http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYJD9KcucVE

Wolf wrote on 03/23/09 at 17:59:10:


My bags are essentially hard bags with leather covering, if that makes any sense.  They have solid interior shells that are integrated with the custom made bag mounts.  My right side bag is divided into three sections: lower rear holds the battery, lower front holds the wiring along with wiring for cell phone charger and ipod charger.  Then there's a removable horizontal separator, a false bottom if you will, which gives the bag a shallow upper compartment.  It nicely holds the cell phone and ipod holder/chargers and whatever other little things like shades, gloves, etc.  My cell phone and ipod charge while I ride.  Part of the top tray is designed to allow proper battery ventilation.  The left bag is for whatever else I want/need to carry.  I'm always buying little things here and there so storage is awesome to have. Work often requires me to carry a textbook or notebook.

Wolf, whenever your battery dies, measure dry cell batteries and find one you can fab onto the rear fender.  I'm certain you already thought of this though.   

Staplebox wrote on 03/23/09 at 20:13:12:


It's a super easy DIY.  Remove cover and cushion, spray seat pan with expanding foam to fill in all the little recesses, let dry overnight, run a hacksaw blade across the top of the seat pan to cut expanded foam even with seat pan, add a layer of high density foam, a layer of cotton batting, put plastic cover back on and restaple cover.  It's maybe an hour of work not including the drying overnight.  Easy job.  Comfy doesn't even begin to describe it.  Do you know why people can sit in a horse saddle all day but on a motorcycle seat only two hours tops?  I do.  I had to do a paper long time ago about blood flow restriction/tissue pressure and why a hard leather saddle works so good compared to soft seat cushions.  It's partly because one sits "in" a saddle as opposed to sitting "on" a seat.  Think of the seat mod as a saddle with a cushion.  It took my thick skull a few years to make the connection between saddle and bike seat for some stupid reason!  It also lets me sit back another 2" compared to stock. The stock seat was horrendous and I don't carry passengers.   I did my M50 seat in a similar fashion.  The M50, and this bike, are the most comfortable long-riding-time bikes I've have because of modded seat design.  Here's a link to a previous post that I think has got some info about the seat mod.  

http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1233000795/15

Gary, those look cool!  What kind of exhaust do you have on the thumper?  A side thought- when I was experimenting with my baffle I was amazed at how much pipe "suction" occurs between exhaust strokes.  I was idling the bike and slid an 8" steel baffle into the end of the pipe maybe 2/3rds the way in.  I kept a gloved finger on the outside edge of the baffle so the exhaust wouldn't blow it out.  But it would literally suck the baffle in an inch and a half then blow it out against my finger, over and over with each exhaust stroke.  I know it sounds crazy but I was there and saw it with my own eyes!  Anyhow, I think your idea for a baffle there would help minimize how much exhaust gets sucked back into the pipe.  Awesome.  Looks a little tough to build.  But, I've come to learn you're pretty sharp.  

diamond jim wrote on 03/23/09 at 21:24:38:


Jim,

The suction information is interesting.  I'm not an engine expert by any means, but I think that is a normal part of the exhaust stage of the engine.  

It doesn't look that hard to build.  To me, looks like a pipe with cut discs welded to it.  If you read on the site link, the guy built these baffles for his corvette.  Then others started asking him to make them.  He builds these for covettes, race cars, and busses/trucks.  Claims large improvement in fuel efficency for the trucks and busses.  The spiral design is supposed to improve sp

I want to build something similar using grilled sheet metal instead of stainless for the main pipe which will be open.  But I'll experiment with grilled or solid for the diverters.  

What I really want for both of my bikes is a tunable option while riding.  A switch that will open/close grilled disks or diverters to adjust to present riding conditions.  Something like these:



http://cyclesolutions.net/index.php?option=com_store&manufacturer=1&item=AP-H...

I already have some ideas for this.  It would really help the Shadow out the most, but would work on the savage as well.  Closed for quiet/low-end torque, open for louder/top-end performance.

Oh yeah! Great! Great! Here's mine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxrYiLR1ZGk

As far as the adjustable baffle, I was going to go with the butterfly valve like the picture, only maybe at the front rather than the back.  I was thinking of a choke cable just like you said.  The valve would close the straight through section for back pressure for low torque, but then could open for more top end horse power.  The butterfly shouldn't be too hard to rig.

Dasch, what kind of muffler is that? It doesn't look tapered like the HD.  

Gary, my ADHD won't let me leave my bike alone!

A flap on the end would work but I don't think it would sound very good.  Having some hollow open pipe after the baffle/butterfly is what helps develop the deeper tone.  

Gary, I used 1 3/4" pipe.  The muffler guy had to spread the end open a little to fit over the header.  Simon (Simontuffguy) just had one made.  Him noted that another person standing 15 feet behind his bike could feel the exhaust when Simon drove off. I noticed that, when idling in the yard, I can see the grass 7-8 feet away being blown by the exhaust.  

For the cutting, while the pipe was on the bike but cold, I put blue painter's tape on the section I wanted to cut off making sure my bottom and top points lined up correctly.  The edge of the tape was my cut line.  That way I knew the point would be precisely at the top when the bike is standing up.  I took the pipe off and I drilled 1/8" holes about every 1/4" along the edge of the tape (which marked my cut lines).  I secured the pipe to the workbench and used a hacksaw to cut basically along the line of drilled holes.  It kept me lined up and having drilled all the holes left less metal to have to hacksaw.  I hit the cut edges on the grinder a bit then smoothed the edges with a hand file.  

Riding a friends V-Star 650 today.  Last week I spent a good bit of time on a Honda VTX 1800 and a V-Star 1100.  All being cruisers, it made me realize just how much faster and more fun my bike is to ride than all of them.  Mine is also roomier than both V-Stars and about equal to the VTX.  I wouldn't trade mine for them.  It's a helluva lot more fun!