Freshening up...
- Thread starter guitargeek
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HerrDeacon
Over 1,000 Posts
Nice pics, love the one with the tank! Where do you live to have a tank like that around?
The video is surprisingly smooth, nice mount.
Question about your rotors. Did you buy them or drill them out yourself?
The video is surprisingly smooth, nice mount.
Question about your rotors. Did you buy them or drill them out yourself?
guitargeek
Been Around the Block
Thanks!Mod Newb said:
No welding. I have access to a welder, but it's an ancient stick welder and it makes big booger looking welds.
That's at the local armory. It's a self-propelled artillery piece, I think a 105mm howitzer.
Those are stock, they came drilled like that from the factory.
I think if you're going to drill your rotors, you need to pay close attention to balance, and chamfer the holes so your rotors don't work like a cheese grater on your pads. You're going to need a drill press to keep the holes perpendicular and a very hard bit, plus a means of sharpening it (like a Drill Doctor), as these old rotors have a way of getting very very hard with all the heat cycles over the last few decades of use and will dull the hardest of bits in short order. It's likely that you'd drill one hole, then have to sharpen the bit, drill another hole, then sharpen again, and so on.
Swagger
Putting boot to ass since 1967!
Different school of thought regarding chamfering your holes in rotors....and rotor drilling in general.
I learned from a couple old school racers, it worked then and has been working on everything I've done, most recently my car's front discs.
First, don't get too nuts with the hole size, all you're trying to do is allow the natural outgassing to happen without lifting your pads. It's true, as you brake hard, as rotor temps go up during hard/repeated braking the pads burn off, there's a gaseous component to that, that will insinuate itself between the pad and the rotor that cuts way back on brake power and feel. It's part of what happened during fade.
Second, the pattern is fairly important but only in that you don't weaken the rotor. I've seen guys swiss-cheese a rotor until there's less metal than airspace, with that you're begging for a catastrophic failure. It's exactly as bad as it sounds. Imagine a tight, decreasing radius turn, you're healed over at 40* from the pavement.....right on the ragged egdes of your coward strips and a front rotor comes apart with a bang and wedges itself into your caliper. Or maybe you're clamped on the binders hard bringing it down from speed, there's a few cages around you and without warning a rotor goes away, again wedging it's bits into the caliper. One word: Fling!
Followed by: crunch, grind, slide, bash, mangle, twist.....etc. only funny in the cartoons and on youtube when some stunt-monkey augers in.
Chamfering really just serves to cut rotor surface area. Yes you're losing a bit by drilling them, but you gain much more. You need to have your rotor turned after drilling, then leave it be.
I generally use 3/16" as my hole size. Go to a well stocked tool shot and ask about hardened bits or bits for drilling hardened material. http://www.bamanufacturing.com/sp_series.html Use lots of coolant, I like coolmist myself, I use it in my machine shop...I'm biased. I generally like a swirl pattern, swept against the direction of rotation. The idea is to vent with the fewest holes that will stacked all together effectively uncover the pad surface. Look at modern sportbike discs for an example of what I mean.
Even with hardened bits you will likely need a drill doctor though I got thru about 1/2 a disc on my car before sharpening became a god idea.......20-24 holes IIRC.
Just my opinion.....
I learned from a couple old school racers, it worked then and has been working on everything I've done, most recently my car's front discs.
First, don't get too nuts with the hole size, all you're trying to do is allow the natural outgassing to happen without lifting your pads. It's true, as you brake hard, as rotor temps go up during hard/repeated braking the pads burn off, there's a gaseous component to that, that will insinuate itself between the pad and the rotor that cuts way back on brake power and feel. It's part of what happened during fade.
Second, the pattern is fairly important but only in that you don't weaken the rotor. I've seen guys swiss-cheese a rotor until there's less metal than airspace, with that you're begging for a catastrophic failure. It's exactly as bad as it sounds. Imagine a tight, decreasing radius turn, you're healed over at 40* from the pavement.....right on the ragged egdes of your coward strips and a front rotor comes apart with a bang and wedges itself into your caliper. Or maybe you're clamped on the binders hard bringing it down from speed, there's a few cages around you and without warning a rotor goes away, again wedging it's bits into the caliper. One word: Fling!
Followed by: crunch, grind, slide, bash, mangle, twist.....etc. only funny in the cartoons and on youtube when some stunt-monkey augers in.
