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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 7:27 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:14 pm
Posts: 936
Location: Martinsburg, WV
I've had this bike for over 24 years. It has been good to me and gone through a few reincarnations in it's lifetime to get to what most of you saw at the gap last year. Well I might as well let the cat outa the bag a little on what I've been up to. Hope you like pics cause there's plenty in this post. :mrgreen:

I looked at my bike one day during the summer and got to thinking "This bike needs some engine work!" It's plenty fast enough, but I know it's hiding a good bit of power. You know where this is going eh? ;) I've always wanted to port this thing up and add reeds and such but the expense and the reliability of the bike left me at odds. This year I decided to go for broke.........

December I start breaking it apart. I reached out to Jim and ordered up a set of his repop dencos and started talking to John back and forth about his reed kits. I started taking lots of measurements, piston depth in the bore, dome clearance, head sqiush, ect. One thing I did notice was the 400 squish is terrible, with the head gasket you're 3mm from the head at the edge of the piston. That's alot of room that could be tightened up. Here you can see my engine's top end opened up and you can see the clearance, it's noticable. Piston had some carbon starting but it looks like the engine was breathing decent. The transfers are pretty clear across the dome.

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Here's the head. You could almost eat off this inside.

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I ordered up a set of John's stage 2 reeds for this bike, mainly cause I want it to breathe as freely as possible with the reeds in place. Let me tell ya, John's reeds and box were choice parts and in talking to him, you could tell he was ready and able to help with any installation issues.

Out in the garage, I pulled out the cylinders I was planning on using for this build from the shelf. After talking to Bigmo at the Gap last year and telling him my problems finding a right, he sent me one, which is greatly appreciated and he wouldn't take anything for it. Having 3 unmolested unbroken cylinders on stock bore just made this build that much better knowing there was one more bore after I got done with them.

Out comes the saw and dremel to fit these reed boxes up so I can get these to the machine shop. I had to cut the lower back fin off above the intake and grind out the intake port good and wide to get that thing on. You can see there isn't much sealing area left at the bottom once the reeds would clear. I think we got enough to seal it shut though.

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Then I got to thinking and that is never a good thing. Long ago on the old board there was a discussion about ram air on a triple, I think Starfire brought it up. I made one post where I had tried a crude version of it on this S3 and one thing I did notice was the bike ran better at higher speeds, even around 35 the bike seemed to have more 'grunt' and more power at highway speeds. I believe it worked to some degree so I decided "Let's make one.". I had to think about it a while on what I would do to implement it. A couple good weeks of thinking and grinding on intake ports and I had an idea cooking. I definitely wanted it to look like it was part of the bike, not obvious enough it stands out too much, but aggressive looking and still match the body lines. Something 'outside the box a shade'. :thumbup: One thing that peeked my interest was the form of the air cleaner. I definitely wanted to stay with the stock airbox as it was best designed to work with what I had in mind.

I pulled out this old gas tank and decided I'd cut a piece out of it and form it to the tank, so I can get the most scoop of air at the widest section of the tank and still match the gas tank lines and seams. It was dented beyond repair in front where the forks hit it from some crash long ago. I almost threw it out a couple times.

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Had to shape it up a bit with a hammer.

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Next, I started trying to figure out how I was going to put the panel on the tank. I didn't wanna weld it, cause for sure I'd burn a hole straight through it, brazing also out cause it's a gas tank and it had gas in it recently. I wanted it removable should I ever have to take it off, for some unforeseen reason, so I found me some epoxy and glued it on. Quick Steel is some decent stuff. I've used it on a few things and it's very resilient.

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Next is the downtube. I already had been using premix and planned on never using the pump again so that was an easy toss to get a downtube around to the airbox. I rounded me up some exhaust pipe that had a 2.25" 90 degree elbow and started shaping it up. After repeated grinds and reshapes I soon figured out I was really going to have to cut this pipe all funny if I thought it was going to reach the airbox way under the seat. I wanted to keep it low profile as much as I could so it wouldn't be awkward when you were riding it.

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I brazed the pipe on and glued the side piece to the tank. I didn't think it came out too bad.

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Next I started to cut the hole in the side panel for the tube entrance. I loaded the tank on the bike, started small, and kept working at it until I finally had the right size hole cut.

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Looks good fitted up to the bike don't it? This pic was before I stripped the paint and such from the above pic. Almost looks like it's made there.

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Now let's dig into the airbox. I got a spare airbox off a board member I wanted to put back so I could cut on this one. One of the obvious was the hood. I wonder why his had a smaller port than mine but oh well, we're going with the bigger one anyways.

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I looked at the airbox and started thinking about how all that needed to connect up. I definitely wanted it removable as pieces and look like a stock bike as much as possible. One thing I saw right off the bat was the airbox holes wouldn't line up with the trajectory of the reed box, so I started looking at it for something I could exploit. After all, I'd gotten this far, this can't be hard. After looking it over, it looked like I could cut the tabs off, reweld some new ones on it, and flip it upside down. It didn't take long before the grinding wheels came out and I had an upside down airbox. It would just fit in the same area. Seems the airbox is kinda shaped to miss the frame right side up. Still I got it on there and it looked good.

