Do-Boy wants to party all the time! party all the time! party all the tiiiimme!

[dO-bOy]

hey guys, been on for a little while now but finally decided it was time for an intro thread after finally bringing my first bike home yesterday. I bought the bike sight unseen besides a couple photo's exchanged over email. i'm very impressed in the overall body condition, but i think the right cylinder is lost. First thing i'm planning to do is a compression test


This is my first bike build after a handful of car builds so I'm apologizing for my noob motorcycle questions now. I come from drifting and we like our cars ridiculous, so don't expect too boring of a xs400 in here. But unlike some of my older interesting cars, i'm keeping it Ron Burgendy Classy. My exhaust fumes will smell like Sex Panther by Odion, my seat will be wrapped in real panther, so you know its good.


bringing her home

 

[dO-bOy]

ps: i've tried embedding the youtube video a bunch of different ways, i can't get it to work and nothing in the FAQ, any pointers?

 

[bcware]

Use the youtube tag [ youtube ] [ /youtube ] without the spaces. The text between the tags should just be the video id number/code, not the entire URL.

Post your cars up in the lounge section. That panther-skin seat would go great with my baby-seal-head slippers.

becomes [ YOUTUBE ]yhuMLpdnOjY[ /YOUTUBE ]

No spaces in the tag, remember!

 

[HoughMade]

That bike looks a lot like mine:

Good luck!

 

[dO-bOy]

thanks! link fixed. i've posted pictures of my cars in the "other rides" thread already. and yea it looks like we have the same bike for sure!


here's how i drive lol

 

[OREGONFARMER]

I don't think that bike was going anywhere in that pickup (nice strap job!). Looking forward to seeing what you do with the bike.

 

[dO-bOy]

finally got to mess around with it since getting it home. unseized the front brake, pulled crap off. flipped the bars and shortened them for now cuz its free. going to order drag bars and rebel shocks/springs among other stuff this week. i LOVE how cheap everything is, after seriously wrenching on cars for a good few years.

anyone have a lead on 18" whitewalls? they are 100% neccessary.

 

[dO-bOy]

soooooooooooooooooooooooooo excited. when i bought the bike, it was only firing on the left cylinder. the owner told me they've changed the contacts and cleaned out the carbs so i just expected compression issues or something not so simple. Finally got into the engine today and noticed the right contact wasn't letting off at all so i figured out how to adjust it for a gap and it runs a whole lot better now. I'm cautiously optimistic at the moment.

is there a specific spec for the contact gap? or is it called the points?

 

[OliverB]

is there a specific spec for the contact gap? or is it called the points?

The manual I just looked in says 0.3 - 0.4 mm or 0.012 - 0.016 in. with a slip fit of the feeler gauge.

 

[bcware]

While doing the timing on my bike I did gap them to spec, but eyeballing it is fine as long as you rotate the engine with power on (not running lol, just on). In a dim room you can see the spark jump; if it isn't jumping to the wrong contact you're probably fine. This is just meant to be extra assurance if you're not 100% sure on the exact gap. If you rotate the engine backwards, it will jump to the wrong contact; keep that in mind if you decide to try this.

 

[ahale2772]

^ my pops would smack you bc...lol... he is the biggest proponent of setting the points correctly, I did a t-bird last week, running like crap came in for a tune up, first thing I always touch is the points, setting the dwell and gap correctly is an art, and it can make the car/bike run totally different, at first i was not a believer but after years of doing it I can do it as well as him, I set the dwell infront of the owner of the tbird and sent him on his way, all it needed was a bit of an adjustment

just saying, spark makes WAY more of a difference than one would think...(i thought it was BS for years before I saw what it can do)

 

[bcware]

I believe you! Haha. I certainly don't have that kind of experience or a dyno to possibly even tell if I am helping or hindering performance. I did gap mine to spec, but I have yet to take the bike up to speed. My course is on My 9th through 11th.

 

[ahale2772]

yeah i think ill be doing a course at about the same time, I wish my bike had points, yes they can be a PITA to adjust and maintain but like Drewps said...least im not relying on a 30year old black box

 

[dO-bOy]

im a believer in spark as well. look how much ecu's these days adjust timing. we can only do so much with the sticks and stones so make the best of it. ahale, when you say dwell, do you mean the advance/retard of the spark?

 

[ahale2772]

no, the advance mechanism is usually mechanical on older cars like im takining about, thats a seperate thing, the dwell is essentially just a way of getting the gap dead on, you can have the gap correct but its usless if the gap is correct and the dwell is off, you just want to get maximum strength of the magnetic field in the coil...any you can do that with an older dwell meter...kinda weird machines might not even be available any more.

it may not be that inportant on an old bike...i dont know if the manual specifies a dwell setting.

btw, that vid of you drifting is sick

 

[drewpy]

dwell 105' but the most important part is getting both contacts doing the same thing. I have also noticed that very small adjustments advance and retard the timing on these bikes. I have a dwell meter and just use a mark i set it up on ages ago. Then the timing is then set via the contact plates.
I also use a contact assisted electronic ignition, which means if that fails, I can revert back to normal points operation.

 

[dO-bOy]

so right now from the discussion and getting my hands dirty, i can honestly say i'm understanding 50-75% of whats going on. Do you guys have any suggestions for a good read from a guru so i can stop hammering you guys with questions? haha

i don't see any advance mechanism, is it internal and is it like a car where the RPM inertia fights spring pressure?

 

[drewpy]

advance is behind the contact plates, its an inertia springy thing like wot you sed!

 

[dO-bOy]

heres another video for you buddy this is my older car, its the grey one doing the street initiation then later in the summer I had the mural with unicorn and all on it haha. These are my local drift homies. always good times

 

[crush1776]

Damn you Do-Boy: everytime I log on to xs now I get that Eddie Murphy song stuck in my head!