PART 2

Click here to go to Part 1  :

After a year of showing the bike, I decided that it needed something else. The entire front end was still stock, and that simply would not do.  It needed something more.  As well, I tossed around the idea of putting a turbocharger on it, but that was too easy; anybody could simply bolt on the kit and go.  No; I needed something exotic.  I am a big fan of engines.  I like the way they look in a bike.  I want a big, huge monster motor sticking out of the frame.

And then I discovered Joe Haile’s book “Motorcycle Turbocharging, Supercharging, and Nitrous Oxide”.  My bible.  If you ever can only purchase one book before you die, this is the book to get.  It explains, in layman’s terms, how you can “do-it-yourself” modify the living crap out of your motorcycle.

But I’m not going to get into that yet.  You can chomp at the bit for just a little while longer before I get to Project Supercharger.

The front end had to go.

           Click on the photos to enlarge them.

I came across a GSXR-1100 front end, complete, and it included Ohlins progressive suspension.  I had it disassembled for me, as you require a specialty wrench, which is $400 Canadian.  I took the parts to get them chromed and polished.  I deal with Platingmaster, in London.  Gerry Harris is the owner, and has done every single piece of chrome on the bike.

As far as fitment goes, it wasn’t too difficult.  Of course, you can’t use the FJ upper and lower triple clamps, but you do require the FJ steering stem.  The GSXR stem is too short.  Of course, you use FJ bearings, since the neck doesn’t change.  Once you get the bike level, and decide how you want to position the front forks (my front end is slightly lowered), you can access the bolts on the lower triple clamp by removing the air scoops – the bolts are right there.  I relocated the horn using a mount that was there.  With a bit of “gentle persuasion”, the FJ speedo cable will fit into the GSXR speedo unit, located at the base of the left fork.

There was a slight problem with the clip-ons.  In their normal position, they were a bit low, and hit the upper fairing, thus preventing the handlebars from turning either direction.  I solved this problem by flipping them upside down, and interchanging left for right.  Once chromed, you can’t really tell that they are upside-down on the bars.

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The existing FJ clutch and brake cylinders are of a slightly smaller diameter than the Gixxer clip-ons, so I had to go and get them milled down a bit smaller.  That fixed, the FJ reservoirs fit just fine.  Since the new carburetor utilizes a push-pull setup, I purchased a ¼ quick-turn throttle.  It took a bit of fancy routing to get the cable to work in a manner that I was comfortable with, but it all worked out.  The advantage to the throttle I used is that it has a pulley on top which allows you to mount the throttle in any position in order to make it work.

The stock FJ ignition does not fit into the Gixxer triple clamp. 

The front end I purchased didn’t have an ignition, so I capped the hole, and relocated the ignition switch to the right dash panel.

It was a bit dear, at $273.00 Canadian, plus tax. 

Nothing too good for baby, though, right?

I decided to go with only one front brake disc for two reasons:  First of all, I wanted to maintain the drag-bike theme, and I wanted to show off the PM front wheel.  I put the brake disc on the right side (whereas normally it is recommended that the front disc should be mounted on the left, so as to offset the rear disc), because the left side of the bike is it’s “primary show side” – that is, the left side of the bike displays the most modifications, so the decision was based mainly on esthetics.

The PM rim is a 17” x 3.5”, and is the “Tribal” model.  It was not on the model list for sport bikes.  I chose the pattern out of their Harley-Davidson catalogue, but Performance Machine will spin you the wheel of your choice, for the bike of your choice if you ask.  The wheel was $1300 Canadian, which really wasn’t much more than their prices of a couple of years ago.  I chose the wheel because the style appealed to me.  Last year, I noticed that almost every other show bike on the circuit shared the same style of wheel; it must have been very popular.

Where Performance Machine doesn’t charge an exorbitant amount for their rims, they more than make up for it with their calipers.  I ordered a single-piston caliper for the rear, and a triple-piston caliper for the front, both chromed rather than polished.  The rear caliper was $500 and the front was $800.  When they arrived, I handled them like newborn infants.  I designed my own mounting brackets, which is actually a bit trickier than you would think.  Making a bracket to mount a caliper is simple enough, but it has to be designed so that the largest surface area of brake pad connects with the disc, the bracket is strong enough to withstand the shear-forces on it related to braking, and, most important of all, the disc has to end up being centered between the pads so that there is no brake drag.  Fortunately, one of my friends runs a laser CNC machine, so that alleviated the cost associated with trial-and-error.

