Hello everyone, I am a 32 year old from Columbus, Ohio. I got my first motorcycle last fall after I had my last moped stolen, and I can't thank whatever jackass did that enough! My interest in motorcycles came from my father, who passed away from lung cancer a few years back. I inherited alot of motorcycle gear from him and wanted to finally put it to some use. I am a short dude (~5'3" and 130 lbs). So I purchased a '06 s40 from a local used dealership at an insane markup (lesson learned). I was between the honda rebel and the s40 as my first bike, both would be great starter bikes for a guy my size. Luckily I made the right decision and went with the Suzuki. I have tried to include links throughout this post to the exact items that I have used during the maintenance and modification of my s40. My Amazon Prime account has gotten a workout!
I mostly ride around with some Harley chopper friends, and their influence has been growing on me. They rent a little garage space (
drone footage) at a local motorcycle shop/compound (
Rice Paddy) where we go to work on our bikes. Between this forum and their expertise, my s40 has taken over my life.
I wanted to start this thread so that I can share my experiences and photos with the community. I am a techie by nature, but wanted to expand my knowledge into mechanics and the s40 was the perfect bike to assist with that.
Prior to my s40, most of the mechanical work I have done was on my 3d printer. I am also working on some custom 3d printed parts for my bike as well that I hope to share with the community. I am also a
Google Glass Explorer, and hope to give back to the community by making some how-to videos.
I regularly share my motocamping and modding experiences on my
instagram.
And now for the photos...
This is my Tomos toptank that was stolen and set me on my current course.
2 weeks later, I had myself a stock '06 s40 with 2500 miles.
First 3d printed mod for my s40 was a throttle lock. This little guy has been very helpful on some long trips. It seems like the forums are not setup to allow instagram video embeds, so
click hereto see how this guy operates. If you have a 3d Printer, this design is freely available to use for non commercial applications by it's designer on
thingiverse.
First mod I did to the bike was to replace the rear turn signals. I'll get to the front ones later this year. This was needed due to me dropping the bike after hitting a patch of oil in a parking lot and snapping the rear right signal... man those OEM signals are trash! I ended up going with
these aftermarket turn signals from amazon. They are still blinking double speed (I think due to me double-grounding them by accident). I'll have to fix that at some point. I got an AMAZING tip from a local savage owner that I do not think is documented on this site. You can get the above signals to mount up the stock rails real easy using a cheap 12mm brad T-nut (I got mine from Ace Hardware)! I bet this would work with many other aftermarket signals as well.
I got sissybar jealousy from all of my buddies choppers. Riding season was about to start and we had several trips planned. I needed a way to strap gear down and I am not really interested in cluttering up the bike with a bunch of big bags. So I picked up the OEM rails/sissy from a member of the forum for a good price.
Time for my first long trip! We headed out to Kentucky for Ramble Tamble. This was an important test run for me, as I wanted to see how a stock bike handled this 4 hour trip so that I had a baseline to compare future modifications to. Prior to this trip, I went ahead and replaced the oil. After researching this on these forums, I settled with
Rotella T6 with
Redline ZDDP Booster.
Next it was time to tackle the muffler replacement. I ended up using the Dyna w/
Cobra t-clamp &
heat shield following the guides on the forum. I shimmed it with folded aluminum foil after several failed attempts at the tin can method. Sexy camo leather tool roll by
clawkeeper.
We had a local motorcycle show here in Columbus called
Pinned Ohio at the local bike compound. So I decided to use it as a chance to get better at flying my Parrot 2 drone. Ended up crashing it twice and causing some damage that I have not yet repaired!
Clip1 Clip2Next important mod:
red glitter dice 
Goodbye front fender. Roadtrip to Apple Valley with my buddies. Ironhead, Evo, S40, CB750.
Google Glass
footage of us bumming around Columbus.
Road trip! Needed a taller sissy. Found an old sissy at
Rice Paddy, cut it up and had a buddy TIG it to the stock sissy. Ditched the belt cover and right mirror. Replaced left mirror with
slimmer one from RYCA. Removed badging from tank and side covers.
Belt squeaking. Wanted to shave down the outer edge of the belt at a 45 degree angle with a dremel and attempt to realign read tire. Front brake pads need replaced. Went with
EBC FA106 pads. Gonna need a bike stand. Thank you forums!
Finally got the wife on the bike!
Bell Custom 500 helmet with
Vega Echo Shorty snap shield.
Feeling pretty confident working on the bike now. Time to mod the air filter and rejet. Purchased Lancer's jetset kit,
K&N RC-1250 as well as a
K&N 62-1090 vent filter for the crankcase breather hose. Don't forget to pickup the
air filter service kit like I did. Ripped out the air box and rejetted to a 152.5 main, 55 pilot, 2 washers on needle. Completely stripped the nuts out of the fuel mixture screw, over torquing and snapping a battery case bolt and a front pulley cover bolt. Those are problems for another day!
I really like how much space was opened up after removing the air box. The induction noise at 3/4 throttle on the pod filter is pretty nice but it does a whistle noise at around 1/3 throttle that I am not to found of.
Picked up a pair of
Biltwell Keystones from a swap meet for $20 that had been cut down an inch or 2. I'm thinking about taking off another inch from each side. I used the top ends of the stock s40 risers bar with some random 1" spacers I found in a spacer junk bin at Rice Paddy. I used a dremel to shave off the alignment pin in the controls so they would work with the new bars. They cleared the tank and no rerouting or cable replacement was necessary! (phew). I ended up replacing the grips with a pair of
Chocolate Biltwell Thrusters (not pictured). I can almost call this baby a chopper now! I'd like to replace the risers or spacers to get another 1/2"-1" outta them for comfort.
During the rest of the year, I have several other mods planned out. Next is ripping out the battery box and relocating to the exhaust rack. I have an EarthX ETX12A on the way. I purchased it from
warpoffroad using the 10% discount code (AZOP10) that I found in these forums. After that, I hope to tackle slimming, reshaping and recovering the stock seat. I still need to replace the front turn signals and replace my destroyed fuel mixture screw so that I can continue to tune. I purchased a
Raptor petcock replacement awhile ago, but havent gotten around to installing it yet. I'll probably fix my speedo rattle at the same time. I'd like to with some 4 over tubes, or maybe just switch out the front end so that I can do a 21" front tire... decisions decisions. None of this could of been possible without the guidance of this forum!
And now some shots from my Fourth of July weekend.
We plan on hitting up a couple other events this summer, such as the
lowbrow getdown and
hood bush. It seems I am normally the only Big Single in a sea of Harley choppers! I'll try and continue to update this thread with my mods, 3d prints and trip photos.
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