Alpha Dog Builds a CX500

AlphaDogChoppers said:
Tony got a set of reverse megaphone mufflers, because it was a bit too loud with the shorties that we had on there. They were no more quiet, but they look a whole lot better.

Ha!

CXMAN, I'll watch your site - might be interested in the GL1000 kit next year if it gives similar gains.
 
on board also, waiting for some more Alpha Dog tidbits of wisdom. Oh and might just buy a carb or two.
 
richard

have 2 kits for the gl1000

a dual 38mm kit for cruising mild improvement and awesome simplicity

the other is a hoot

its a quad 34mm kits that is just plain stupid and make the gl1000 wake right the hell up

burns as much fuel as you want and is plain scary lol but the sound is something else
 
cxman said:
richard

have 2 kits for the gl1000

a dual 38mm kit for cruising mild improvement and awesome simplicity

the other is a hoot

its a quad 34mm kits that is just plain stupid and make the gl1000 wake right the hell up

burns as much fuel as you want and is plain scary lol but the sound is something else

Too bad we don't have thumbs up on this site as I would like this for sure..
I want two please sunny side up.
 
I took some quick snapshots yesterday when Tony stopped by the shop. The quality of the photos is mediocre because my good camera was stolen. :mad:

Here is a close-up of the engine badge. I did it with candy red powdercoat, and silver vein powdercoat like is on the engine cases.

cx500more1.jpg


Here's a shot of Murray's carb & manifold. I polished the manifold a bit to pretty it up. It looks like the carb is tilted in the photo, but it is level. Something about the camera angle makes it look tilted.

cx500more2.jpg


We rebuilt the forks and installed progressive springs. We gave the springs quite a bit more preload than they had originally, and we used 15 wt fork oil. We also put in 50 cc more oil than the book called for to make them more resistant to bottoming out. While we had the front end apart, the triple trees got mirror black powdercoat. I block sanded, then polished the "HONDA" on the aluminum fuse cover.

cx500more3.jpg


This is a shot of the bike overall. You can see the new by-pass exhaust pipes by Murray. (CXMAN) We wrapped them and painted them silver. This picture also shows the polished fork lowers and the new megaphone mufflers.

One of the little touches that worked really well, is the chrome door edge trim installed on the seam edge of the gas tank. I works really well with the chrome bead that is part of the seat.

cx500more4.jpg
 
Nice work !! i like the chrome edge moulding

now when can you pretty this up i have the real deluxe tank and tins all painted so its just pretty polish and install lol

Just needs you and tony and a chunk of wallet


 
One little notw on the build.

When I first put the engine together, I did a warm compression test with maybe a total of 15 minutes engine run time, mostly idling while I synched the carbs. They read 155 and 160. Not bad, within spec.

I said to Tony that I wanted to repeat the compression test now that he had a few hundred miles on the engine.

Read 180 psi on both cylinders. 8)
 
It's not surprising to get more compression after break-in. Rings do a pretty good job right from the get go with precision boring/honing, compression should be good within a very short time. It was just a little validation on the quality of my rebuild job to get good compression like that. Nominal is 177, plus or minus 23, according to the service manual. So, 155 was still within nominal spec, but I was happy to see it go up 20/25 psi after break-in.
 
I wish this came up more often (ha) as when I rebuilt my 450 I was a little concerned about the numbers I was getting right out of the gate - checked again after several hundred miles and was at the high end of spec.
 
I haven't come across the traditional burn-in arguments on DTT yet. I assume that's because we are dealing with older bikes where the tolerances aren't as good.

I'd love to hear Ichiban's opinion at that little nugget...
 
I'm the owner of the bike featured in this thread.

I cannot say enough about the quality of Alpha's work, along with the setup from Murray.

The carbs are a revelation, just had the bike dyno'd - 59 HP at the rear wheel!

Not bad for a 35 year old "dinosaur".
 
Thanks, Tony.
And thanks for kinda "stepping back" and letting me get crazy with your bike. It was a very rewarding project. Wouldn't have been possible if you had made me stay within the original scope of the project.
 
Concerning engine break in. Class 8 truck engines, 13, 14, 15 and 16 liters
take up to 80,000 miles to totally seal up.
 
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