bevel gears up in the front might add a bit more friction. Bacl om tje early days of shaft drives, a lot of the Japanese mfgs used an intermediate gear box between the engine and drive shaft and used helical gears in there which are a good deal less efficient, although quieter, than the spiral bevel gears used by BMW. That may be where your 20% loss figure comes from. All the above applies to motors with their crankshaft disposed laterally across the frame. On stuff like Goldwings, ST's and BMW boxer or brick motors, the crankshaft is longitudinal to the frame and only requires a single 90 degree turn and efficiences can approach those of a chain drive, won't get there though as the required universal joints necessary due to suspension movement eat up a bit of power as well.

I'd put the RWHP of the two bikes at about even. Those artlcles I have read by magazined doing dyno testing on the K12S ususally show about 140 HP, give or take a couple. No way you are going to incurr a 20% penalty in the final drive. Maybe a percentage point or two when compared to a chain, assuming the chain is in good shape and well lubed. Top speed is so dependant on aerodynamics and, to a pretty good extent, how well the rider can tuck/blend in with the bike's bodywork that it would probably boil down to rider body shape and position. BMW is not exactly backward when it comes to wind tunnel testing and I would imagine the K bike is pretty slippery. Given equal aero's, even a few mph on the big end would require a pretty good HP advantage.

Won't work on the bird, The clutch basket is in the way of the direct path to the sump. I suppose I could make a sheath of the poper length and fit a thermocouple assembly in place of the dip stick. I think I have a contact pyrometer that I could stick on the oil pan just as easily. The gauge is kinda big though. No big deal, just thought it would be nice to know the oil temperature. Prolly scare myself silly and park the damn bike. Never mind.

Pete, Just throw the 15W50 in and forget about it. I have done it and the bike seems to like it with the primary advantage that shifting seems to be smoother. So far, no issues with the clutch using either 15W50 Castrol Syntec or the current Honda HP4 20W50 synthetic. I like the use of synthetic oils in the 'bird. It does tend to get a bit warm in the summer months and the synthetics are better able to handle the heat. I'd like to pull the oil pan one day and weld in a thermometer well so I could monitor oil temperature. I'm too busy riding to do much of that at the moment.

I was busy refuting the loud pipes save lives thing. By even making such a silly statement, you imply belief that loud pipes are somehow contributing to your safety. I think you will find I am far from stupid and probably have more experience riding on the street than you will ever acquire. I passed the million mile lifetime mark about 12 years ago. Sound does, indeed, travel forward but when directed backward, the majority of it will go that way. What you hear when sitting on your bike comes mostly from sound reflected off the pavement and not much travels forward to reach the ears of a car driver. That is particularly true here in the civilized world where most vehicles on the road are running with their windows closed and climate control systems on, not to mention stereo system, cell phone, screaming kids and other distractions. Assuming the car driver even does hear you coming, you are giving far to much credit to think that one will be able to determine your position and closing rate from sound alone (ever wonder why your ears are shaped like cups to catch noise from the front?). Then you further have to hope that the car driver will react to the sound of you approaching in a positive way. One would hope, do nothing, but I have seen quite a few folks, when startled by the sound of a loud motorcycle in their proximity, swerve and not necessarily away from the bike (see earlier about detecting direction of sound). There is even some argument that headlights can act to our detriment. Many drivers use the change of apparant spacing between headlights to judge the speed of approaching vehicles and we, with single front lights present them with no useful information other than a slight increase in conspicuity. The number of accidents that include both a driver turning in front of an approaching motorcyclist and followed by the "I didn't see him" pretty much says that you could ride down the road with a flaming rocket stuck up your ass and drivers are still as likely to turn in front of you as not. A motorcycle is not seen by many drivers as much of a physical threat to them and they thus tend to ignore our very presence.

Maybe it's a reading comprehension thing on my part but I saw no mention of a modified exhaust. Why would you put in a jet kit? The K&N doesn't flow any better than a clean, stock air cleaner and without a related increase in the exhaust flow, more intake flow would be meaningless. I would certainly pull the plugs and probably replace them and then do some constant load riding and plug chops to try and get a read on jetting conditions. The symptoms you describe are pretty much those of a motor that is too rich. Certainly you might want to investigate the vacuum tubing and the connection of the carbs to the cylinder heads as another possible source for the rough running and throttle lag but, I'm still betting that the motor is now too rich. This gives you a fine excuse to get an Erion, Ti-force or Akropovic pipe to straighten out your carb problem.

Leaving your safety to the fact that you have loud pipes on your bike and depending on others to react approriatly to your presence as a result of that sound is, to be nice about it, somewhat foolish. In fact, I would prefer that others don't know that I'm there till I'm gone. Maintaining proper position on the road and anticipating cage driver's actions is easier that way. I treat riding in traffic as pretty much the same exercise as running full speed through a herd of cows. Read the flow and get through the tight and slow spots causing the least disturbance to the stupid bovines will keep you from getting stepped on or shat upon. Just my $0.02.

+1 on the little to no play consistent with being able to turn the bars from lock to lock with no change in RPM. Sure makes slow speed riding a breeze. Since most of my throttle control comes from the palm of my hand rather than fingers and wrists, it greatly eases off/on throttle transitions.

What kind of quality did you expect from Cracker Barrel ? Long story involved in my acquisition of that particular sock monkey. Leave it at good friends with a sense of humor. That I rode 2500 miles in 3 days to pick it up gives it even more meaning. So far, the monkey has a bit over 80K miles riding on the back of various bikes. Possibly in honor of those here, I'll see if I can get a bustier and some fish nets on her in time for the next gathering. I think the stuff from Bratz will fit.