What did you do to your FJ-tracer-gt today?

[betoney]

1 hour ago, Waldo Jeffers said:

What suspension shop do you frequent @betoney?

KFG Motorsports in Auburn.  They do rebuilds/servicing at their shop and are a regular track-side support at local track days.  I have an appointment to have my biennial service done there next week.

KFG Motorsports | Motorcycles for Sale | Auburn WA

 

[roy826]

Installed the Evotech radiator guard. Ordered the Yamaha guard 3 months ago when I bought the bike. It’s still not here! Cancelled that disaster order with a full refund last Saturday. The Evotech showed up today. Couldn’t be happier, what a nice fit and a nice guard. 
 

I also cut down the centerstand rubber bumper. I’ve been dragging the centerstand a lot lately. The thing hangs to far down imo. I have the full akro exhaust so it is quite noticeable how far it hangs down. If it continues to drag I’ll just remove the heavy thing. I have plenty of lifting rear pitbull stands and a handy lift table if I need to remove a rear wheel or front wheel. 

Edited February 12, 2021 by roy826

[betoney]

31 minutes ago, roy826 said:

I also cut down the centerstand rubber bumper. I’ve been dragging the centerstand a lot lately. The thing hangs to far down imo.

Do you have the factory shock spring?  A higher spring rate might fix that sagging of the rear end.

[roy826]

6 minutes ago, betoney said:

Do you have the factory shock spring?  A higher spring rate might fix that sagging of the rear end.

I weigh 140 lbs wet the shock ain’t the problem. Proper sag is achieved easily at my weight. It’s hit a few times with a mid corner dip on crap MS roads. 

[micah2074]

Weird, I weigh 250 and have bone stock suspension. I lean the bike pretty close to the edge of the tire and have only ever scraped my boot.  Never anything sparky. 

[roy826]

14 minutes ago, micah2074 said:

Weird, I weigh 250 and have bone stock suspension. I lean the bike pretty close to the edge of the tire and have only ever scraped my boot.  Never anything sparky. 

Could be my riding style. I roadraced with wera SE  in C class and A class expert from 2001-2017, lot of track time at track days in between. I’m dragging pegs as well. Probably should slow down. Hate to think how bad the dragging will get with decent tires. The Dunlop’s are kinda sketchy on the feedback. When I had the big pig kaw concours 14 I dragged the side fairings on it. Never a centerstand though. Foot pegs on it yes. Never dragged any hard parts on my GSXR racebikes only a knee 😬

[keithu]

I finally checked my steering head bearing torque after 37k miles. It wasn't loose so I'm not sure this was absolutely necessary. Peace of mind, I guess.

I ordered the special socket from the UK off eBay. It worked as advertised.

The final torque is 18nm, or 160 in-lbs. The socket is 1/2" drive but my inch-pound torque wrench is 1/4" drive. You can never have too many step-up and step-down adapters.

It's chilly today so I fired up the garage heater.

[PhotoAl]

1 hour ago, roy826 said:

Could be my riding style. I roadraced with wera SE  in C class and A class expert from 2001-2017, lot of track time at track days in between. I’m dragging pegs as well. Probably should slow down. Hate to think how bad the dragging will get with decent tires. The Dunlop’s are kinda sketchy on the feedback. When I had the big pig kaw concours 14 I dragged the side fairings on it. Never a centerstand though. Foot pegs on it yes. Never dragged any hard parts on my GSXR racebikes only a knee 😬

Hummm, so would this be you?  February 2015 WERA at Little Tally 

 

[roy826]

7 hours ago, PhotoAl said:

Hummm, so would this be you?  February 2015 WERA at Little Tally 

 

yep and on rain tires with a drying track 😟

Edited February 12, 2021 by roy826

[Wintersdark]

On 2/11/2021 at 4:42 AM, ASerio said:

yes i did it myself,  i thought it would be easier.... as you know already,  2 hands and vinil +heater + the part moving,   hard asf......  but i managed do make it before running out of vinil hahahahahha =D   and  i think i like it more because of doing it myself
i thought about plastidip, but i thought it wouldnt look as perfect as vinil because of spray patern and excess etc,  maybe i'm wrong ! 

Another fellow here did it with Plastidip - I forget who off hand - but it looks identical. 

But yeah.  It looks like it'll be simple, but it's pretty tough, particularly the first one.  I fortunately had enough, it took me two tries to do the first one, then the second was pretty easy, and I ended up re-doing the first after once I got much better at the process.  

