The bike wasn't running so great anymore the latest months and at high revvs it felt a bit weak. I thought that the (imitation) K&N's neede some attention. So I ordered an cleaning and re-oiling kit. When I took off the filters I noticed that one of them had a small rupture in the flange. Too bad. Time for the real deal I thought, but man...here in the Netherlands those single pods cost a lot of money. In a forum search I read about the Two Barrel K&N named RU-2970. Loved the optics instandly. I ordered one for €47,50 and that's even cheaper than one single pod. Yesterday I "tried" to mount it.
I think it looks awsome
Unfortunately I had not enough room between the carbs and the battery, even with my reduced batterybox. I still have the huge (original) seize battery because my bike is electric start only (removed the kickstart because of the rearsets). So, I took off my saddle and removed the battery. Still no room...
Then I noticed that my rectifier was hanging loose. It broke of the batterybox due to the vibrations.
I had a
moment.
It took me a minute to decide that the whole electrics-under-the-sadle were going to be re-organised. It is necessary for future simple carb removement without having to dismantle half the bike. The battery is the biggest pain in the butt. After some googling I found a nice battery called Motobatt (type MB12U) which contains gel instead of water so you can mount it anyway you want. Several members of the Dutch Motor-Forum have them and they are all satified with them. It has 4 mounting point so I can mount it as I like
Another thing I read is that those AMG batteries require a steady charging current. And since I'm still running my bike with that huge mechanical regulator, I thought it was a good idea to look for a replacement. A smaller unit would make it easier to find a place for the fusebox, rectifier, regulator, solenoid and the Newtronics CDI. At the German site XS400.net I read a story about this subject. It explained the difference between the old mechanical regulator and the >79 electric regulator. And that it isn't a direct swab. They are interchangable but it needs some rewiring.
http://xs400.net/wb/pages/technik-f...er-xs250-xs360-und-xs400-alle-ohc-modelle.php
In the pdf I read about a small unit called the "spannungsregler USB". It is a very tiny unit (smaller than a usb stick) and it is desgined to replace the big machanical units on the early Yamaha XS650's. And since the 650 regulators seamed to have the same partnumber as the old 400 ones it would be a direct swab. It is sold by
http://www.twins-inn.de/twins-inn/start.htm ,it costs €29,50 and looks like this:
I will search some more to maybe find a 400 owner who did the swab.
A Britsh manufacturer called Electrex produces a combi-unti so you have a rectifier and regulator in one but they are out of stock. I will also look at this option, maybe it is sold somewere else.
http://www.electrexworld.co.uk/acatalog/RR38.html
So currently my bike looks like this:
I'm going to shop for some metal to create a new big mounting plate under the saddle and a battery box.
