Repeated Bad Luck

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The bike was good and turned a lot of heads for about a year and then bad luck struck me twice. First the bike seized on me at full throttle like the first seize but there was no serious damage to the pistons or the barrels. Then we diagnosed it and it came down to the fuel line that was too thin. It had to be a 10mm fuel pipe but instead there was a 6mm pipe on. So at full throttle the one carb ran dry because the closest carb to the fuel line used all incoming fuel.

We ordered new base gaskets and someone told us we can use the top gaskets again. This is where the boat sank completely. With our inexperience we trusted these people to know what they are talking about and did it that way. We closed the bike up again and the bike seemed fine until I took it on the highway for the first time about a month later. On my way back home smoke started to come out of the fairings and out underneath the tank. I thought my bike was burning out, I switched off the ignition but the bike was still running and I saw each time I pull in the clutch the motor would Rev to 10 000rpm. I put the bike in 2nd gear and pulled brakes and the bike finally died after about two minutes driving. I had to push the bike home for about 3 blocks. This was when I realized that I never checked my temperature gauge. Well I got home, took the fairings off and there I saw the cause immediately, a water hose had come off and the smoke was from the anti-freeze burning on the exhaust and motor.

I let the bike cool down completely and did a compression test and it was clear we were a bit down on compression. From here we had to order new pistons and rings again together with another set of base gaskets. We didn’t take the tops off so we didn’t have to order top gaskets. Money has been already a problem at this stage because I was still in school and my dad had to pay everything. He managed to get some money in the end and we closed the bike up again. Here is where the second bad luck struck. Three months later the bike blew the top gasket again and we didn’t have any answers anymore. We did everything according to the books and we failed.

We didn’t however stop trying to figure out a way to close the bike up again and went for the sleeve option. This was the biggest mistake we had ever made. Luckily it didn’t cost that much. Port timing was way out so the motor sucked the carbs empty at 9000rpm and was overfueling heavily. We put minds together and decided to not sell the bike but to buy a messed up NSR and use it as spares to fix my bike and then sell off the other spares to make some money back.

After a few months we got an NSR for R5000 and we could start completely rebuilding my NSR.

Next up: Complete engine rebuild

TO BE CONTINUED…….

Changes and New Parts

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In time I got a good amount of information and was referred to a guy who is very good with NSR’s. This was also the only guy that has worked on this bike since it has been imported by the first owner according to the previous owner. I was the third owner of this bike since new. I bought the bike with about 12500km on the clock which was decent for a 1992 year model.

I got hold of this guy and made a turn by him. We chatted for a while and he mentioned that he still has a good amount of spares for NSR’s and a PGM3 with its loom that came out of this bike of mine. I asked him what the reason was for them taking that chip out and he just said because of restrictions. Later on I found they put a PGM-CDI which came out a MC18 Mk1 in my bike. I did a bit research on PGM’s and found it wasn’t difficult to de-restrict a PMG3 and I bought this PGM3 off him a few months later.

According to what I read on the net the PGM3 and PGM2 are the best one can have in any NSR. The PGM3 had a true 3D ignition which controlled the GPS (Gear position sensor) and TPS (Throttle position sensor) as well as timing, RC valves and air solenoids to give excellent low end power.

So I was really interested in feeling the difference between the PGM-CDI and the PGM3. I swapped the looms, chip, rectifier and flywheel. Then I realized this loom had an HRC box with it as well as an M-Max box. Did my research and it was said it would give no more power than the normal de-restriction process, but I put both in just because it looked awesome. The air solenoids were also not connected to the carbs so I connected them up as well. Fairly easy job to do all the swops. I just needed to order a flywheel puller from Tyga Performance. While I waited for the tool to arrive I saw it as a great time to shorten the silencer boxes to make a bit more noise and add some nice stickers to the bike.

The bike was done and I started it up and immediately the bike sounded different. I took it for a drive and I found the bike wasn’t as aggressive as it has been before. The power valves came in a bit earlier but much smoother than the PGM-CDI. The overall ride was much smoother and the motor sounded as if it labored much less at high RPM, but make no mistake; the bike was by no means faster or slower. The power deliverance was just more balanced.

From this point on the bike felt almost perfect. We just played around with sprockets a bit but they were also not so readily available. Shop Shop Shop !!!

Next up: Just my luck…..Bad luck.

 

TO BE CONTINUED…….