I used Vvivid vinyl (and since have learned that it would have been WAY easier with 3M or Avery), and it's held up for a year and a half so far, even with riding in all sorts of terrible weather and even snow and slush.  The corners are starting to lift off, but it's not really visible unless you go looking for it.  

I think it would be WAY WAY easier if you had either something to attach the part to, or better yet, a second set of hands helping.  Wrapping things, it turns out, is significantly easier with more hands.  

[PhotoAl]

Good memory, I'm going next weekend for the races.  Seems like most years it is cold and wet!  

 

Had my bike apart a bit for most of January, biggest mod was adding driving lights.  I went thru three iterations before I was somewhat happy with the mounting.  They are more for visibility than  road illumination as avoid riding at night.  The lights are inexpensive ones from Amazon and have a low and high beam setting.  Can't tell from the photo but the lens is actually three pieces bonded together.  The low beam has a pretty sharp cutoff while the high beam is a full circle.  To control the lights I have a Neutrino+ Element.  It is controlled via Bluetooth connection to my iPhone and is installed under the seat.  Wanted to get the lights to follow the main high and low beams but had difficulty finding a high beam wire I could easily tap into for an input into the Neutrino so shelved that for now. I have both leads back to the device and current thought is to connect both the high and low beam leads and then use the Neutrino to switch from one to the other.  That way if I decide to ride at night it will be a simple change via control panel on my phone to switch the lights from high to low and go brighter on the low beams.  

Second, and more obvious, mod was adding a top case.  I like the idea of more lighting on the back of the bike so added a multi function LED strip on the back.  It would be cool to put it under the red plastic part but for now is just stuck on the outside.  It is wired to the tail light circuit and uses a connector under the rear seat so the top case can be removed easily.  Connectors are Deutsch waterproof - not the smallest but high quality connectors.

Finally while I had the bike apart for the lights added a Evotech radiator guard.

[roy826]

Yea @PhotoAl I honestly do not miss the talladega season kick off with wera. It was either sleeting, raining or brutally cold every year there. Track has really good grip though in the wet. I have god knows how many laps there and how many dollars in rubber I laid down there in all those years racing there. 
 

I mean right now we are under a ice storm warning for this coming Monday with brutal low temps here and to think I’d have to have a toy hauler and racebike ready to roll over there in a week just gives me bad memories. Lol don’t miss it one bit! The logistics were worse than racing in the winter there. 
 

Have fun it’s a unique place for sure. 

[Wintersdark]

23 hours ago, roy826 said:

Could be my riding style. I roadraced with wera SE  in C class and A class expert from 2001-2017, lot of track time at track days in between. I’m dragging pegs as well. Probably should slow down. Hate to think how bad the dragging will get with decent tires. The Dunlop’s are kinda sketchy on the feedback. When I had the big pig kaw concours 14 I dragged the side fairings on it. Never a centerstand though. Foot pegs on it yes. Never dragged any hard parts on my GSXR racebikes only a knee 😬

Yeah, the stock Dunlops are actually IMHO shockingly bad given the bike and it's capabilities.  Not a slight at Dunlops overall, but rather the specific stock tires.  At least those that came on my 2019 anyways, they were super sketchy when pushed even moderately hard.

But yeah, the centerstand is where you'll drag first, often before the pegs, which is kind of weird.  

[2WHLOZK]

On 2/11/2021 at 10:03 PM, keithu said:

I like those driving lights.  Who makes them if you don't mind my asking?  (cool dog, too)

 

 

 

[roy826]

On 2/11/2021 at 10:03 PM, keithu said:

I finally checked my steering head bearing torque after 37k miles. It wasn't loose so I'm not sure this was absolutely necessary. Peace of mind, I guess.

I ordered the special socket from the UK off eBay. It worked as advertised.

The final torque is 18nm, or 160 in-lbs. The socket is 1/2" drive but my inch-pound torque wrench is 1/4" drive. You can never have too many step-up and step-down adapters.

It's chilly today so I fired up the garage heater.

I need to check my steering stem torque. I get a little pop noise on certain sharp bumps. 2020 with only 2900 miles on it. Honestly I’ve never owned one bike that didn’t need the steering stem adjusted. Most all were Suzuki’s which is all I ever owned up until last year when I bought the two Yamaha street bikes.