Katana progress

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#61 Unread post by **Jamers!** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 5:41 pm

Skier wrote:Stealthbike... activate!

that is a very bitchen looking bike, awesome job

JWF

#62 Unread post by **Skier** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 10:24 pm

Thanks for the comments, guys!

Tonight was "boo homework, yay bikes." You could eat off these bad boys:

Also note the new hoses between the carbs. No more gunk in my pilot jets, I hope!

Last carb, pre-dip:

Almost done, just need to finish the last carb, attach the new hoses, slam it all together and hopefully sync and test ride.

Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:02 am

Nice progress. That looks like fun, the whole rebuilding and stuff. And if your teacher asks for homework, say it fell in the carb dip.

#64 Unread post by **Skier** » Wed Feb 15, 2006 11:45 am

She's bolted back together and running again. I still have some tuning to do (I think it's lean at idle) but it's a start.

Too bad the next few days are chock-full of school goodness. Speaking of, off to class with me!

(edit)

Picture of my "not messing around" fuel filter:

Ignore the vent tube that is missing.

#65 Unread post by **Skier** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 9:11 pm

That Kat is pretty much ready to take over daily riding duties from the Radian. The poor Rad has had enough of my neglecting it and blew a fork seal. I rolled it into the garage and took this time to finally get started on the valves and hopefully re-pack my steering head bearings. Of course, two of the eight shims on the Rad don't have a label on them for some reason, so I'm off to a machine shop tomorrow to have them measured.

The Kat's being a touch hard to start in the cold weather, but I have some tricks up my sleeve that should help. On the other hand, perhaps it's telling me I'm stupid for riding in single digit temps.

(edit) Said tricks seemed to work she fired right up in the nice warm 33 degree weather. I put some miles on her to get the spark plugs up to temp to clean themselves off and hopefully it's ready to rock tomorrow.

#66 Unread post by **Skier** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 1:37 pm

Been a while since my last posting, so here's what's been going on:

Kat has been doing pretty well as my daily rider. I've been giving it some test-n-tune goodness between classes. I tweaked with my needle heights to eliminate a stumble at full throttle. But now there are other problems, so going with advice from a fellow Katana owner, I'm moving up to the DynoJet (DJ)116 main jets, from the 114s I was running.

After that is another carb sync, I think they are still a bit off. Also, my idle speed is a bit strange, but it might be just from the cold.

Despite all this, I found time to put about 80 miles on the bike in the past couple of days. She sure pulls nicely, corners like it's on rails and brakes like stoppies were going out of style.

#67 Unread post by **Skier** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 10:09 am

Bike seems to be running fine. I think I might be a touch lean with my idle mixtures, but nothing too horrible. I hope to get some miles on it this weekend between sessions of homework-catchup.

I think she's ready for my tour of Oregon with some buddies over spring break. That's coming up in just a week!

(edit)

I currently have a relay kit on order for my headlight. Should provide much, much better lighting with the stock bulb. However, I'm one for overkill, so I'm also going to pick up a Sylvania Silver Star H4 replacement ( SYL9003ST ) for "second sun" lighting. That should provide me with plenty of light and still have enough juice left over for my heated gloves. Life is good.

Now, back to my perl programming assignment.

#68 Unread post by **Skier** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 7:13 pm

One step forward, two steps back. I installed my Fumoto drain valve to make oil changes easier:

I only had to unbolt the back half of my exhaust, have my sister pull on the slip-on and me pushing the collector away from the drain bolt and it fit. It's only got to go on once and should make oil changes, as well as oil samples, easier.

Two steps back: to cure my fuel starvation issues, I busted out my petcock rebuild kit and went to town:

Bolt it all back together and no flow through the petcock. Bloody hell. Take it apart again, find problem:

After much hemming and hawing, I cludge together a solution for around-town riding, since my bike gets my lazy butt to campus and back so I don't have to walk/take the bus. I hit the Interweb (sic) and do some research. I have the right rebuild kit, but my model year is missing a cruicial part for the kit to work - a special plastic spacer that lets the longer plunger work, instead of it just bottoming out, blocking all fuel flow. More searching made it apparent the chances of getting that part and a new rebuild kit before my spring break trip in 6 days reminds me of a snowball in a hot place down south. So tomorrow I "get" to call up Ron Ayers and get one of those 1988 and 1989 specific petcocks shipped second day air for make sure I get the bike up and running for the trip.

A 45 minute project turned into a hundred dollar, four hour fiasco. Yay.

DivideOverflow · Mon Mar 06, 2006 12:20 am

You might not want to do this, but I just replaced the vaccuum operated petcock on my kz650 with a gravity fed universal one with an adapter place... basically, the only place it can leak is around the threads of the adapter (which you put liquid gasket stuff anyway.

Works very well in my opinion. No leaks, flawless operation. The whole thing, including adapter, was $30 bucks.

#70 Unread post by **Skier** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:49 pm

Things are somewhat under control.

Plan A: purchased a Bandit 600 petcock off ebay. Should be in my hands on Friday.

Plan B: purchased a '90 to '97 Katana 600/750 petcock off a forum member on katriders.com . Should be in my hands by Thursday.

Plan C (backup): acquire fuel shutoff valve, gas-proof gasket material and remove my piston/spring assembly, plugging the vacuum line. Turns my current petcock into a gravity-fed one.

Now to find time to do my chain and sprockets before the trip, too!