bike

Ka-12Bikerz

Most of us desire to modify our bikes. The reason, most of the time is to individualize ourselves from others by projecting our bike act as our identity.

Here are a few tips that need to be kept in mind before engaging in one such job.

Exhaust & Carburetion

Not too many years ago, one of the quickest ways to increase the performance of your motorcycle was to pull off the heavy and restrictive stock exhaust system and replace it with a lighter, higher-flowing aftermarket one. Well, there's no free lunch, and the after-market units were significantly louder than stock--negating, through the ill will of the general public, some of their impressive performance gains.

Two things have happened in recent years, though. First, the OE systems have become significantly lighter and capable of flowing almost as much volume as aftermarket systems. Because of the improvement in stock systems, you can no longer count on instantaneous double-digit percentage of power increase after mounting an aftermarket exhaust. Similarly, replacement exhaust manufacturers have become more socially conscious in their approach to making less noise with their systems while still offering improvements in power delivery.

Exhaust Systems

Aftermarket exhaust modifications fall into two categories: full systems and slipons. The full systems replace the entire stock system. High-end exhausts with titanium headers still offer fair weight savings compared to the stock ones. Some headers have various tapers and crossovers to enhance low- and midrange torque while still improving top-end power. In fact, some systems offer minimal gains in peak power, choosing to instead shape the power curve for more midrange and a broader horsepower peak.

However, one possible disadvantage of aftermarket systems is that they require the removal of the servo-controlled valves that some OE exhausts use for better low-end power. Although installation of a full system is a relatively easy modification, many riders choose to mount slip-on systems. These range from simply bolting a canister to the stock S-bend of the header or replacing the exhaust from a mid-point back.

Since the system becomes a hybrid of OE and aftermarket components, the power gains are minimized. Still, if your bike has a heavy muffler, shaving those few pounds can be the same as adding some horsepower. Also, slipons don't require the removal of exhaust control valves such as Yamaha's EXUP system.

Brakes

From all the attention focused on motorcycle engines, you'd think that gasoline fuels the most powerful system on a bike. You'd be wrong, though. Another liquid--hydraulic fluid--carries that honor. Brakes can scrub off speed faster than an engine can increase it. Consequently, maintaining your bike's brake system is paramount to extracting maximum performance from it.

Brake Pads

Yes, you could run your brake pads to the absolute limits of their service, but performance often decreases before you run up against the prescribed wear limits. So ignore the wear marks--plan on replacing your pads when a minimum of 2 mm of the pad material remains.

When choosing new brake pads, you're faced with an array of options. If you don't have the time or desire to research what pads will give you the best stopping power in the conditions you ride in, simply buy the OE replacement items. Bike manufacturers spend a lot of time developing pad compounds for their sporting machinery, and you can't go wrong with these pads.

You want pads that deliver consistent stopping power throughout the range of speeds you're traveling--not a lightswitch-like transition from little grip to maximum grip. Consequently, race compounds may not be ideal for street purposes. Talk to the manufacturer first, as some race pads need to build up heat to work properly.

Most pad manufacturers do a good job of describing the type of riding different compounds are designed for. Just be honest about the type of riding you do when deciding. If you're buying aftermarket pads and your bike's original pads were sintered (which would include all current models), you should only use sintered compounds on your discs.

Aftermarket Discs

While brake pad technology has advanced to the point where compounds providing quick stops don't necessarily mean you wear your discs out that much faster, you may find a time when you want to replace your discs. The good news is that aftermarket discs are usually lighter and grippier than OE pieces.

What you get for your money is pretty impressive. Almost all front discs are now floating models, meaning the swept area of the disc is loosely mounted on a carrier. This space between the pieces allows the disc to expand without warping in high-temperature situations. Also, since the swept area and the carrier now have unrelated jobs, their construction can vary more widely. For example, high-carbon stainless steel is fairly common for the abrasive surface. Cast iron has also been used here.

You won't find carbon-fiber swept areas on street bikes since they require heat to work properly. Recently, wave-patterned discs have entered the fray. Aside from the obvious lessening of unsprung weight, the manufacturers say that the wave shape lets a disc expand without deforming under heavy use. Laser-cutting of the disc is now a common practice, ensuring a smooth surface on the swept area. The carrier can vary from mundane (and heavy) steel to aluminum or even featherweight carbon fiber.

Wheels & Tires

What can be said about tires? They're black and round and keep the wheels from touching the ground, right? Actually, they are your only link to the asphalt when you're riding your sportbike. Motorcycle and tire manufacturers spend more time studying how tires interact with the road than any of us can imagine.

