Duke

My ex treated our vehicles like driving dumpsters and our house like the set of hoarders. Two of the reasons she is an ex. 

Well crap! A news item on pedstop’s website as of today says they are going out of business. I guess that explains the lack of response and means that I will have to go the fraud route.

Oops...clearly my memory is failing.

I bought my connectors off eBay. They’re the same as the ones on our blinkers. I found the information somewhere on this site. I’ll see if I can find it again. 

As for the oxfords, you’ll want to do some research. They’re different than the grip heaters I used. I believe that they only have two wires, so you can’t wire them in “double parallel” like I did. Still, you can run the two grips in parallel to reduce the overall resistance. You just might want to do some research to see what the resistance of each grip is so you can calculate the overall resistance before ordering. 

After thinking about this for a few minutes, I remembered reading about someone installing the Oxfords on a Super Tenere, but they didn’t give details of how they were wired. If I recall correctly, the resistance of each grip was around 3-3.5 ohms, so they should work if connected in parallel. Regardless, do some research and you should be fine.

Thanks BBB!

I appreciate your response, and hearing that others have had good luck with them makes me feel a little better. Still, about the only contact method I haven’t tried is calling them, and that is because work has been hectic lately, and I would have to call them during the busiest part of the day. I’ll guess I’ll give them another day or two before taking action.

As far as the fraud claim goes, I think that’s the only way I can get my money back if the vendor won’t respond to me. I tried using the contact form on their website, I emailed them, I tried to contact them through Facebook, and I emailed them again, all with no response.

Finally, their website leaves a bit to be desired. I originally tried to order through my phone and failed. Then I tried a couple of times using my computer before finally succeeding. Once my order was in, I tried to validate my mailing address and there is no way to update contact info on their website. If their only method of selling is their website, you would think that they would have a better site.

Well, it’s been nearly two weeks since ordering my exhaust, and the only thing I’ve received is an automatic confirmation email and a change to my credit card. I’ve sent emails that have gone unanswered. If I don’t see something soon, I’m going to contact my credit card company to file a fraud claim. To say I’m unimpressed with Adrenalin-pedstop is an understatement.

I’d call them, but the time difference and busy work schedule are both a challenge.

2 hours ago, Cruizin said:

Im moving this out of the tech tip section because its not really a tech tip. 

Will it be a tech tip if I clean it up after collecting some additional data? I’d also need to come up with a thread name that’s descriptive enough for people to find. I think there is a lot of useful technical information in this thread.

I’m not complaining, I’m only asking. I really appreciate you making room for this discussion. 

Duke

I wouldn’t mind knowing the resistance of each of the factory heated grips. It would be nice to have another confirmed measurement. 

Also, if your friend has a multimeter that will measure the duty cycle of a pulse width modulated signal, it would be exceptional cool if he could measure the duty cycle with the following settings for low, medium, and high. 

Low set to 1

Medium set to 5

High set to 10

And a bonus measurement with high set to 9 to confirm my calculations for each increment from 1 through 10. 

He should be able to measure from the yellow and blue wire to the black wire with the grips connected.

if his meter won’t measure duty cycle, don’t sweat it  

Duke

Connect the white wires from both grips to the yellow & blue wire from one of the heated grip connectors on the bike. The yellow and blue wire is the 12v positive source that is regulated by the dashboard menu  

Then connect the red wires from both grips and the blue wires from both grips to the black wire from the other heated grip connector on the bike. The black wire is the ground wire that eventually makes its way back to the negative of the battery.

At this point all necessary connections are made and your grips should work. Button things up and go for a ride to test their effectiveness. Then go home and treat yourself to a cold beverage because you are awesome and you are done!

FYI...you do NOT use the pure yellow wire in either connector. That wire is used with the factory heated grips because they are connected in series. That wire is not used for this configuration at all because the grips are connected in parallel to achieve a working, total resistance. 

If you follow my highly technical wiring diagram, you should get the same results as me.

Unfortunately I still haven’t had an opportunity to ride with my grips because I’m recovering from rotator cuff surgery. My doc told me two more weeks of PT and then I can ride. That gives me two weeks to finish all my maintenance and other work on the bike. I have a Scorpion slip-on coming. I also want to check the valves and sync the throttle bodies before getting back on the road. Should be fun. 

I wonder what the resistance of each of your grips is. 

Doc told me two more weeks of PT and I can start riding. I’m looking forward to being able to commute on the bike, but not looking forward to being surrounded by BDCs and having no protection. Time to brush up on my two wheeled defensive and offensive driving skills. 

4 hours ago, quetech said:

I thought about grounding directly to battery negative but when I tried it, it had no effect, maybe be better once I upgrade it to copper shielding.

I have no clue exactly how you’re doing this, and it really isn’t important for me to know, but maybe you’re picking up a ground connection from somewhere that the tape touches metal. Regardless, it doesn’t really matter as long as it fixes your problem, and I think it’s cool that you came up with a working solution. Nicely done. 

Sounds like a homemade Faraday shield. It might even work better if you ground it.

How much heat does the dash generate, and do you need to exercise caution to avoid causing it to overheat?