Click here for Part 6

NSR Parts Sourcing

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A strip down was done, this time a bit more serious. The sight was not so good and after some searching on the internet I came to understand that these bikes don’t have sleeves inside the barrels, they are nikasil plated. We had to source a place in South Africa who does this type of plating on bikes and there was only one company with the experience named “NSC electroplating” in Johannesburg.

The barrels were sent there to be re-plated. We found a Honda dealer here in Cape Town who could source us a top-end rebuild kit for an NSR 250 MC21. So all the parts were ordered and sent away to be redone, and in the end it cost us almost R6000. I didn’t think that it would come even close to that amount of money but no one had to do it unfortunately.

 

We remembered that we still have a rear tyre to sort out as well and went to a few bike shops nearby. This is the part what completely almost made me lose my taste for bikes. The best price we could get for a 160/60 R17 was R1260, and that is for one tyre! I thought that was the price for a 1000cc motorcycles tyre. Ones again unfortunately it had to be done so we bought the tyre and let it fit the same day.

 

 

After a few weeks all parts were back and delivered and we started the rebuild. All torque settings were sourced from a site named NSR-WORLD. We rebuilt the bike and we felt good about it. I took the carburettors off and just checked the jetting and float levels. Here I found 2 x 150 main-jets but the one wasn’t the same size as the other, so I assumed that the one was drilled and I ordered new and bigger jets through a site named ‘Slipstreamperformance’. I installed them and the bike was fresh and clean for the first start-up.

We put the bike together, made double sure that everything was in place and tightened up. We put in fresh fuel and kept to the 30:1 oil ratio as the bike was already pre-mix when we bought it, but the oil pump was still on the bike just blocked off. The bike took a few kicks before it started but after a while it started and sounded great. I let the bike warm up to running temperature and put the bike off to let it cool down completely overnight. I repeated this the next morning before I took the bike out for a small drive. After the 30min drive that day I just made sure that there was no leaks and all was good after that.

Next up: Some Tests and changes

TO BE CONTINUED…….

Click here for Part 5

 

 

NSR Seizure

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So at the beginning of 2007 I applied and went to go write my learners test and past it the first time. From there with my dad didn’t have a problem letting me take the bike out as I please.

One day I took the bike out on the N7 which is a nice long straight piece of road and opened up the NSR a bit. I saw from the first few times I rode the bike that this bike would only Rev up to around 12500rpm so from there on I never took the bike over 11500 – 12000rpm. I’m on the N7 gunning it, the bike was feeling great, no funny stuff. It pulled clean through each gear up to the 11500 mark. Sitting in 6th gear flat box, the bike still accelerating, it came to about 11000rpm and quite a bit over the 190km/h mark the bike just seized up. Now most guys that have driven 2-strokes before would be familiar with this feeling.

I didn’t really know what to do at that stage. The rear wheel locked up and was swinging side to side and all I was concentrating on was to keep the front wheel straight and don’t use the front brakes too much. Some 200m later the bike was still sliding but controllable. I pulled in the clutch and the bike straightened out and just freed until I braked it to a halt. A traffic cop parked behind me just a few seconds after the bike had stopped, and the cop asked me whether I was okay and told me that I was very lucky that me and the bike was still standing there. He offered to get someone to come fetch the bike but I said its fine my dad will sort me out and I thanked him and off he went again.

Immediately I knew the motor was shot and a bad smell caught me while I was walking to go check the rear wheel. This was obviously the anti-freeze that came into the motor which was a clear sign of a top gasket that has been blown, clear signs of anti-freeze in the exhaust pipes. The rear wheel was quite wasted as well.

As a young guy like me would think, this isn’t as bad as it looks. I thought, just a rear tyre quickly, maybe just a piston and rings, and that would basically be it. We’ll I soon realized that it was quite a bit more than that!

Next up: Sourcing some parts

TO BE CONTINUED…….

Click here for Part 4

Blue Whale Carcass found off the coast of Sri Lanka

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Experts believe that the blue whale was killed after being struck by a container vessel in the Indian Ocean.

The carcass of the gentle giant was found floating off the coast of Sri Lanka.

It is so sad to see such a specimen of an endangered species being killed by mankind, even though it’s was an accident. The whale strayed into the path of a busy shipping lane and got struck on in midsection while resting on the ocean surface. A huge gaping wound proves how even the largest known animal in the world gets dwarfed by the size of today’s ships.

