'78 GL-1000 ABS Test-Bed Gone Wrong

[4AM Engineering]

Hi all,
There are some slick builds on here, so I figured I'd throw mine in and benefit from your ideas.

I have never owned a motorcycle before, but my father's injuries from decades of riding Harleys inspired me to focus my senior Electrical Engineering project on antilock braking systems. I'm working alongside a team of friends who enable my bad ideas. The goal is primarily to learn about NHTSA standards, test engineering, liability, and calibration, but I'd love it if we could make ABS systems available to anyone who wants them.

Naturally, we needed a testing platform for the braking system. I purchased a '78 GL-1000 for $500 with the intention of doing the minimum to get it running.

That plan is not going very well at the moment.

Here are the big items:
2002 CBR954RR Fork
17x3.5" front w/ 120/70/17, 17x4.25" rear w/ 150/70/17, front laced to Cognito Moto hub
CB750 fuel tank
Motogadget fuse block
IHI T3/T4 turbo from a 1992 7.3L F-250


Here is the bike as-purchased.. Sitting since Christmas of 1983. How do I know this? The trunk was a time capsule, filled with strange and embarrassing personal effects, children's toys, letters, manuals, old electronics, and more..


Ditched the old-man gear


Stripped down


Now the work begins... purchased and repaired a dented CBR954RR fork, chopped the frame in a lot of places, cut the tank open, laced up wheels, and more.






How I feel about lacing motorcycle wheels...






Tire clearance has been a real difficulty, but it can barely squeeze the 150 in after some heavy modification to the swingarm. I knocked as much material out of the side as I could, then TIG'd in 12ga mild plates with ER70S-2 filler and blended the metal. Good penetration, so I'll trust it.




Thanks for reading! Next steps are seatpan and gas tank fab, conversion stem installation, and making the positive mold for the seat foam. Then we can figure out where to mount that turbo

 

[pidjones]

I've seen supercharged GL1000s. Never a really successful (as in actually produced useable more more) turbo charged. Tricky with the two banks of cylinders exhausting so far apart. How do you plan to fuel it? Assuming some kind of FI.

 

[2_DONE_THE_TON]

Very interesting project I´ll be watching!

 

[datadavid]

I've seen supercharged GL1000s. Never a really successful (as in actually produced useable more more) turbo charged. Tricky with the two banks of cylinders exhausting so far apart. How do you plan to fuel it? Assuming some kind of FI.

Twin turbos!!

Skickat från min Pixel via Tapatalk

 

[pidjones]

Yes, interesting project for hot rodding. Poor platform for the purpose of developing a generic ABS system.

 

[Maritime]

Ha, Sign me up!. I love my GL1000 and love seeing what folks can do to them.

 

[irk miller]

I'm with Mike.

 

[teazer]

Interesting project. Why are the clip ons upside down (ie on the wrong sides?)

 

[canyoncarver]

./

 

[Popeye SXM]

Great project. My projects often go from simple, small to fully involved. I`ll be watching this develop

 

[cbrianroll]

Is randakk a member here? He's got alot of cool gold wing toys..

 

[4AM Engineering]

Another fun installment.

Definitely thought about going twin-turbo and did the calcs for 125hp with formulas from Garrett, it would go well with twin Garrett GT06 or two Suzuki Alto turbos. My numbers for MaP @ 125hp were 5.13 lb/min, P1c/P2c (estimated intake pressure loss at -2psi) = 1.8 given BSFC = 0.43(lb*hp)/hr, which is a guess based on other small engines of the era. Buut… the truck turbo cost me a six pack.

The build will start off NA and carbureted because I want to learn to tune carbs (never had one before). Then, I'll do electric fuel pump and convert them to blow-through. Hoping to build a motor after this build is wrapped up.

Had to rebuild the rear master cylinder and got it done, then realized I couldn't source a seal for the overflow. It was only $13 to buy a takeoff CBR master cylinder… so that's in the garage waiting for a bracket.

