My 950 Refresh or Mission Creep...

So.....how's about welding a set of pipes for me......


You and Gino need to come down to the Gap and let Wheeler work his magic on Gino's 990. He'll fix all that herky jerky shit. Then we can have a race over the Cherohala Skyway so Gino and I can show you that FI is better.

You guys are great for sacrificing so many brain cells at the alter of LC8 and then heading out to Gino's, to throw yet another metric of braincells away, bragging about all the dead braincells killed today...

Toast to the HP hunters!

edit to add:
Glad you can do away with your "x" pipedream, a pony is a pony... Means Y-pipes(2-1) are prolly even less desirable!

Yeah, but he wins with a boast of riding during the months you guys were working on the bikes

Excellent now Chris has finished playing with your carbs he can get busy with the other project for the 950

If you mean the choke then yes, we spoke about it tonight and Chris is going to look to take mine apart and see at what would be involved to install a choke on the FCR. I've also asked him to reverse engineer (or frankly improve on) my TPS bracket. I think there's a fair bit that Chris could put his talents to in regards to the carbs so we'll be talking about that and I'll be leaving my bike unbuttoned so he can start to plan the final version of the stack.

Oh, never mind, I just saw where you're from. Yes, we spoke about that project as well. Flanny and I both told Chris that he should be making three sets of parts.

I'll post up tomorrow with dyno charts and photos and just recap the day. Also, Flanny will be riding the kit back home so hopefully he'll be able to chime in on how the bike feels now and give a little velocity stack ride report.

G

Good another two people to split the cost with


On the subject of the tps I managed to fit a tps to the 39 fcrs on the 950 using bits from my old ktm 520exc carb.

The older rfs bikes used the first gen slant body fcr that share a similiar body to the the downdraft so all the parts swapped over with minmum fuss, There is one little spacer that needs to be made but chris could do that in his sleep.
once done it looks stock (just about is)
The older carbs dont like the new gas so there are a lot of dead ones out there that you should be able to use.

Nice! Nothing like using old oem parts bin bits to fit up the new toys!
I 'll go looking for one of those old goats now! It'll beat fabbing the whole bracket and shaft for the TPS.

Okay, this will be a big post. Have a seat.

Flanny rode down Sunday and met us at Spannerland where we put his bike upstairs and then headed into town for dinner at Tre with Gino. Plenty of wine and food and then Flanny and I went back to my studio in Brooklyn to get some rest. Monday is dyno day and the day dawned well for us.



We got to the shop and stripped the bikes. Flanny's bike was going to be first so I took a few to fabricate a heat shield for the front header pipe which had burned my pants. I'll get new bolts for it but it does the job. The beauty of my exhaust is that I can remove the front header without taking off the tank. Water pump service just got easier.



Next we went over to Peter's side of the shop where the dyno is and laid out our parts and jets.



This is the way Canadians show up with jets - all mixed up in a little bag and we had to sort them and organize them. Man... it sucks getting older but I swear the jets have even smaller markings.





Never give your camera to an Italian...



We ran Gino's bike for a baseline of what a good injected bike is making. Next we put Flanny's bike on and ran with his foam filters just to satisfy his curiosity and then swapped to the Sudco FCR K&N set up. Interestingly the foam filters robbed 2-3hp. Here Flanny and Peter prepare. Everyone's a clown.



Somehow I got nominated chief throttle twister for the day.



So we jetted his bike with the K&N's for an improvement and then went about installing the stacks and testing the jetting and the extension.



Those are the smiles of two guys who just found some torque and are looking for more.

One issue we had with Flanny's bike was we discovered he had a cracked rear header. We were sniffing A/F on the right muffler so it wasn't really affected but when we tried going pretty lean we were really heating things up.



That is some no joke heat in that header. Interestingly that was with the stock FCR filters and our stacks fattened up the midrange and the pipes only got that mild glow on full pulls.

After every change we compared A/F, torque and hp and discussed which way to go.



What? Oh you want to see actual graphs? Okay. Here you go - read em and weep.

First Flanny's bike:



Impressive. It's all about that big space in the middle.

Then we ran my bike. Gains were larger. Look at that torque increase! Note, read the torque numbers on the right and hp on the left and I'm guessing you know which is which.



So the velocity stacks actually worked better than any of us anticipated. We were hoping for hp but not expecting torque gains like we got. The thing is for anything short of a track bike you want torque where you can use it and this gives it to you in spades.

Finally, and here's the one that I think might actually get some people to start pulling FI systems off their 990's, is the chart that compares Gino's 990R and Flanny's bike and my bike.



Look at the difference in torque between my bike and Gino's. 9ft/lbs at 5500rpms. Tha's a 15% advantage in torque right where you use it and it keeps an almost 10% advantage all the way to 8300rpms so that is about as useful a change as you could ever hope for. It's also interesting to note how much smoother our torque curves are than the Fi bike. To say that we are beyond thrilled with this is an understatement.

Flanny is riding home right now using the stacks and filters and he left with an 8hp gain from when he came down but he left with an even larger, fatter torque curve. He texted me about an hour after he left from Harriman Park to say, "No impact on economy - I'm high on torque bitch!"

Man, a year and a half ago I started work on my bike with the idea that I'd make it into a special carburated 990 and it was a crazy amount of work. About a month ago I was pretty bummed as you might remember - I was making 68rwhp and frankly almost ready to just throw in the towel. Thanks to encouragement here, help from Peter and Chris and the ability to tap into the pretty phenomenal resources of my friends my bike is a freaking 990R eating monster. Complete success!

