After waiting nearly two months to get a set of screws for these things, I finally have them mounted up. Thanks to Responsible Jon for checking out his stock bravo and filling me in on what size screws are needed. FYI, the bravo takes two short and two long.

I used Kyrlon Fusion to paint these black to match the rest of the bike. I’m glad I did that. They look a lot better like this. I’ll probably end up repainting them in the spring to get a little better coverage, but overall they turned out great.

I have a few things I’d still like to do to this bike:
1. Find some Bravo logos for the covers.
2. Powdercoat the rear springs black to match.

Instead of watching me ride away like the last video, I decided to take the camera with me this time. It turned out ok. I need to either get a handlebar mount or keep the camera in my hand the whole time. I’ll see if I can do better next time.

I’ve been looking forward to the Hunnert Car Pileup ever since last year. It’s a great show with so many cool cars/bike. This year I decided to ride the bravo there and be a part of it all. Here are all of the pictures I took: LINK

And here are a few highlights:

Damn…I’ve been waiting for these things for 2 months now.  I had no idea they had to be shipped via submarine from europe to get here.  And now that they have showed up, I don’t know if I like them or not.  I think I’m really used to seeing the bike without them.  What do you guys think?

A few posts ago I mentioned problems with what I thought was the fuel filter.  Now I really don’t think that is the problem.  Even with the filter in place, if I pull the fuel line off at the carb the fuel flows just fine.  For whatever reason, the carb isn’t allowing the fuel to go in.  I took it all apart recently and it was a little dirty.  Cleaning it helped the bike start easier, but it’s still running out of fuel if I ride it fast for about a mile.

I think the vent in the carb might not be working properly.  If it doesn’t let the air out of the float bowl, the fuel won’t be allowed in.  I did blow it out with my air compressor the last time I had the carb off and it seemed ok, but maybe something else is going on.  I need to investigate it further.

I recently bought my dad a nice GPS setup for his car after all the help he has provided lately.  Then I remembered that he had an older Garmin Etrex Legend that he doesn’t really use anymore.  So, I talked him out of it. :)  I bought a handlebar mount for it on ebay and set it up in 5 minutes.  I think it’s a clean install and will work well as a speedometer.

For those of you that didn’t notice in the last video, I ditched the hard tail links in favor of some shocks.  I really wanted shocks from the beginning, but couldn’t find any to fit the ride height I wanted.  Recently I saw a set of NOS shocks from handybikes on ebay.  They were 245 mm, and despite being chrome, they were just what I was looking for.  I like the ride quality a lot more.  I’m glad I made the switch.

A quick note…I ordered some side covers from zippy and I’m hoping to get them soon.  Now that I feel I’m closer to being finished with the variator tuning, I’m ready to not look at it anymore.

I took a video this weekend of me starting the bike. I turn the fuel on, hit the choke, pull the decompression lever, and start pedaling. You can hear it try to fire after I let go of the decompression lever. If I don’t turn the choke off right away, it will die. No big deal…just leave the choke off, try to restart it and it fires right up. See how slow I’m pedaling when the rear clutch catches? That’s all I’ve got. I’m pushing as hard as I possibly can. I almost need to shoot another video showing how effortless it is with the stock variator. But now that I can consistently start it, I’m going to leave this variator on there. The greatly improved acceleration makes it worth the trouble of starting it.

Daniel hooked me up again and got a set of 8g roller weights for my variator.  I installed them last night and took the bike for a ride.  I like them much better than the 10g weights.  It seems like the bike accelerates better and stays in the right RPM range.  I’m still disappointed in the top end though.  I can’t help but feel like the bike should be faster without having to buy a set of rear gears.  It revs nicely while accelerating, but it seems to struggle at the top end.  It isn’t bogging or anything.  It just doesn’t have enough get and go to make it into that 40 mph range.

One of the other things that came to mind recently is my fuel flow.  It seems that if I ride the bike for 1/2 mile or so at WOT it will die…I mean die, die…like come to a complete stop die.  I look down at the fuel line and it is empty right near the carb.  I run a fuel filter in my setup because the tank still isn’t completely clean since the acid bath.  The fuel line has to run up a little bit to get to the fuel filter and then it runs back down to the carb.  There should be enough pressure from the weight of the fuel in the tank to push it through the uphill section and down through the filter, but I have noticed some air bubbles in the line that may be holding it back.  So, last night I took the filter out of the system and ran a straight line to the carb.  I didn’t have any problems with the bike during my ride, which is good, but I didn’t gain any speed either. 

I took the bike for a ride and the yellow spring helped my bottom end, but killed my top end.  The engine doesn’t have enough to pull the belt to the bottom of the rear clutch with that yellow spring in there. 

I figured that after I cleaned my starting clutches I would probably be fine with the stock spring and I was right.  I put it back in and it started almost as easy as stock.

So, after all this tuning and frustration, here is the combo I ended up with:

• malossi variator
• 10g weights
• stock rear spring
• malossi belt
• engine moved forward

In order to get more top end out of the bike I think I’m going to have to buy the rear gears.  I’ll save up for those over the next month or so.