I also purchased some nice-looking levers supposedly for the CBR954RR. They do not fit the CBR929 perches I have as the pivot is larger than the pivot point hole. I will need to turn down the pivots and maybe make a thin delrin bushing sleeve.



Had to shorten the kickstand a bit… Just did some real nasty MIG and flap disc stuff to it but it turned out alright.



Roughed out the seatpan and came up with the idea of making an electronics pan. It will go at the bottom of the tube and be sealed off from the underside so it doesn't get sprayed down by puddles. Good excuse to use a pretty bulkhead connector. The seatpan will then go over the electronics pan in the traditional spot, with a stainless piano hinge on one side and strong latches on the other It will need to be arched or relieved in some way to accommodate the motogadget as it's taller than the frame rail. No problem. May also need a significant plastic portion in case I accidentally create a decent Faraday cage, since the fuse block is bluetooth enabled.



Wiring loom has been roughed out and materials selected for construction. Lots of nice J1138 wire, metripac stuff, RayChem and Tesa tape (51026) on the way!

Motogadget m.Unit Blue
Starter Solenoid
Honda CTX700 Regulator/Rectifier
Shorai LFX14-BS12
Knockoff of the JW.Audio 7" LED headlamp

May purchase Randakk Upgraded stator depending on how the power budget turns out.

I spent a lot of time mulling over how to run the radiator fan. I seems that you can use a snap switch off the rad to directly control it. I didn't know this because I'm a spoiled millennial and have always had EFI with temp sensors. I wanted to source power from the Motogadget, but it's a lot of current and dirty at that, so I'll be forced to use two fuses instead of having a beautiful, elegant one-master-fuse setup. Woe is me. No worries - that leaves aux outputs to run a microcontroller than can monitor for failures and perhaps idiot lights. More thought is required in this arena.



I also got materials for building a seat today. Insulation foam for a positive mold to lay fiberglass over, dacron batting, 2oz black leather, and nice gold nylon thread for quilting the seat cover. I still need Smooth-On Foam-It 4 and I should pray that there's still fiberglass and epoxy in my school's composites lab.



Now here's a real problem… Several GL1000 cafés I've seen have a rear hoop that's parallel to the ground. So - I went ahead and tacked one on. That doesn't work - it will hit wheel under full-stuff. I'm going to junk this and build something that more closely fits the factory lines out of sheet metal.

Poor platform for the purpose of developing a generic ABS system.

For Mr. Jones - agreed, terrible platform for development of a generic module. We are limiting scope to design of processes for calibration and testing of existing Tier-1 supplied systems for non-optioned bikes. If I go too ham on the wing we'll be using a 2007 GSX-R600.

 

[Maritime]

Nice work, but before you add too much in the wiring for accessories, read Randakk's article on the GL1000 charging system. There is 0 extra juice in the system for anything other than ignition and the factory lights etc. at idle with lights on if the fan kicks in you stop charging the battery and run off of it until the engine revs over 3K. If you swap all the lights to LED and solder the wires from the stator etc you can free up some juice but not a lot. I have to make a bunch of changes to add just 2 LED Aux lights and not have the charging system shit the bed on me. Keep it up though, lover where this is headed!

 

[Sonreir]

What's the purpose of the sensor on the rear axle?

Also, you have input for your horn, but no output.

 

[4AM Engineering]

Nice work, but before you add too much in the wiring for accessories, read Randakk's article on the GL1000 charging system. There is 0 extra juice in the system for anything other than ignition and the factory lights etc. at idle with lights on if the fan kicks in you stop charging the battery and run off of it until the engine revs over 3K. If you swap all the lights to LED and solder the wires from the stator etc you can free up some juice but not a lot. I have to make a bunch of changes to add just 2 LED Aux lights and not have the charging system shit the bed on me. Keep it up though, lover where this is headed!

Hi Maritime! Thanks for sharing. What did you do to the stator there? Is that what Randakk's upgraded stators do?

What's the purpose of the sensor on the rear axle?

Also, you have input for your horn, but no output.

