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Had the cafe out for her first long ride last night and boy am I a grinning idiot ever since!!! Had it out on the interstate outside of the city and decided to climb into the throttle and see what she'll do now that I've got the carbs basically dialed in. I ran her pretty hard through third, fourth and partly into fifth and hit an indicated 125 mph at just about 7200 rpm. I'm sure there's some speedo error to account for there, but I'm not sure how much because I have checked against radar stations and had buddies hold constant speed limit speeds and my speedo has been dead on accurate at both 45 and 60.
I'm kind of kicking myself now for getting off the throttle and not seeing where she'd climb to, but the road surface was getting a little iffy and I didn't want to risk a high speed lay down so I backed off at 125. Can't help but wonder how many more mph I could squeeze out with that last 2K of tach though!!! One of these days I'll find the right road surface and we'll see what mark we can set.
Indeed!! ;D Wondering if I can hit ton and a half. Might have to swap sprockets to stretch the gearing just a tad, but with 2K left on the tach as hard as she'll pull I think it's feasible.
That is sweet. I have to say though that my KZ650 doesn't feel very fast at all. I haven't had her anywhere where I could open it up, but riding around town it doesn't feel quick at all. Doesn't even feel like it would do 100. Hope to get it out soon somewhere where I can open it up.
A stock kz650 will easily pull 100, with little things like pods and better exhaust 120 is reasonable. I had mine up to 120 frequently when it had the stock carbs, emgo pods and the MAC 4-1. If you want some serious gain find yourself some vm26 or vm28 carbs from a kz900 or kz1000 (stay away from the Suzi ones like I'm running, they've been a pain in the ass to get calibrated right for my 650). With the stock carbs they are pretty mild mannered through the lower rpms, but once you open her up and get above 7K on an open stretch you'll be surprised. ;D
I find that at the higher speeds, my limiting factor is stability. I gets shakey. Or perhaps I'm just wimping out and the shake isn't from the bike, it's from my nerves. Exhilarating!
The new shocks I put on made a HUGE difference in high speed stability. With the old mostly worn out rear shocks it got a little shaky up over 110, so pushing it to 120 was really kind of scary then. Now though, with the new suspension 125 was pretty stable feeling until the road surface started getting really crappy.
I bought the progressive wound 12.75" shocks from www.mikesxs.com. They bolted right up to my kz, even the bushings were the perfect size. And yeah, the new shocks made that much of a difference. I wish I would have had the money to upgrade my fork springs too. My front end is pretty solid for being a 30 year old stock suspension, but there's definitely room for improvement. This winter I'll probably put some progressive springs in the forks too, and some All Balls tapered steering stem bearings. ;D
After switching back to points, getting the timing dead spot on, re-syncing the carbs, and further tinkering getting the jetting spot on I've been out tearing up the streets and highways this past week. Was running up the interstate a couple days ago, heading out of town in light traffic and wound her out pretty hard, harder than I have yet anyway. I was able to climb to an indicated 135 at about 8500 rpm in 5th. I'm starting to wonder if 150 isn't achievable with enough good road and no traffic, wouldn't want to try it any other way though. I wonder if I drop a couple teeth on the rear sprocket if it'd do me any good in reaching that. It'd give me more available top end, but would it also eat up enough torque that she'd never wind all the way out?
According to your numbers, you would hit 150 somewhere around 9-9.5K. That things got to be in PERFECT tune! Whats the redline on that thing? Oh yea, and speaking of the Flats, anyone else going to speed week this year?
According to your numbers, you would hit 150 somewhere around 9-9.5K. That things got to be in PERFECT tune! Whats the redline on that thing? Oh yea, and speaking of the Flats, anyone else going to speed week this year?
Indicated redline is 9,500, but she'll hit 10,000 all day long. I've spent a lot of time this year getting the tuning right, and it's sure as hell paid off. ;D
I suck at tuning. Im scientifically oriented, and i get the concept, but for me a good tune is something that runs without grenading the motor, and can still idle. We've got rearsets and brakes, and tanks and seats; im thinking we need a engine tuning, and a suspension wheel and tire sections.
There were two pain in the ass points tuning this bike. First was doing the valve adjustment on shim under bucket valves on the DOHC, took an entire night of me and my buddy working to get it done. Second was tuning the bigger carbs. That SUCKED!!! The vm26's that I threw on the bike have both a pilot and air screw on each carb, so instead of just having to get the air screw happy I now had to dick with two sets of adjustments, just when I got one happy the other one gave me fits. After months of dicking with those and rejetting/riding/rejetting/riding/you get the picture, I finally got it dialed in. My idle circuit in the carbs is still a shade off, she stumbles a bit from idle, but once I get past 2K she screams like a cat with a burning tail all the way to over 10K.
I learned the hard way that the little things like valve adjustments and timing need to be dead spot on before you have any prayer of getting your carbs tuned right. But once all those pieces come together, look the fuck out because she's gonna blow by you!
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