7 hours ago, wordsmith said:

Could someone pls give me the Mazda oil-drain plug part number that replaces the taller OE item?   And does the Mazda plug require a new crush-washer from them too?   Many thanks..

Let me Google that for you. 😁

Okay, add another dozen or so dollars in foreign transaction fees, but still cheaper than anywhere in the states. 

Thank you for the advice and suggestions. I will follow them closely.

I still haven’t received any kind of shipping confirmation, so I can only hope that my order is being processed and shipped. Only time will tell. 

On 4/30/2019 at 9:23 PM, Duke said:

It looks like I can get the stainless version for about $415 delivered. I didn’t expect to find it at that price. Now I need to decide if it’s worth that much to lose a few pounds and change the sound. I also wonder if I’d need to have my ECU reflashed.

First world problems are such a drag. 

Thanks for the info. 

Well, I won’t need to have my ECU reflashed again, so I bit the bullet and ordered the stainless version. The charge on my card came up to slightly less than $405, so I’m pretty content. Now to take the exhaust off the bike and get to work cleaning it up so it will look good next to the new can.

1 hour ago, betoney said:

Adrenalin-Pedstop  They have 3 different slip-ons or a full system with header.

For the titanium slip-on I paid $475 which included shipping and foreign transaction fees from my bank.  Shipping was 5 days.

It looks like I can get the stainless version for about $415 delivered. I didn’t expect to find it at that price. Now I need to decide if it’s worth that much to lose a few pounds and change the sound. I also wonder if I’d need to have my ECU reflashed.

First world problems are such a drag. 

Thanks for the info. 

43 minutes ago, betoney said:

 When I ordered mine from the UK, it was considerably cheaper than any place I found in the US. 

Do you remember who you ordered it from?

I’d love to find one of these from a stateside vendor at a reasonable price.

1 hour ago, estell said:

You want to make the bottom of the pan thicker? thus reducing ground clearance? That would likely increase the chance of cracking the pan.

It seems to me that the better fix is to increase ground clearance by cutting off the fin and use a low-profile drain plug.

You make a good point; however, I would also cut the fin, replace the plug, and then reduce the ground clearance by approximately 1/4” by adding more material to strengthen the bottom and bottom edges of the pan. I would do this as an alternative to adding weight and significantly reducing ground clearance by adding a cage to protect the unreinforced pan.

I’m mostly concerned about the added weight and potentially reduced cornering clearance that may be caused by aftermarket options, especially when running fully loaded. I like some of the protective products, but they are guaranteed to add weight, and will likely reduce ground clearance.

Unfortunately there is no perfect solution.

By the way, I sincerely appreciate the constructive feedback. Please keep it coming. 

1 hour ago, foxtrot722 said:

Thoughts of using aluminum diamond plate? It comes in at least two thicknesses, one has some structural strength and the other is thinner and is used for decorative decking like on some boat trailer fenders. The thinner one epoxied on would offer some added protection if the pan were bumped by distributing the impact to a wider area. A BIG downside would be if it broke loose from the different expansion and contraction, at highway speeds, hitting the rear tire and just the right angle could be  disastrous. 

I was thinking plain aluminum plate. That way if anything did contact it, it would be more likely to slide over rather than to bite into the surface. If I were able to add wings to the front and back or sides, I could use the epoxy to bond them to the pan for a little extra strength and more protection from the plate coming loose. 

7 hours ago, whistler said:

There's some stuff in the boating world called Marine Tex.  I've used it to fill and bond holes and cracks in wood and aluminum alike in the past years.  Once it sets, it's sandable, drillable, impervious to solvents and damned near bulletproof.  This is strictly my opinion . . . I would  rough up the bottom of the pan with some 50 grit sandpaper, rough the 1/4"/6mm steel plate with same and then clean/degrease with strong rubbing alcohol to prep both surfaces.  Then, mix the Marine Tex epoxy and hardener per the instructions and apply it like peanut butter.  Apply just enough upward pressure to hold the steel in place with wedges or a very light stroke of a bottle jack or similar until the epoxy hardens.  Dress the edges and you're good to go.  Again, just my .02 cents based on my experiences with using Marine Tex.

Edited info:  Just had a wild thought.  What about just mixing Marine Tex and applying it like the aforementioned peanut butter to the prepped and cleaned pan surface only?  It applies thick and dries extremely hard as described above...maybe go that route vice adhering a steel plate.  Use the epoxy itself to serve as the sacrificial impact coating that protects the aluminum pan surface?  Food for thought...

I’ve heard of that product, and I think it’s great stuff. 

I’m not sure that the epoxy alone would be enough. I think the bottom of the pan needs to be thicker and less flexible. Now, using that stuff around the edges to reinforce the curved part in addition to a plate could work.

My biggest concerns with a steel plate are due to the possibility of corrosion die to dissimilar metals, and the possibility of adhesive failure due to the different expansion and contraction rates of steel and aluminum. After thinking about this a bit more, I wonder about just using Marine Tex to add a nice thick layer of aluminum to the bottom of the pan, and then using Marine Tex to blend in the edges. Obviously it wouldn’t be as strong as a Higdonion cage, but it would probably be strong enough for Street use.