One of the m.Unit's features is a built-in odometer. The phone app talks to the box and tracks mileage, maintenance schedules, etc using that wheel speed sensor. I have inferred from the manual that it is also responsible for pulsing the brake light under emergency braking conditions, over 8 m/s^2.

Forgot to add the horn in my sketch

 

[Maritime]

I dont have the upgrade but there are some things you can do to make the stock work as good as it can. Just not a lotnleftover after for farkles if you keep all the stock lights etc. So if you need juice for abs of efi etc, upgrade would be good. But you got to pull motor to do it, thats fun on these ol girls

 

[pidjones]

Or go the "Po Boy" route - add another pully on the front of the crankshaft to power a small auto alternator with built-in regulator/rectifier.

 

[teazer]

Fan is easy to wire up either through a relay or directly. Get a thermo switch that goes to ground at the right temperature and apply power to the fan and from there to the thermo switch to complete the circuit or slip a relay in there to carry the load.

Or if the thermo switch goes open circuit, wire in a NC relay and bob's your uncle.

You could get power via the ignition switch so the fan goes off when the power is turned off, or directly so the fan may kick in as the bikes sits after a run and heat soaks.

And +1 to looking at alternator upgrades and LED lights.

 

[hooligan998]

In. I like these old GL motors. Way cool.

 

[4AM Engineering]

Quite the gamut of material today.

Created a power budget for steady state cruising and it looks alright. I've wired a couple CBR600 F4i-powered Formula SAE cars with EFI systems and they've always been fun. After the motor dies from gobs of low-rpm driving, the driver naturally cranks the nice lithium ion battery over and over again and wonders why it doesn't start. Hilarity ensues.



Procured a Dyna-S ignition system.. Will be nice to have decent spark.

Figured out a shape I like for the rear hoop! Problem is I did the fab work at 3 in the morning and it's a bit crap. Way too enthusiastic with the flap wheel. I could bondo & use it but I'll come back later and do it right.





Cross-braced at a couple nodes so it's all kosher and triangulated...






Seat pan is almost done, but I'm still trying to figure out how to mount electronics. I'd like to put them under the seatpan, and then mount the pan on piano hinge so I can fold everything out to 'display' it. I've decided to put them in open air for cooling and will neglect the issue of tire sling for now, since the harness will be IP67K/J1138 and tested. The real trick is the latch - I'm worried that if I use a weak latch or even just magnets that the seat will come off. Still trying to figure something out. Wouldn't magnets be cool though?






Decided to pick up some Weber 40IDFs! I just don't like the look of the stock carbs and couldn't get over it. They haven't arrived yet, but I got CAD for the flange and started 3d printing some mockups. If anyone wants dimensions or a CAD model for GL1000 intake flanges, PM me. I couldn't figure out how to sweep extrude 16ga tubing over my spline so.. I'll call a lifeline or just throw some pie cuts at it and see how she turns out. Tired of doing so much MIG so this is a nice excuse to hop on the Dynasty 350 at school and run some 308LSi.



Lots of misc bits arrived. Brake overflow, brake rebuild kits, rearsets, etc. Strategy is to get everything I need for a running bike and use it as a base to design fancy CNC'd parts.



Designed a rearset! Any opinions on whether the main peg should rotate with the lever or be fixed? This design has it fixed, but I could alter it slightly and make it twist. Here's a strange idea from a friend of mine: I'm making two rearsets. One will be mid-control, and the other rear. I'll cruise around like a cool guy on the rears, and then switch to mid with girlfriend in tow.









Other things I'd like to model and machine:
-Throttle assembly with a cool lil pulley
-grips (or bar ends so I can wrap bars with leather strips leftover from the seat)

Haven't spent much time on the Haas VF-3 yet so this will be a fun learning adventure and hopefully I don't break everything.

Finally, sprayed some foam for the seat positive mold and learned a lesson. The side that was sealed up tight came out nice. The side that expanded out past the seam turned out nasty. Need to fill and then borrow or build a foam cutter.