Evolution and revolution at RPM

[andyoutandabout]

Peeps, time to blur the lines again between fact and opinion:

Randy gave the wheels a tickle and I felt compelled to write at bit about the recent investment (as it is known to the wife).
He ended up doing way more things than was originally thought about, purely because they needed doing, he could do them and the best time to do them was now with the bike on the ramp all naked and vulnerable.

Evolutionary or incremental change.
Valves - Randy hid his displeasure (fairly well) with the fact that on a previous shim job, the shims had been ground down to match tolerances. Moral of the story - rent the group shim kit and your bike won't sound like a sewing machine.

Removal of the odd California canisters - it's amazing how this cleaned things up at the front. Be mindful to keep a hold of all this junk just it case they really do start testing these bikes for emissions some day.

Oil adapter - once the ease of operation is realized the cost of the adapter is soon forgotten. I also think the stumpy round filter compliments the other circular items on the LHS of the engine casings. Neat.

Carb clean - well bugger doing anything with carbs in my opinion - leave it to the man - he's got the know-how, the ultra-sonic cleaning thingy and replacements for every bit that pings across the workshop floor never to be seen again.

Clutch - Randy replaced something with something bigger, which results in no clutch slip - vroom. Better e-mail him if you need the same transmission treatment.

Plate slot and ignition advance - err - he snuck this in when I wasn't looking. Things are certainly 'crisp' on the throttle as a result.

Uni pods - goodbye big plastic box and hello saucy sponges. I get the impression the bike breathes better and with the advance - these two tweaks have raised the overall responsiveness (and probably doubled the horsepower - well at least added a few ponies). The best thing though is you can now shake hands through the frame. Classy.


Revolutionary or transformational change
The biggest improvement however, is the front end. I splurged on the valves and matched springs in a moment of mechanical madness.
Last year at the Colorado rally, my rear fox twin clicker blew a gasket bouncing me all the way home across half the country. Linderman engineering did a bang up job re-valving and re-springing the unit, which ended up totally outclassing the front.
Enter the appliance of science in the form of the funky valves from RPM. Gosh, just riding round the carpark I was aware the front end was behaving in a very different way. On the straights things felt very plush. It took a pretty big bump to even register through the bars. I tended to hear a bump rather than actually feel it, so it's going to be a comfortable biking holiday this year. In the twistys things are planted. The front now balances the back and the bikes agility has been greatly improved. This is all very confidence inspiring, so I'll be interesting learning to ride the Fj better. I'm super pleased with the way the handling has come together and really wonder how it could ever be bested. Maybe that's a question only the likes of Axiom-r and his R1 mods may care to comment on. It would be nice to compare the valves with someone who has upside-down specials.

Well that wraps up this post. See you at the WCR.
Andy

[X-Ray]

Heh Heh, this is great. You've convinced me that I need to ship the FJ across to America for Randy to give it some love.

Errr, that might be a bit expensive, so I'll order the goodies and try to do it myself. Fork mods, Uni Pods, etc etc etc etc.  I've got to ask for a pay rise so I can throw some more mods at my baby, 

[fj11.5]

When your asking for the pay rise, could you double it,  I'm having withdrawels, cold sweats ect,, neeed a hit of rpm fork valves to ease the pain and have the front end we all need

[keand3]

Heh Heh, this is great. You've convinced me that I need to ship the FJ across to America for Randy to give it some love.

Errr, that might be a bit expensive, so I'll order the goodies and try to do it myself. Fork mods, Uni Pods, etc etc etc etc.  I've got to ask for a pay rise so I can throw some more mods at my baby, 

Doesn't need to be. I check last year the price to ship my bike over the pond to US, and it was ridiculous cheap! By cheap i mean half price of an airline ticket for my self 
Although the shipping time was 6-8weeks, but still...

Don't know about shipping with containers from Australia though....

Cheers