Hopefully Flanny will post up his actual tire on the ground riding impressions when he gets home.

When I started this whole velocity stack project I proposed it to Chris as something he might be able to sell if it worked out. Well it certainly has worked out. Chris will rework the stacks for clearance (it was tight on Flanny's bike) and finalize the design and I've suggested that he also try to address the numerous other issues that people have with the FCR's like the lack of a choke, the lack of a TPS bracket and the heavy spring. Chris is going to keep my bike to work on these things and once he's figured out a fair price he's going to set up a site and go into production. I'll help him out (he's helped me for sure) and he'll get a thread going in the vendor's section and I'll link to it when he's ready. He might even look into becoming a Sudco distributor and just offer a complete turnkey package which would be nice. The FCR's have some amazing promise but they need a lot of help to be their best. I'll keep you posted.

For now I just can't wait to get my bike home to Portland and start enjoying it again! Oh, the wheelies I will pull!

Gregor

Great report! Such effective gains for your effort. These Dyno charts are going to be an excellent selling tool for the FCR hopup kits.
Lemme know when its time to test the 41's.
I have beers waiting for you, when you get yourself back to this neck of the woods!!

As a owner of a 950, and a pretty just person, i think you need to tune Gynos bike on the Dyno and see if you guys can get more HP just by tunning, altough a rottweiler intake will help getting more ponies.

Either way you know it'll be a good test to tune it, that way you won't leave FI people hanging and wanting to sell their bikes.

BTW: love what you did. I swear if i even would have been in the states i would have been there helping you guys.

One small but really important consideration is for Chris to reduce the torque needed to twist the throttle.

It's not much fun on the second day of technical stuff with a claw hand and numb fingers.

Maybe, weaker springs, a larger throttle cam and eliminate the return cable?

Nice work by the way!

Chris is really good at figuring things out and he actually has a spring winder he's used so he'll also be removing my throttle spring, measuring it's weight and having new ones wound. We think that if you keep the return cable you can easily halve the pull which will make it much easier but still safe. It's an annoying thing to have to pull so hard so we're adding that to the list as well. I think that Chris has subscribed to this thread so he'll be listening to the comments.

I just got an email from him a few minutes ago and he's finished designing the final stack shape based on our tests and he's pulled off my carb with the TPS and is modeling that now.

We're guessing you guys want the stacks anodized orange right? I'm going to have mine done in orange.

As for Gino's bike being tuned - yes, I think he might be able to get some more out of it with an intake kit but his A/F was pretty spot on and his bike was mapped when he got the exhaust. 115hp is right about what is claimed for the bike and given losses for drivetrain (15-20%) you get 101rwhp. He could certainly use some smoothing in the neutral throttle area but that's not going to magically improve his torque if his A/F is good. While we didn't test Tommy's bike my seat of the pants take on his was that it was down about 5-10 from Gino's bike. That means that the FCR's will have an even greater effect over a standard 990 FI bike.

Once I get my bike back home to Portland I'll be happy to let anyone who's watching this thread take it for a spin.

Gregor

Yup, I'm subscribed now. Will work on a making a spring with less stiffness but recommend retaining the return cable. With a non-kinked cable in good condition it does not add that much drag to the setup and having the backup is always preferrable to involuntary WOT trail riding if some grime gets in the slide and is too much resistance for a weaker spring to overcome.


Chris

Welcome back!

You now have three threads that inmates have some salivation issues with. The other two have been I understand, due to circumstances, a little neglected.

Almost home after 10hours of rinding. I'll keep it short since i'm posting on my phone, but all i can say is Wow!!!!

It's a new bike! Gobs of wheelie-launching torque, spins up nice and fast, but also notice it's really smooth!

Fuel economy went from 14.8 kms/litre on the way to NY to avg. 16kms/litre. That's 38 mpg - from FCRs!

This is with moderately spirited riding, and packing more ponies/torque!

Amazing - really, really thrilled!

More tomorrow from my desktop!

Flanny, sorry I missed the ride, sounds like a great weekend of general NYC and moto awesomeness. I woulda just slowed you down on the pokey old /5 anyway I guess. Looking forward to the complete return ride debrief!

jak

Very impressed!

Nic

Johnny you were sorely missed. Whenever Flanny and Gino get together you need others (adults?) around to temper the juvenile antics. Seriously, those two are something else. Friends and motorcycles for a day of experimentation will always be a great time. Next time. Dirt bikes in the spring?

Gregor

With the stacks config sorted out, will they now be integrated into a unified airbox/filter design? Are you satisfied with your exhaust or will there be some variations on the flange/inlet diameters with the use of inserts. I wonder if some cosworth "D" profiled exhaust inserts would speed up the exit flow?

We looked at an airbox but I think that the complication of the carbs being at an angle makes it more difficult/expensive to accomplish. It might be something Chris will look at later on down the road.

As for my exhaust - no, I'm pretty happy. I came out the big torque winner on the dyno (hear that Flanny?) and if there's a change to make it will most likely be on the intake side. Well, that and certainly I'll remake the H pipe to be neater and better. My quick version was not my best work but did pass the test.

For me I'll test out a set of 41's and see how it effects my midrange compared to the top end. I suspect that the roll off I'm getting is due to the smaller size of the carb. I might actually try to get tricky and taper bore them but then again I might not. Seeing as it's getting cold and the my chances for riding the bike home are slim I'll just sort it out a bit until I move my shop. Right now I'm excited to have Chris on board to help solve the nagging problems of the FCR's so my bike is going to be a mule for the next while.

Gregor