I kept the braided Russell brake lines that I had used on the stock FJ front end.  On any motorcycle, I would highly recommend braiding the brake lines; it is not too expensive, and enhances the braking of the motorcycle tremendously.

 I liked the “two-lines-into-one-caliper” look, since I hadn’t seen it done on anything else in this fashion.  I needed to have a custom braided rear line made, because of the orientation of the rear PM caliper and the extended swingarm.  Also, it completed the look.  The brake disc is the stock Suzuki unit that has been polished.

All of the easy work was done.  Now for the hard part.

It is generally accepted in performance circles that you can safely add less than 10 pounds of boost to a bike without having to incorporate detonation control (ie low compression pistons, etc).  since I was running the juice, and also had the Wiseco’s in there (10.25 to 1), I didn’t need something uncontrollable.

Joe Haile’s book had become my bible.  It explained everything, and even provided a list of suppliers, and complete contact information.

Sims & Rohm created a 1400cc GSXR with nitrous and a supercharger back in the late 1990’s for Cycle World’s “UFO Shootout” (you may recall seeing a turbo/nitrous FJ in that competition, one of those years).  That bike provided me with a great deal of inspiration.  Sims & Rohm actually make a supercharger kit for GSXR’s, and it is easy to mount because of the high frame configuration on the Suzooks.

The lateral frame on the FJ looked like it may present a problem.

The first thing I did was decide on a blower.  Fageol Superchargers make a self-lubricating unit, which was exactly what I wanted.  No extra oil lines to run, no new fittings to try and track down.  This is also the model of blower Sims & Rohm use in their kits.

I called Mark Fageol, and we set about having a chat.  He faxed me the physical dimensions of the blower, so I could set about determining if the unit could fit.  It should be noted that Mark was as fantastic to deal with as JMC Swingarms were.  He returned all of my phone calls, and was constantly there to give me technical advice throughout the entire “Project Supercharger”.

I opted to go with a draw-through system.  That is a system where the supercharger bolts directly to the motor with the carburetor behind it.  It “draws” fuel and air through it.  Advantages:  the set-up takes up less space, and requires no pressure-relief pop-off valve.  Disadvantage:  low-speed idle is terrible.

With measurements in hand, I took the gas tank on and did some brief work.  I had to take into account the blower being centered, in-line with the intakes.  It would be too hard to make an intake manifold that angled upward.  It appeared as though everything would fit.  There was enough space between the top of my cam-chain tensioner and the bottom of the gas tank.  However, I had forgotten to take into account that the sides of the FJ’s gas tank flare downward.

Down at the crank, I decided to try to use the side where the ignition advancer exists.  To be perfectly honest with you, I wanted to try it “the easy way” before I split the cases.

After that, using Mark’s measurements, I roughly estimated the length of the supercharger drive I would need, and found I required a 4” extension.  I told Mark I wanted 9psi of boost at 9,800 RPM’s, and he gave me the correct pulley combination.             ------------>

The blower ended up costing me around $1500 Canadian, and included pulleys and belts.  Of course, the belts came after the blower was mounted so that the correct length could be obtained.

When the blower came, I lined it up and realized my first mistake.  Yes, the blower did fit under the gas tank.  However, the drive unit hit the flared sides of the gas tank.  The only solution was to cut the gas tank.  Fortunately, I had a spare tank, so I used my existing chrome tank as a template.  My spare tank was physically in better shape.  Still, it was pretty hard taking a hacksaw to my beautiful chrome gas tank.  I brought my template back to Gerry Harris at Platingmaster, because he knew the guy who does gas tank work for Rocky’s Harley-Davidson in London, Ontario.  My spare, and the template were shipped to the guy.  In two weeks, I had the new tank back, welded and pressure-tested.  I brought it home to make sure it fit, and then brought it back to Gerry to be chromed.  Out of professional courtesy, I am not permitted to quote the amount I paid for either of these services; suffice to say, it was a great deal of work, and in my opinion, Gerry is the best in the business.

Mistake number two was worse.  Because I had to extend the drive unit, a part of the blower hit the frame.  There was not much of a way to fix this.  I tried several possibilities, and short of simply jumping up and down on the supercharger to make it fit, the only option was to cut a small section out of two sides of the boxed frame.  I was not too keen on this, but discovered a way to rectify any stress issues.  If you remove the airbox on the FJ, there are two large brackets where the airbox bolts in.  These are welded directly to the frame.  I decided that I would integrate the blower as an actual cross-member of the frame.  These triangular-shaped brackets were made once the intake manifold was constructed, and the supercharger set into its’ permanent location.

