06 Vstrom 650 TURBO

Yea, so looks like thus far I'm going to be the only one to turbo charge these things.  This one is used for touring around the US. The customer wants to have the power to pass and have a bit of liter bike performance while getting the better mileage of the 650. Having the power on tap plus even better mileage than stock, is the goal. Instead of buying another bike, he'll have something unique and fun to drive. I'm working on having a tight "factory" look to this. The pipes will get ceramic coated black (we think) and exhausting gasses will be evacuated through the stock exhaust cans to maintain even more of that stock look. Some of the stuffing will be removed from the cans in order for those gasses to run free. I'll remove 1lb from the stator for extra safety. It will have boost control from 1lb to 6lbs. A modified water injection system of my own design. This is being modified/built for longevity, reliability and mileage. I made approximately 48K miles on my SV650 before breaking a ring landing on the front cylinder piston. I was being greedy with the boost of course and pushing 10-12lbs. More pictures and video when this dude is running or further along.

Turbo Shovel Head and ZRX1100 Turbo

TURBO SHOVEL HEAD.... Yea a bit different for sure. Draw through IHI RHB5 VF 40. This will also have a remote starter that will hook up to the kick starter. We modified it internally so the starter will just connect and spin. It's a bit more complicated but will work fine and avoid all the creative kicking in order to avoid ankle and knee injury. Why you ask? Cause we can and will and it will be truly functional without damaging the engine. I've debunked the nay sayers before and shall again with simple physics. Ok, not simple but...we'll just make it work right! I'll add more pix as I move along on it.
Also have this little Duesy of a ZRX1100 where hoping to see around 200 or damn close to it with a safe amount of boost on pump gas. It will be a daily driver as well so were not going to crazy. Two 1.5liter cans for water meth, variable oil control for turbo oiling, Garret TD04-15g hybrid design and a plethora of other goodies. Part of the work was adding the front fairing and getting a place to put gauges. This should be a reasonably efficient design set up. Should he not be to throttle happy our tuning will give him a much better MPG for his trips across Tejas.

Proto bike getting closer to fruition....so to speak!

So here is a video I finally finished on the long term project bike. It's a 550 Yamaha Seca from 1981. So yea older engine technology, although it is overhead cam. The engine is bone stock for the exception of my polishing the piston tops for more deflection. I have a lot to read within the video which will take a lot of pausing or just replaying it. Should you be interested!

I will implement much of the tech I've established from this dude on my current rebuild of the SV650 especially if I use the SV1000 engine as I would like to get way better mileage from the bike than those engines currently get, especially in the winter. I'll have my on board ability to change PWM which even in closed loop maintains the measurement I choose on board.

Modified turbos and then some....new cycle project

 So I finally finished a little turbo rebuilding and mod video that I had been kind of working on from time to time over the past three months or so.

So as to the TURBO SV650: when the oil pump basically jammed on me, it broke the oil gear in the process and like a dumb ass, I drove it up the hill to my home. (the oil pump gears, which are three clover type rotors, lost tolerance just in wear, thus just jammed up from losing said tolerance. It broke the Teflon gear in two pieces. I replaced it with the steal one but realized I am better off with the Teflon one, as should this occur again, more damage to other components like the drive gear to the oil pump would have been damage not to mention gobs of steal grindings in the oil reservoir.) In the process I did a little damage to the journal bearings, or so it seems and probably put more wear on the rings as well.  Now I get ridiculous blow by even though there is no smoke on the exhaust and
compression is pretty decent. So I'm only guessing/ making a hypothesis that it's the excessive clearance in the journal bearing and possibly rings. I'll know for certain once I've taken it apart. The engine alone now has well over 136,000 miles. I don't know exactly anymore since the original speedometer got destroyed in the accident back in September of last year.

Now I'm deciding to either: Put an SV1000 engine in my poor little SV650 with EFI computer and all, or build an SV650 engine I have under my bench and leave it alone. But the SV650 now has a salvage title from the accident so it's just mine with no intention of ever selling it. So I'm thinking Hot Rod the hell out of it. Build a Turbo SV650 with a good title for selling.  I now have a TLS1000 that will get a turbo next spring or late winter that's also a driver now.   
We'll see how it all transpires!