The images below show the horrific end of such an amazing animal:

There are less than 5000 of these majestic animals left in the world today. Unofficial figures show thousands of whales – many critically endangered species – have been killed by container ships. Many cases do not get reported as the crew of a giant ship simply do not notice the impact. The problem with incidents like these is that there is no immediate criminal in such a collision.

You and I are just as much to blame for the death of this whale, as the ships that use those busy lanes off the coast ofSri Lankacarry consumer goods. That means the TV’s, cars, dish washers and other luxuries we want.

That is the sad truth of this incident. As cold as it seems, this poor animal was yet just another piece of collateral damage to our human existence.

 

SPS – N.O. Rage Pre-Workout Review

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Depending on how sensitive you are to beta Alanine, this supplement might give you what you need to help you go to the next level with your training. Beta Alanine can make your skin feel prickly, some people even say hot. If you dislike this feeling, just have more carbohydrates before taking them or have some after if that prickly (flush) feeling is too much for you to handle. I personally love the feeling and use it to push me through those last two painful repetitions.

Simply put, this is the best Pre-Workout I have had so far. I have had other Pre-Workouts that simply did NOTHING for me, others even made me sleepy (dropped my blood pressure). All of my friends have tried this supplement and reported that they loved it as well.

 

Let’s get a little technical for a moment and find out how this supplement works. The two things I found most dominant in this pre-workout is the effective boost in Nitric Oxide levels and as stated above, Beta Alanine. Nitric Oxide production gets boosted by a synthase amplifying peptide fraction what SPS has labelled by trademark as “Ampli-Nos”. This is the first product where I could actually see a real vascular difference.

Another ingredient is a multi-patented “pH-protected” creatine called Kre-Alkalyn. How this helps you is another write up on it’s own that we will dive in later this month. But you can relate the mechanics of this to a turbo charger in a vehicle that used old energy to make new energy. Not exactly the same, but it gives you an idea of the mechanics.

Have a stop at their site for more information:

http://www.spsonline.co.za/

 

The NSR’s first Check-Up and Test.

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As me and my dad always do even though a thing looks mint, we strip it down and make sure all is good to go and replace whatever doesn’t meet our standards. At this stage we didn’t really know anything about the NSR or any visible performance parts except the Bosson performance exhausts.

For the first year I was almost forbidden to ride the bike because I wasn’t old enough yet to go do my learners test. So every now and again I would start the bike, put it in gear and drive up and down in our backyard. Somehow me buying this bike motivated my brother in law to also buy a bike and in no time he bought himself a VFR 400 NC30. He lived with us at that stage. Same went for the VFR, full strip down and check-up, it only needed a good service. To the big realization we came to understand just how much more difficult it was to service this bike in comparison to the NSR and quite expensive.

One day I told my dad that I want to go for a ride on this bike and feel the power a bit and my dad suggested we take a ride to Malmesbury together with my brother in law. Now my dad was driving my NSR with me at the back and my brother in law alone on his VFR. On our way there my dad and brother in law started to play around a bit and were side by side at exactly 120km/h, from there they would fully accelerate, with the VFR obviously having less weight with only one person on the bike and more torque than the NSR, my dad dropped 2 gears, from 6th to 4th gear and the VFR was also in 4th gear and they opened the throttle to where it couldn’t go any further. Instantly my NSR pulled away from the VFR like it was an unfair race. We were about 7-8 bike lengths ahead at 205km/h so my dad tapped off to 120km/h again.

Right then and there it was obvious that my NSR would most probably kill most 400cc motorcycles on the road. What followed next was a lot of research and obtaining any good information on an NSR 250 and as I saw it wasn’t difficult at all.

Next up: Some tragic stuff

TO BE CONTINUED……

Click here for Part 3

Bodybuilder – Marius Dohne – Warrior Angel

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“Bodybuilder – Marius Dohne – Warrior Angel” is a wallpaper created depicting the South African bodybuilder “Marius Dohne” as an angel breaking free from the chains binding and holding him back from what he wants to achieve. Marius is a religious man, the cross in the background represents believe and strength.

Galactic Titan – Planet Destroyer

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“Galactic Titan – Planet Destroyer” is a Fantasy wallpaper created depicting a titanic creature destroying an earth like world in the Rosette Nebula close to our own Milky Way. It took roughly 5 hours to create using mostly Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and measures in at 5388 x 3777 pixels. The monster, so enormous he holds the planet in his hand, makes ready to crush it with his other fist. The moon, at the far right corner of the image, has already started to diminish under the shockwaves created from the titans grasp on the nearby planet.