The drive unit also interfered with the side cover on the FJ.  I measured several times before I cut my custom-painted bodywork.  I removed the bodywork that was in the way.  I ended up installing the small chromed cover plate you can see in the pictures, because otherwise, the existing mesh in the side panel sticks out and looks both lousy and unfinished.

Supercharger Mounting Bracket

The intake itself was going to present a bit of a challenge to design (the intake between the blower & the head, henceforth referred to as the “blower manifold”).  Over a distance of two inches, the blower intake had to angle outwards to match the spacing of the intake ports on the head.  Now that the blower was situated, I was able to start making a template.  I made a couple of cardboard cutouts, and when bolt patterns, etc, were determined, I had two 1/16” thick rectangular aluminum plates made, with a pair of intake holes in each one.  The location of the cam chain prevented the construction of a simple rectangle.  From a top view, the manifold had to resemble a “V” shape in its’ construction.  There are two outputs on the blower, which also made things easier; one output for two intakes.

Once the aluminum plates were made, and the supercharger was centered, both vertically and horizontally (so I knew it would fit), I went to Rudy’s Machine Shop in Ayr, Ontario.  Although they normally accommodate mass-produced contracts, they will also do one-offs.  Fortunately, the gentleman who did all of the blower intake machining, John Needham, is also a biker, so he already was familiar with what I was working with.

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Anyways, I basically gave John the cardboard cutouts I had, the supercharger, and the manifold plates, and said “these have to fit this, and you have 2” of distance to do it in”.

Once the blower manifold was complete, I set about bolting it in.  I ran into a bit of an issue with the size of the heads of the metric allen-bolts (I have converted pretty much all of the bolts on this bike to stainless steel metric allen-head bolts, for both strength, and esthetics). I was using, but managed to get everything to work.

I used standard high-heat engine gaskets.  It was pretty cool, I must say, to see the supercharger on there.  The blower pulley was also perfectly aligned with the drive pulley.  I put the belt on, and tightened it by adjusting the tensioner pulley.

Now it was time to get some fuel for this girl.  I used a Weber DCOE 45mm dualthroat sidedraft carb, as recommended by Fageol, and also used by Sims & Rohm in their kits (unless you choose fuel injection).  It wasn’t too much work to get it to fit.  The carb has to sit as level and as flat as possible.

  The blower is angled upwards slightly, and to simply bolt on the carb caused it to hit the bottom of the gas tank (of course, nothing else fit perfectly, why should the last component NOT cause me any grief?).  Once more, I brought it to John at Rudy’s, and he helped me to design an intake (“carb manifold”) for it.  I ordered the carb directly from Fageol, and it comes with a small flange that bolts to the front of the carb.  The carb manifold bolts to the blower, and the carb & flange bolt to it.

Since the carb actually sits up pretty high over the engine block, I was able to relocate the nitrous solenoids and fuel pumps underneath it. 

I had the blower intake machined to accept two fogger nozzles (there simply was not room for all 4). 

 Lightning Mike, of Lightning Performance in North Bay, donated the necessary components to convert my 4-nozzle nitrous system to a 2-nozzle setup.  Once all of the plumbing and nitrous was relocated, I had to make a small bracket to attach the nitrous microswitch to the carb (that one that allows power to the system once full throttle is engaged), and then I had to install the velocity stacks.

   NITROUS SWITCH ON CARB

NITROUS SYSTEM

I don’t know how well they work under the hood, or if I even needed them, but hot damn they look cool, so I was going to install them.  I couldn’t get the carb to fit with them already attached (not enough space between the carb manifold and the cross-member that the seat & gas tank attach to, so I bolted the velocity stacks on once the carb was attached.

The battery box was now in the way, and I needed to solve that problem also.  The easiest way to do it, was to remove the entire box completely.  I bolted a small aluminum plate across the hole hat was left, and had something to rest the battery on.  On a normal bike, this wouldn’t have worked, because the battery would be up against the shock absorber.  However, on Black Sunshine, there is only an immobile rod where the shock used to be, so this worked.  The bike gave me a hard time when I first tried to get it started, and I burned up a couple of regular batteries trying to get it going.  An Odyssey battery (purchased from Easyriders – it’s the most powerful battery you can get for a bike, and as intended for 132 cu.in. V-Twin motors), putting out 680 cranking amps worked.  She starts like a dream, now.