Next was the hood so I could get the connection to the tank. After putting 2.25" on the tank, I needed 2.25 on the airbox so I could sleeve it together. Square to round eh? Let's shape some steel.

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After working the box, I decided it was time for some bigger carbs. In deciding what size to get, I remember all the posts from the board. It seemed really big carbs on some bikes led to jetting issues at different intake openings, some found jetting extremely frustrating. I figured I didn't want to go with 32s, 30s seem to be a good choice over the stock 26s so I started probing around for a deal. The local shop could get any carb I wanted so I figured I'd stay with a VM, since it's tried and true, been around forever, and jets for new carbs should be easy to get. Once I got them though and started fiddling around with the reeds and such, the airbox connections were obviously going to be a problem.

Here's the stockers...

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Here's the new carb. Man they are HUGE.

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Here they are with the reed cages and cabs mounted. Now I have another problem. The carb is so big, it hits the cases and keeps the cylinder up about a mm or two from seating. This is NOT good.....

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Center was worse. I took the bolt and sealed the platic on the neutral light and it still hits. I think I gotta fix for that.

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and now the airbox.

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You can see here I have the tank duct and the airbox all connected together. I had to dig up some radiator hose so I went to Dayco's site snooping around. It's really nice they have pics of the hose and a dimensional finder so you can see what you're getting. A 2.25" hose was in order, got it from Amazon, and it only cost me $2.64. I think someone had the price screwed up cause it was $20 when I went back for a second. Though the hose isn't totally 'cleaned up', I slipped it on, made sure it fit well, and that was the end of it. The carb end would have to wait. I gotta get these cylinders off to the machine shop for boring and decking.

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Back finishing up the cylinders, John's suggestion of boring holes in the piston and adding transfer ports in the back of the cylinders were 'must have' mods for this bike. I was wanting it to breathe as easily as possible so anything to aid getting the cylinder fully charged is thumbs up in my book.

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Cylinder off to the machine shop now, it was time for paint. I always liked Alsa's paints, nice stuff, exotic, and most can be gotten in rattlecan. I have a spray gun but I thought why bother if it comes in a can. After perusing the site, I decided to go with a candy crazer paint job, which would give it a marble appearance. I bought enough paint to do the bike and them some and had it sent. The next week, the goody box was waiting.

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Next it's time to get the airbox finished up while we're waiting on the machine shop. I gotta get this stuff painted. I took some junk cylinders and cut the fin off like the ones I was using, then bolted the airbox, carbs, and intakes up. Like the pic before, it was a tad close. I know I have to get these snorkels on and into this airbox. The biggest problem was the size of the bell on those VM30s I bought, 2.25". Hmm......same size as the airbox tube. After looking at how close I was, I needed to get some hose that had a good 45 to 55 degree angle for the L and R carbs, and a real shorty for the center, plus I still had to open up the airbox. What a chore that was. After some cutting, pushing, and shaping, below was the end result. Let me tell ya, this is all pretty much air tight. It will be fully air tight once completed.

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Not quite finished but close enough for now. I finished grinding off the rough areas, sanded and prepped for paint. I stuck with the original black for the airbox as I wanted it to be seamless with the black air tubes so the oversized intakes don't draw your eye.

Next was chambers. I reached out to Jim and inquired how far out I was and he must be busier than a one armed paper boy on a bike with the Sunday edition. He told me that they wouldn't be ready until around the Gap time, so I told him that was fine. I didn't want to run stock pipes for test and tune but I did have a set of TNTs another board member sent me long ago. The headpipes were shot, cobbled together welds worst than my welds, and that's saying something. I can weld but am not an artist at it yet. I just don't weld enough to get that good.

With the TNTs, all I needed was some headpipes put on them and at least I'd have something on it so I could get 'close' on the jetting. I had this old set of S3 pipes someone long ago thought they would shorten but taking out one of the baffling areas in the back and rewelded it. They weren't worth anything but the headpipes were decent enough to make ones for the TNTs. Once I cut them though, it was obvious I was going to have to fill well a couple gaps cause of where I had to cut them off. I figured they'd only be used until the Gap, so who cares as long as they stay together. I welded them up and ground it down so it wasn't too noticable. Not bad eh? This was before they were welded. I don't want to show you the after but they aren't bad.

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Next is paint. since we're still waiting on the cylinders before final assembly, I figured I'd hit the paint trail and get these parts painted up. this paint looks hot on the sun, a real candy red, and that marble coat really sets it off. Wife says it's a little dark, but once I polish the clear coat up, it'll be a shade lighter. A 2k clear was applied so I don't have to worry about gas stains.

Before paint......