Super Mod Turbo

So something a little different with the usual turbo modifications is that I realized the limitations where what after market compressor wheel was available for a specific wheel when there are so many that are used in other makes and models. Not to mention the cost of say an HE1 Holset wheel can be used in the larger TD04 housings. Certain Schwitzer wheels that are a bit larger and extended fit in some of the Garrett housings even sometimes fitting the shaft id. This of course not without some if not a decent amount of modifications to the backing plate, sleeving the shaft, and modifying the compressor housing in a few ways to make all the tolerances just right. Yes, in certain models like the above Garrett, I modify the housing as well to avoid choking. You can read more at this link.
The video on the right is a test on my Turbo SV650s where we finally got some numbers 109.50 HP and 63ftlbs of torque from a stock engine.
As to the Super Mod turbo's, some of the other improvements of course comes from the bushing material alloy that C39800 or 700 that has a higher heat tolerance with some self lubrication properties to the alloy making it ideal. Also in the way in which we machine the bushings alow for better flow especially guys and gals running thicker racing oils.
I have two blogs on turbos so here is the other one. At that sight you can get pricing on general turbo rebuilding services and some of the do's and don'ts that are common when putting a system together. This side business has become much more and a bit of fun at that.

TURBO SV650

For kit information and our other Turbo application services please visit this link. The bike is currently being taken apart and a will be utilizing a same model bike with lower miles. I will be adding the ARP bolts and adding the stator where I cut down material to reduce over 2lbs of weight. This helps take some of the rotational mass off the end of the crank which is sometimes an issue when adding more power to these bikes. Again, with this one shown on the left, I left it in absolute stock configuration pushing often 8psig to have had no problems what so ever to over 12,000 miles.
Update 10-25-2013: Well the Turbo SV is no more for awhile. I plowed it into a 21year old girl who crossed four lanes of traffic to make an illegal left turn. Total front end damage, the front wheel broke in three places and jammed what was left of the wheel up into the front cylinder. I have four fractures in my pelvis with some shoulder damage and broken finger was all. It could have been way worse particularly if I didn't have a helmet on. It saved my face for sure and possibly my life my head went through the girls driver door glass. I had adhesion's on my face but worse sever bruising in the crotch from hitting the tank. The almost worse were the man parts got hurt to say the least. However, hoping to buy another of the same year and re-install the system on that one. I had some other goodies to add on anyway with one more fail safe I wanted to apply.
Update 7-27-2013:  So I now have over 11k miles on the build and it has been working very well. Not much to say on that other than I finished two more videos that I have posted below.
Yea, a little crazy I know. Especially if you know SV650's.  No one in America, that I can find, has built one. A handful of SV1000's and a few TLS's but no 650,s. Mainly the reason, "why not" is due to the Crank being a bit weak with more pressure.UPDATE 2-7-13:  I've put about 200 miles on it and have been fine tuning for the past few weeks. Oil to the turbo is now from the engine using the electric pump to push back to crank case. Will be installing lighter stator and anti-detonate tank here soon.
 On this project I decided to take an engineering approach to this by doing some homework about the history, materials and look at overall rotational weight. So I'm getting rid of some of the rotating mass by replacing the Stator all together with thermal electrics and a design of my own on the stator itself much lighter. Also I'm limiting boost to 7psig for now. It takes just about 3psig (at the gauge) to make up for altitude bringing it closer to Sea Level 14.7 performance. You can read more about the build here:    http://www.svrider.com/forum/showthread.php?t=164067
So far, at this writing, I need to paint more pieces and mostly finish electrical connections. All the fuel lines and plumbing are in. This being my personal bike, I need it to be reliable. So I'm trying to think of all the things that need to be perfect to be so. The oiling system for the turbo is on it's own independent circuit. This helping to keep out debris, primarily clutch particulates, out of the center housing bearing. I have since driven it and changing out some things on the turbo. Had to repair it due to a pump switch failier, big bummer.

