Bike photos

[TADracer]

Thought I might jump into the fray and post a pic of my hot rod.

[mason79]

hey tadracer, describe you power and band with those pod filters and 4 to 1, who makes the pipe? the black star saphire paint is bitchin'

[TADracer]

Three grand then hold on!

Mason,

This set up is a bit mundane until just under three thousand then it is like the fuse lit the rocket fuel. It pulls strong all the way to the redline in each gear though I admit I have not been to the redline in 5th for a few years now.

The header is by MAC. They are about 5 years old now but they blued up like that instantly. That makes me think the chrome was kind of thin. There are better quality exhaust out there on the market. They raised the power band up about 600 RPM. When I installed the header I upped the main jet size by two to account for the extra flow. But through trial and error I landed on four main jet sizes up from stock and up one size on the pilot jet. I left the timing on the F mark but did advance the total timing up from 31 degrees to 35 degrees at 5,000 RPM.

The paint is actually DuPont Acrylic Laquer. After a good primer/surfacer and sanding, I laid down two coats of black then one coat of black with gold micro-flake in the cup. Then covered it all with six coats of clear. I wet sanded off about two of the clear coats with 600 grit then 1000 grit and polished it up. In the shade it looks totally black but in the sun it gives off that warm glow.

[mason79]

yeah mike , the blue on the pipes looks great, nice tune on the motor, all burning a liitte cool?
yeah i can't get over the paint, i think i'm going that color myself, when i paint may standard.
so the bike has more power that stock, i'm assuming with the filters and pipe, is the air sucking and exhaust noisier?

how many miles you have on that thing, looks new, i just want to keep these pictures and your discription of the paint formula, long enough for me to write it down.
btw what are those things on the fork tubes and what kind of front fender is that?

[TADracer]

Right now it has about 31K miles on it. I rode very little in the mid 90's and it sat up long enough to get alittle bit crusty. So in 1998 I took everything apart right down to the frame and refurbised it all.

I dont know what the horsepower is but yes, you can feel the difference over the stock air box and the stock pipes. It is not much more noisy than the stock exhaust but then I always kept my bike alittle bit louder than stock so that the little old lady in the next lane that cannot see me will hear me.

The black covers on the fork tubes are foam sleeves and they are there to hide a few rust pits that I just hated to see. The business end of the fork tubes are in great shape and I was not going to replace them for a few pits....so I covered them up.

The front fender is an aftermarket fiberglass piece that a friend gave to me. I have no idea what it is from and I had to make a couple of aluminum brackets to get it to bolt up and clear the fork brace. The original fender was in bad shape chrome wise but I am toying with the idea of doing some custom trimming and shaping on it and then giving it and the rear fender a paint job to match everything else.

BTW, you can probably pick up the gold micro flake at any custom paint shop or I know that paintwithpearl.com carries it.

[Pain]

My bikes are never clean, but I like pics.


I am sure I was about to go somewhere. They look shiny, if you are far enough away.

[HobbyMan]

don't be intimidate by shiny bikes. Its the inner muscle that counts. The nice paint is the icing on the cake. For me, I have a couple that don't look so good which I am working on, and others that look almost factory. I find that when they look really nice, you are scared of messing up the cleanlieness. So, if i know there is going to be rain or something like that, I won't take the best looking bike. I guess that is a luxury. And I am sure that I have been on that bridge before. or do they all look alike

[Fredjohny]

I thought to try again

[malber]

She might not look like much, but she's got it where it counts!

[HobbyMan]

Hopefully, I will have some more photos. Tomorrow they might just cancel school As it turns out, people in Texas don't know how to drive on snow. Any snow at all and school is cancelled. So I may have a nice cool afternoon to do some polishing on the Meathead special. And If we do have school, yes, I will be riding my cycle.

[EZMoney]

My 78 XS11 Bought it in May for $300, it hadn't run for about 3 years. Put a new Battery in her, stripped off the fairing and bags, found some signals and headlight bucket and ran it all summer.
My youngest son and I are in winter project mode. The motor was leaking a little oil at the bottom of the jugs at the gasket.
Stripped it down and painted the frame, been slowly cleaning everything and painting. We are going to start on the motor next week. Luckily I checked the ser# on the motor before I started and found that it was originally installed in an 82 XJ.

Start of the project.

[Erik the Red]

'78?

The tank, seat, and bars aren't stock '78. Is it possible that the whole bike is an '82 XJ? Maybe in a '78 frame if that serial number is 2H7-XXXXXX?

...Or am I showing the moisture behind my ears?

[audijunky]

Heres Mad Max
Before
Not Current but latest shots

[dragxs11]

Nice Matress, I know
[IMG][/IMG]

[Wildkat]

Oh my...

dragxs11... THAT is one nice looking bike!

Just curious about your pipes... paint? powder coating?
(no big.. just one of those things that made me wonder)

Dang that's purdy!