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Right now I'm just waiting on the cylinders to come back and I can get this wrapped up. All the hose connections will be clamped on final assembly. Test and tune should be starting the third week of march, just as it's warming up enough I can ride a bit and hash the bugs out. I still have to do some cylinder work, as decking the cylinder will require raising the exhaust port a bit to compensate, which should be a good thing. I do plan on pushing the compression up a bit over stock as the S3 compression ratio is low by comparison with the other bikes. I'm sure there will be a happy medium.

One thing I have to do is show appreciation for my wife, as she knows I have a ton of work to do before the Gap and need to get it done. she has been very patient. I go out every weekend Saturday and Sunday all day and work on this thing, she doesn't bother me, and let's me get done what I need to get done. She will be along this time also, but I believe I'll find her most of the time lounging in the hot tub. :mrgreen:

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Stay tuned, more to come as the project progresses...........

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74 H2B with reeds and 34mm carbs
75 S3A Ram Air with reeds and 30mm carbs
73 S2A (wife's bike)
71 Yammi RT1B
83 HD Sportster
03 Yammi R1
06 Kaw 750 Vulcan (wife’s bike)
12 Yammi vstar 250 (wife’s bike)


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 7:53 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2011 6:36 am
Posts: 2691
Location: Dandridge, TN, USA
Impressive!!! Thanks for sharing :thumbup:

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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 8:01 pm 
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Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2011 6:37 am
Posts: 10460
Location: Rio Rancho, New Mexico
I have seen "lazy" but this is rediculous......... :lol: :lol: :lol:

You have been busy, and will have something totally different. I didn't know about the scoop, that should prove very interesting when jetting!

Keep up the good work! :thumbup: :clap: :clap:

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Twist the throttle, tilt the horizon, and have a great time. What triples are all about...........


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 8:06 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:14 pm
Posts: 936
Location: Martinsburg, WV
Ja-Moo wrote:
I have seen "lazy" but this is rediculous......... :lol: :lol: :lol:

You have been busy, and will have something totally different. I didn't know about the scoop, that should prove very interesting when jetting!

Keep up the good work! :thumbup: :clap: :clap:


Yea I hid that from ya every time I took a photo. I was holding out on that part. :e11

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74 H2B with reeds and 34mm carbs
75 S3A Ram Air with reeds and 30mm carbs
73 S2A (wife's bike)
71 Yammi RT1B
83 HD Sportster
03 Yammi R1
06 Kaw 750 Vulcan (wife’s bike)
12 Yammi vstar 250 (wife’s bike)


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 8:58 pm 
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Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2011 10:08 pm
Posts: 1901
Location: Campbellville Ontario
Wow, what a project! I feel like I'm part of it because I'm still racking up miles on the pistons you gave me out of that bike! I think jetting those big carbs will be an adventure!


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:17 pm 
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Joined: Wed Jun 08, 2011 10:10 pm
Posts: 1503
Location: Heber Springs, Arkansas
Great orginial work-keep her up.

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1973 RD350, 1979 RD400F, 1984 RZ350, 2014 Suzuki Vstrom 1000
CHRIS AND JEFF ARE THE MEN


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:40 pm 
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Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2011 6:16 am
Posts: 2146
Location: North Alabama
Cool....nice work.

Man would I ever like to get some transducers in that thing and try a larger volumn air box. 8-)

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Busy doing more riding than wrenching.......


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 9:52 pm 
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Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2011 7:14 pm
Posts: 936
Location: Martinsburg, WV
Zambia wrote:
Wow, what a project! I feel like I'm part of it because I'm still racking up miles on the pistons you gave me out of that bike! I think jetting those big carbs will be an adventure!


They had about 5k on them when I sent them to you. Glad your getting plenty of use out of them. :thumbup:

Thanks for the replies. More will come once the cylinders are back. This weekend will be a bit of a bore. I'll be polishing up this paint and trying to get it presentable. :roll:

_________________
74 H2B with reeds and 34mm carbs
75 S3A Ram Air with reeds and 30mm carbs
73 S2A (wife's bike)
71 Yammi RT1B
83 HD Sportster
03 Yammi R1
06 Kaw 750 Vulcan (wife’s bike)
12 Yammi vstar 250 (wife’s bike)


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 10:32 pm 

Joined: Mon Nov 21, 2011 12:34 pm
Posts: 676
Location: orange CA
Wow, I was skeptical at first, but you are like a dog with a bone once you get going. Can't wait to hear how she runs. Man I suck not making the Gap. I'm always a day late and a dollar short.


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 01, 2012 10:35 pm 
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Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2011 8:07 pm
Posts: 1759
Location: houston texas
i am digging the color :thumbup:
you could have been OBGYN in a previous carnnation.
that plumbing is "snug as a bug"
keep the pics comming

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she will never be pretty but she is a fun ride.

73 KAWASAKI H1 (Sold).
82 YAMAHA RD350LC
2000 KAWI KDX200H
2001 Triumph TT600


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