Project NSR

Back in the garage After 8 months being bike free I am finally back in the garage getting some work done. During my time away I had subdued my need to play with motorcycles by buying bits for them. As a result I had a rather large collection of bits in my bags and waiting for me when I got home. Sharing garage time with the VFR800  I have started to dig through the long list of tasks I had set for these machines. Top of the list would be anything that was easy to do before the bike goes off  for respray and wouldn't need taking off again straight away for that task. Front brake master cylinder One item I had picked up in the states was a radial front brake master cylinder off of a late model CBR1000 fireblade. I would have loved to put some Brembo porn on here but as this was only $60 with everything bar the reservoir I couldn't really justify the extra. Plus the levers were a better match and the brake light switch is the same with the Nissin unit....

As the year wound down I had to face facts. I was going to have to put the bikes to bed and start packing for my impending year long trip to the States. Yep 1 year away from tinkering with motorcycles only sweetened by a big helping of freedom and as many beers as I could fit down my neck. Any plans I might have had to buy a bike out there were squashed when I took the 'un like me' decision of buying something sensible instead. So I bought Solar panels for the house. Anyhoo before I left, I did stretch the budget a bit and manage to pick up some rather lovely performance parts, ready for me to come home. The first and most exciting purchase is a set of Ethos design GP pipes. With a stainless system and carbon cans that both exit on the right, they look stunning and should give a nice performance boost over the restrictive stock system. Second hand, these weren't allot cheaper than a new set of Tyga pipes but for the quality and "look at me I have cool old tu...

If you already read  Shiny bits shiny (pt. 1 of 100)  this blog entry won't be full of many twists or turns. Or will there? After the painfully long experience of polishing the left rearset, I finally got round to sorting out the right. Polishing wasn't my only job here though as this side also features the rear brake (as if you didn't know) but on the pluss side there isn't a heel plate, saving my some polishing at least. I had managed to remember to pick up some Autosol this time as well so the polishing process would be allot easier that the usual wet and dry system I had used on the left. I am away from my  main computer and seem to have saved all of the most recent pictures on there. So save this one starting image on the right hand side I have nothing to show for the work I have done. I'll update this in September with all of the images. The starting place is the same as before: Strip down the foot rest hangar, clean it up and work at removing...

One of the coolest bits about the NSR250 MC28 is the smart card PGM IV ignition. One of the least cool bits about the NSR250 MC28 when it comes to tuning is the smart card PGM IV ignition. All you need is an hrc P-030 card and the bike is fully derestricted. With a wire splice you even get your lights back. Unfortunately hrc cards are like hens teeth and even if you did find one, the speedo becomes one big temp gauge so making the bike even less popular with the law on the road. Clearly the thing to do here is to bin the PGM IV unit and buy a programmable ignition unit like the one offered by  Zealtronic . Plug it in, book some dyno time and happy days your bike isn't only derestricted, it now has an optimized ignition curve with exup valve opening times to match! But that does away with the smart card and that was one of the coolest things about the MC28 wasn't it? The HRC card might be an idea for the future but for now there are a few things I can do. First off w...

 One really big giveaway that your bike is getting a bit old is when the forks start to get a bit flaky. You look at them thinking how naff they look but at the same time knowing how long and much of a pain in the ass it is going to be to restore them. After all its not going to cause a break down is it? Well I didn't buy the tarts handbag NSR for it to have furry forks so its time to get at them fork stanchions. This wasn't going to work well without being able to get the front end off of the ground and without any paddock stands to hand this wasn't going to be straight forward. I stuck some axle stands under the pegs, getting the back end up and leveling the bike off then  stuck a well padded hydraulic jack under the engine and lifted the front up. With her front wheel off the ground I removed the mudguard, brake calipers then the wheel to give me maximum access to the forks. Whilst I was there I checked the headrace bearing play and was pleased to find them notch fr...

I have already mentioned early on in the break down process that the boot/ tool box lid catch was an issue. Well in the seance that it wasn't there that is. I made a quick temporary fix using tie wraps that worked perfectly well but for obvious reasons I wanted something a little better. Still with no original part available I opted to fabricate something out of some old bits of aluminium that I found lying about. It didn't need to be a work of art as it's all a bit out of sight but it needed to be functional. One of the scraps I had was an L bracket with two holes along one edge and a slotted hole in one corner of the other edge. The other piece was a straight piece with a long angle cut out of one corner, it was also base coated green unlike its plain ally, L shaped buddy. Both pieces had rounded corners and the L bracket had two sprung anchor nuts with it that would prove to be useful. The L bracket just so happened to have its two holes drilled exactly where the ...

When I looked down into the airbox and saw that thin coating of grime along the intake trumpets I knew cleaning the carbs was a good plan. I had already whilled the airbox off and cleaned all of that gunge off with degreaser leaving me a better view of the carbs themselves. With the trottle held open you could see browny gold wax deposits on the needles that could only mean bad things through the rest of the carb. Mind you the bike ran fairly well so on the other hand it couldn't be that bad could it? NSR World  have a great walk through on breaking down the carb on the MC18-21 bikes. Althought eh cars on the MC28 are different they are pretty similar so this was a good reference to help if I got stuck later on when trying to put this all together. So with the confidence inspired by a few reference photographs and the guidance from the website above, I cracked on with removing all the throttle cables, choke cable and various hoses. Two cross head screws held the clamps do...