So the day came.  I put the key in, and checked all of the electrical.  Sure enough, everything worked.  Now it was time.  With the new battery, the bike fired up and roared to life.  Hot damn; it ran.  I sat quietly, on one of my workbenches, watching the pulleys turn.  It had taken me pretty much a full year for the supercharger portion.  I wish my Dad had been alive long enough to see the completion of the project that he had helped me with so much.  That startup was for you, Big Daddy Cool.

The next thing I did was get on the phone and call as many of my buddies as I could so they could hear it run.

Running is one thing; running well is another.  In a perfect world, you slap parts onto an engine and it runs fine.  This is not a perfect world.  I first experienced runaway with the motor (caused by excess air infiltration), and found that I didn’t have a perfect enough seal on the threads of blower intake where the NOS nozzles threaded in.  I fixed that, and found the bike still would not idle below 3,000 RPM’s.  It turned out that the bike was a very thirsty girl.  In the end, adjusting my mixture screws solved the problem.  Believe it or not, they are out 8 full turns.  Now, the bike idles at around 1,600 RPM’s, but it does idle.

The test drive was the next step.  I took the bike out once it was warmed up, and took a great deal of time getting used to the quick-turn throttle.  The first launch catapulted the bike and I into a snowbank at the end of my street.  Fortunately, it was at a curve where the City had piled up snow (we still have it in the month of March), so bike & I were undamaged.  My Mother was laughing her head off at me from the front porch.  She said all I yelled was “HOLY S**T!” when I cracked the throttle and kerplooie – into the snow.

I fiddled around with it over the following summer.  I had to relocate the choke knob, from where it normally sits on the dash of the FJ to the side panel, just behind the blower plate.  There is a skull theme carried out along the lines of the bike (covering the mirror bolts, valve stems, etc.), so I used another there.  The line goes directly across to the choke lever on the carb.  I need the choke engaged every time I start the bike.

The acceleration is awesome, and best of all, the sound of the blower under load is pretty cool.  It is actually quite quiet under idle, but when you crack the throttle, Black Sunshine roars.

All in all, mission accomplished.  I built it; it runs.  If anyone has any questions, or comments, please feel free to contact me.  As well, it should also be noted that this bike is for sale.  I would be willing to discuss that as well.

Jon Jarosz   -   j.jarosz@sympatico.ca

If you want see a video to assure yourself that this bike runs - click here (10MB)  (or right-click to save to  your disk)

    MODIFICATIONS:

·           Fageol MAX-30 twin-screw centrifugal supercharger

·        Supertrapp Stealth stainless exhaust; 14-disc internal system

·        Weber 45mm dualthroat sidedraft carburator with stainless velocity stacks

·        Dyna ignition coils & Taylor leads

·        Tsubaki Sigma o-ring chain, 130-link

·        Performance Machine rims & calipers

·        Metzeler MEZ1’s, front & rear (120 front, 170 rear)

·        EBC pads (green) all around

·        NOS nitrous oxide kit

·        Suzuki GSXR-1100 upside-down inverted front end

·        Russell braided brake lines

·        APE clutch spring conversion kit

·        APE heavy duty billet clutch hub

·        Welded clutch basket

·        High performance headwork – degreed cams, slotted sprockets, 5-angle valve job,

          port & polish by Scott Miller at Fast Company

·        Earl’s oil cooler

·        Braided clutch & oil cooler lines

·        Stainless steel engine, fairing & windshield bolts

·        Custom chromoly NOS bottle brackets

·        Wiseco 1219cc big-bore kit

·        Sprocket Specialties case-hardened 49-tooth rear sprocket

·        Sunstar 16-tooth front sprocket

·        JMC swingarm – imported from the UK; top & bottom braced, extended 4”, eccentric adjusters, mirror polished

·        Custom chromoly shock linkage

·        VFR 750 solid rear drag shock

·        Pingel fuel system

·        Custom one-off supercharger and carb intake manifolds by John Needham at Rudy’s Machine Shop in Ayr, Ontario

·        Custom paint:  “Anthracite Pearl” by Coop’s Custom Scoots

·        Tuning, nitrous & custom fabricating by Craig Mark at Racer’s Choice in Brantford, Ontario

·        Chroming by Gerry Harris at Platingmaster, in London, Ontario

·        Assembly by owner

·        300 rear-wheel horsepower, on the gas