GB 350 Cafe Racer

This cool little guy came to me needing some work done to make things fit and change a few things. It needed the tank to be mounted, seat with a plate so it wont crack the fiberglass, change brake pedal, foot pegs, install stabilizer, make a license plate holder and add a tail light to it. A few other little things as well. The owner races these things like crazy. The tires are shredded on this thing!  So the picture on the right is a before shot.The owner messages these engines to get into the upper 40's in HP, obviously the HP to weight ratio is a big advantage. The harder mode was to change the rear hoop to fit lower and more linear. Once the seat upholstery is on it will help fill the gap nicely. It has a great profile. From here the owner will finish her up with more paint and tlc. I'll post a final when he sends a final pix. Looking forward to it's finished look!

I had forgotten about the project before this which was another 1977 Ducati 900ss.  So I'm including some of the shots of it here as well. This Ducati will go to Auction in January in Las Vegas. The owners of both the above Cafe and the Ducati about got my arm twisted to go to the Auction. It should be quite interesting! You can get a better look at these by clicking on the picture to get them enlarged.

71 Norton Commando Fastback

This little guy hasn't seen "running" in quite a number of years. After some multiple tinkering and still tinkering actually, it is running and pretty well. I have it up for sale actually. I've fallin more and more for the Cafe' style classics. As you see below with the Honda. There is most certainly a difference with the English bikes. Took me awhile to get used to the right hand shift and left brake. Like the riding style and to my slight amazement it was a good handling ride despite very old tires. It is a very spirited ride to say the least. Not bad for a 750 thumper. As true to the Norton heritage and genetics, problems arise at just about every other turn. The Lucas electric has long since already struck it's  dark hand onto the head lights which I did manage to figure out and fix. So far my fingers are crossed and there is still light. I hand machined the shifter lever assembly for a GP style shift pattern. I've gotten a bit more used to it so now it's not so bad. My buddy Collin Metz came out last Saturday and helped me do some filming. So here is what we came up with. Hope you like.

This is a classic English Bike To say the least. It's pretty fun to drive and keeps with the cafe' style no doubt!

1977 Ducati 900 Super Sport

So this old scoot was fun to paint. These Ducati's are one to be had for sure. Classic lines and styles of the Italian motorcycle architecture. I filmed and edited the video. I've known Craig, current owner, a few years now and he's quite an avid collector. He frequents the Mid America Auction particularly the one in Las Vegas every year in January. Notably one of the largest for the year of strictly Motorcycles of all years, makes and models. He ended up with two of these rather iconic and cool old Ducati's. The paint is Chroma Base DuPont with the colors best depicting and is as close to the original as can possibly be matched by a skilled paint mixing master. Not me actually. I layed down the paint but not after a butt load of sanding by Craig himself. Surface prep is 90% of the paint job in my book. Or damn close anyway. So here's the video that better depicts how well it came out.

Or you can watch a high def vid here   http://vimeo.com/31922427

Honda in Blue, almost?

As work continues so do the ideas. When you have such a template to work with all sorts of thoughts poor into our head. The oil tank, in this case, was all Mikes ideas. He went to our local Surplus City and found a fire extinguisher and hence forth and now, oil tank. Since him calling the side, original, oil tank a "colostomy bag", that pretty much did it for me to get it the hell off there. Ok, there was some aesthetics in mind over that as well, but still. So far no paint in mind, or it might, or who knows what. That's the beauty of all these kinds of projects. Now were kicking around a turbo for the future. Since that's one of my specialties. I think we'll just get her running first drive it for awhile, maybe enjoy whatever the hell is left of summer and tackle that one later! Fortunatelly, we have great weather here and by god, we take advantage of it. It do get cold here as well. So this posting is just a bit of an update and how it's coming along. I think we have a good balance going with the fenders where the wiring will get cleaned up as well. Hasta for now. Be sure to click on the pix for mondo larger viewing.
Watch a short video of the build:
http://vimeo.com/33324909