Wow! It's been a minute since I've been on this thread! Man, all my pictures are gone! Thanks, Flickr
I'm involved in so many other projects that I don't frequent barf as much any more. In time, I'll try to get the pics back up again.
Since the last time I posted about this little RD400, we've had our highs and lows. Where I left off, I spent literally months off and on trying to get those carbs tuned! I got so good at tearing them out and throwing them on my bench, I could change the main jets in 15 minutes and they'd be back on the bike ready to go! I got
so frustrated!! If it wasn't one thing, it was another. I finally got so fed up with it, I threw the bike in the back of the garage and started working on another project instead.
I waited another 3-4 years before I had the energy to tackle the carb jetting again. I started from scratch. Back to basics. This time, I started with an ultrasonic bath for all the parts. Looking back, it's likely that I had some blockages that were creating inconsistencies between the left and right carbs. This time, jetting was making more sense. When it was finally dialed in, the bike was outstanding!
The bike has undergone a few changes over the past couple of years. The FPP chambers I had on them started splitting at some of the welds at the brackets, so I had the legendary Yamaha tuner, Brian Turfrey, custom fabricate some new pipes for me. It was amazing- he had me bring my bike to him (where he kept it for 3 weeks), then he built these pipes exactly to my bike. The tolerances are
soooo tight! Between the kickstand block and the left pipe, there's only enough room to fit just a credit card! These pipes scream! I had to add 9mm spacers to the intake area to lower the powerband, but they start making power at 4K and blow all the way past the redline!
I also changed up the ignition a couple of times. I first switched over to a used Newtronics system that was previously mentioned in my earlier posts. I had to fab up part of the the electrical harness, but that was easy. The system worked very well- absolutely no complaints! But later, I decided I wanted to upgrade to a CDI system. Everyone in the 2T community is all about the Vape system, but I elected to go with a simpler HPI system. The ignition is pretty slick and the flywheel is extremely light!
I decided to build a new set of wheels. Actually, in my earlier designs for this build, I was going to do spoked wheels, so I just happened to have a set of RD350 wheels sitting in my shed. I cleaned and polished up the hubs, bought some inexpensive aluminum hoops from 4into1, and some spokes off the eBay from Thailand and I was good to go! I did have to convert the rear brake from disc to drum, but I lost almost a whole 15 pounds with the conversion! The drum brakes actually work better than that crappy OEM disc system! The bike now weighs about 290 pounds.
With the bike all hot-rodded out and tuned properly, I booked a few of days at Thunderhill. I suck, but the bike performed like a champ! The suspension and brakes were perfect! For the first day, I got too enthusiastic and was riding in the red for a little too long. The result was a 3-second soft seizure going into turn 1 after the straightaway. That was scary AF having the rear wheel lock up at 80 mph! I pulled in for the rest of that session, but the bike rode fine the rest of the day.
So the bike is built, the carbs tuned and I am having a blast riding this old-fashioned rice rocket!