Chamfering really just serves to cut rotor surface area. Yes you're losing a bit by drilling them, but you gain much more. You need to have your rotor turned after drilling, then leave it be.
I generally use 3/16" as my hole size. Go to a well stocked tool shot and ask about hardened bits or bits for drilling hardened material. http://www.bamanufacturing.com/sp_series.html Use lots of coolant, I like coolmist myself, I use it in my machine shop...I'm biased. I generally like a swirl pattern, swept against the direction of rotation. The idea is to vent with the fewest holes that will stacked all together effectively uncover the pad surface. Look at modern sportbike discs for an example of what I mean.
Even with hardened bits you will likely need a drill doctor though I got thru about 1/2 a disc on my car before sharpening became a god idea.......20-24 holes IIRC.
Just my opinion.....
Swagger
Putting boot to ass since 1967!
You probably would want to double the pattern for it to be worth while but why not. At the worst you'll have to send the rotor off ot a machine shop to get it finished, Even with the hardened bits it's a slow process....I dunno how patient you are.
But even if you booger up a rotor...for old bikes they are fairly cheap....
But even if you booger up a rotor...for old bikes they are fairly cheap....
guitargeek
Been Around the Block
I dropped a GPz intake cam in my KZ750.
One of the things that's kept me from trying these GPz bumpsticks is that the exhaust cam doesn't have a tach drive gear. I scored an electric tach from a Spectre, but haven't gotten it to work yet.
A friend of mine installed GPz550 cams in his cafed LTD550 when he put in the 615cc pistons. All his power is up in the top end, and he says it's a great rush, but you have to rev the piss out of it. He's in the process of putting his stock exhaust cam back in.
If using just the GPz intake came would open up my top end a bit more without sacrificing too much of my midrange, I was willing to try it. It just never occurred to me to use only one of the cams...
Wanna know the really cool part?
Since I rebuilt the motor a few thousand miles ago, three of my intake valves had closed up to 0 clearance (it was due for a valve adjustment, anyway).
This new cam has a smaller base circle.
My clearances are all within spec now.
I didn't have to change out one goddamn shim!
I put the cam in and measured everything twice, and it's all within spec. It's like the bike wanted this cam!
My friend calls it "mechanical kismet".
http://www.youtube.com/v/ZynmFZ0kBM0
My crazy brother stopped by. He'll be back at noon tomorrow, and we're going for a ride!
One of the things that's kept me from trying these GPz bumpsticks is that the exhaust cam doesn't have a tach drive gear. I scored an electric tach from a Spectre, but haven't gotten it to work yet.
A friend of mine installed GPz550 cams in his cafed LTD550 when he put in the 615cc pistons. All his power is up in the top end, and he says it's a great rush, but you have to rev the piss out of it. He's in the process of putting his stock exhaust cam back in.
If using just the GPz intake came would open up my top end a bit more without sacrificing too much of my midrange, I was willing to try it. It just never occurred to me to use only one of the cams...
Wanna know the really cool part?
Since I rebuilt the motor a few thousand miles ago, three of my intake valves had closed up to 0 clearance (it was due for a valve adjustment, anyway).
This new cam has a smaller base circle.
My clearances are all within spec now.
I didn't have to change out one goddamn shim!
I put the cam in and measured everything twice, and it's all within spec. It's like the bike wanted this cam!
My friend calls it "mechanical kismet".
http://www.youtube.com/v/ZynmFZ0kBM0
My crazy brother stopped by. He'll be back at noon tomorrow, and we're going for a ride!
guitargeek
Been Around the Block
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tip3JYHIos[/youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tip3JYHIos
There's more top end rush, but what really surprised me is that my beloved midrange is now enhanced!
You can hear a bit of that top end rush kick in before the wind noise overwhelms the audio. I'll shoot some more video, and this time with the microphone covered with some tape, but it might be a week or two. That was the last of the nice weather for a while, now we've got ice and snow...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Tip3JYHIos
There's more top end rush, but what really surprised me is that my beloved midrange is now enhanced!
You can hear a bit of that top end rush kick in before the wind noise overwhelms the audio. I'll shoot some more video, and this time with the microphone covered with some tape, but it might be a week or two. That was the last of the nice weather for a while, now we've got ice and snow...
guitargeek
Been Around the Block
Thanks, RSN!78kz said:
What do y'all need with a tank? I thought Canadians were just friendly, unarmed Americans!
Oh, and just to be technical, my bike was parked in front of a self-propelled artillery gun, not a tank.