The amazing increase in sporting machinery's capabilities owes as much to tire advances as it does to suspension and engine improvement. When it comes to wheels, lighter is always better, but wheels also play an important role in how your bike steers--even how stable it is in a straight line.

Choosing The Right Tire

If bikes have refined their focus, tires have become laser beams directed at very specific activities. Race tires and street tires both benefit from these advances. Race tires are designed to give maxi-mum grip for an extremely limited time. To make things even more specific, they are formulated to work at temperatures only achieved at track speeds. Below those temperatures, they can be downright scary.

The tire companies are even tuning their street tires for different levels of sport riding. If you're the kind of rider who commutes, travels and runs the twisties on the weekend, you'll be fine with the OE tires for your bike. Suppose you're the type of rider that only canyon scratches or attends track days. Well, the premium-model sport tires are what you'll want to run. According to Jeff Johnson from Metzeler/Pirelli, Pirelli's Diablo tires were designed for riders who spend about 30 percent of their time on the track and 70 percent on the street. The Diablo Corsa has someone who spends 70 percent of the time at the track and 30 percent on the street as its intended user. Rubber compounds have gotten that specific.

The best places to find information about who the manufacturers directed a particular tire toward are the manufacturers themselves. They know that, if they're designing tires for specific riders, they need to let those riders know what the differences are.

Instead of worrying about which tire is stickier, you should concentrate on things like the tire profile. Are you the kind of rider who likes to slam your bike on its side and rail through corners at maximum lean? A more triangular profile, with its quicker steering and larger contact patch at full lean, will be more suited to you. If you're a rider who trail brakes into turns, hanging at the outside, waiting to see where the pavement goes before committing to your final line, you should look at rounder profiles that have a larger contact patch for braking while upright and allow for easier adjust-ment of lines mid-corner.

Similarly, you should look into what riders and tire manufacturers recommend for the type of riding conditions you're likely to face. If most of your favorite roads are pretty bumpy, you'll be looking for a tire with a softer carcass to allow the tread to flex over the bumps. If rain is a regular occurrence in your region, pay special attention to a tire's silica content for wet pavement grip. Also, while the big, blocky tread of some hyper-sport tires look sexy, you can end up doing the two-wheel two-step with them in the wet. Some tires have a reputation for taking a long time to warm up in cooler temperatures, so consider the season when you buy new rubber.

Finally, only use tires that are designed to fit on your particular rims. Putting bigger tires on your rim may not give you the bigger contact patch you desire. Since the carcass will be squeezed smaller to fit, the carefully designed profile will be erased.

Aftermarket Wheels

In its most basic sense, installing a set of aftermarket wheels is no more difficult than remounting the stock rims after a tire change or brake disc swap--except for the extra money and massive street cred. Seriously, though, mounting up a set of forged magnesium wheels gets you more than a big credit card bill. Adding lighter wheels can, arguably, deliver the most bang for the buck of any motorcycle modification.

Even though the OEs have wised up and started producing some exceptionally light wheels, any reduction in unsprung weight (weight not supported by the suspension) makes it easier for your suspenders to help the tires track across pavement irregularities. Even saving a couple of pounds here is a big deal. Replace wheels on a bike more than a couple of years old, and you can could save as much as 10 pounds.

Next, consider the weight of the wheel at its rim. As Kevin Cameron says in Sportbike Performance Handbook, "A pound saved in a wheel rim...is worth 2 pounds anywhere else on the machine. A wheel has to be accelerated twice; once in a straight line, and also in the second sense of rotating around its own center." Since wheels rotate, generating gyroscopic forces, a lighter wheel will turn quicker and accept steering inputs more readily. Riders who like flicking their bikes into turns will love the effect lighter wheels have on steering.

Suspension

Today, the average street rider has suspension technology and adjustments that were only available to the factory racers a mere five years ago. This is a mixed blessing.

Proper suspension setup is key for fast, safe riding, but approach suspension tuning in a willy nilly fashion, and you'll have an ill-handling beast in no time flat. 

If you follow an orderly path, you'll not only improve your bike's handling but also become a more perceptive rider in the process. The beauty of these mods is that they are completely free.

 Headlights                                                             

                                                     

Headlight modification can result in total revamping of your bike. But, be very cautious about it. Don’t add twin dazzling lamps or very powerful halogen and xenon lamps, which act as an obstacle for travelers’ vision who commute on your opposite side