[chesterburnet]

My girlfriend decided to give me a Classic for Christmas. I'm 60 and owned motocross bikes until I was 40 but have never owned a road bike. Initially I was interested in the Triumph Scrambler until I saw the Ducati version. When I was a kid, I had neighbor that raced an original Scrambler and so this was too cool to pass up. Since it's winter in New England, what else is there to do but start modding. I've managed to put about 250 miles on between snow storms and freezing weather. I thought I'd share my progress so far.

Went up to a 16 tooth front sprocket
Got rid of the canister
Installed a O2 sensor eliminator from ebay (shipped from Greece to US in about a week)
Got rid of the of stock silencer and catalytic converter and installed a LeoVince GP Style
slip on. i think it sounds great and gives the bike a nice lean look.
Installed a Power Comander and had Adrenaline Cycle here in Massachusetts do a remap. I feel like the bike is a little crisper with this and the sprocket change really feels correct.
Being 6'1" I installed the comfort seat which feels pretty good.
I installed a Givi 7407A windscreen from Twisted Throttle. It's big enough to hide my fat ass behind and I think it looks pretty good.
Got a set of frame plug caps from Design Corse. Those holes were driving me crazy.

All in all I'm loving this bike. It would have been fine without any mods but I used to love wrenchin on em and still do. I'll probably will do suspension as $ permits. Now if the weather would cooperate..............

 

[greer]

Very nice! I've been studying on the 16T sprocket, I reach for 7th sometimes.

Sarah

 

[gcduc]

Looks great. I really like the exhaust look. How does it sound?

I am intrigued by your O2 sensor delete kit, Powercommander and ECU remap. Seems to me there is some redundancy with these items. I mean, I reflashed my ECU which disabled the O2 sensors and, I would have thought, eliminated the need for a Powercommander (or is the remap you refer to actually the Powercommender map/tune). Why did you do all these things? And did you replace your air filter with a freer breathing aftermarket option?

Cheers

 

[chesterburnet]

The exhaust sounds great. Sort of like it makes the bike sound the way it is supposed to sound, although the Harley guys still like to pull up next to me at stop lights and show me how much louder theirs are. It's really weird how they make all that noise but go so slow.

I'm new to these throttle body / cpu bikes and just starting to understand them a little bit. Hell....the only 4 stroke bike I've owned was a 63 BSA 350 when I was 14. You are right about the 02 sensor, but the kit was only $40 including shipping so it's not a big deal. I mostly wanted to make sure that I was erring on the side of caution when I removed the sensors and wires from the exhaust. The remap was the Power Commander remap. The power commander allows shop to put bike on dyno and do his own custom tune / remap if needed. After I got the bike back from the tuner it was a crisper cleaner running bike. I feel like it works better with the taller gear.

I haven't done the air filter yet. Is there some big advantage?

 

[mr shifter]

Very nice! I've been studying on the 16T sprocket, I reach for 7th sometimes.

Sarah

I think dropping 2 or 3 teeth off the back sprocket is a much better and safer (there's not much room for a16 tooth up front) way of doing things and it doe's stop you searching for 7th.
We changed the gearing on my FT before I took delivery plus the O2 delete and rexxer reflash which the tech's at the store that have rode it all agree that it's a vast improvement.



Geoff.

 

[gcduc]

......I'm new to these throttle body / cpu bikes and just starting to understand them a little bit. Hell....the only 4 stroke bike I've owned was a 63 BSA 350 when I was 14. You are right about the 02 sensor, but the kit was only $40 including shipping so it's not a big deal. I mostly wanted to make sure that I was erring on the side of caution when I removed the sensors and wires from the exhaust. The remap was the Power Commander remap. The power commander allows shop to put bike on dyno and do his own custom tune / remap if needed. After I got the bike back from the tuner it was a crisper cleaner running bike. I feel like it works better with the taller gear.

I haven't done the air filter yet. Is there some big advantage?

So your ECU is stock and the revised fueling is done via the Powercommander only?

An aftermarket air filter allows more air through, which means you can put more fuel in with obvious consequences. I think the revised fueling, cat elimination and O2 sensor delete gives the biggest improvements but the air filter helps no doubt. Your Powercommander would need a revised map I assume to take advantage of the additional airflow from a new air filter.

I did the exhaust first and that made a big difference. My RexXer remap, O2 delete and air filter were done later and they made a massive difference. But as I did them all together I can't comment on the incremental improvement of them individually.

 

[PhilSFO]

I put a 42t rear sprocket on and 5th is now where 6th was and 7th is available. Works well for me. Highways at 85mph are now much more doable.

Lower speeds are more like a normal bike. The scrambler is geared pretty low and was rather jumpy before I did the 42t and a Booster Plug so it's much better now.

Worked for me

Phil

 

[greer]

Thanks for the word on the sprockets. From early on I was thinking best to address the rear, so that's what I'll do.

Sarah

 

[PhilSFO]

Sarah, I used a Superlite 520 sprocket which is made from hardened steel so should last quite a while. Had to take out a couple of links in the chain which is easy enough. I used a master link which people post either horror stories of losing their chains or love stories of how convenient it is to be able to remove the chain once in a while to clean it well. I bought an extra link to keep under the seat just in case. No problems yet.

 

[Auriga]

Owners of old British bikes, with Reynolds chains, usually had no problems with a master link, provided the 'fish' swam in the right direction! I'll be cleaning and lubricating my chain in the way described by tonyjuliano many months ago: no more removing the chain, washing in paraffin and then boiling it in Linklyfe for me.

 

[chesterburnet]

There is an excellent "how to" in the forums about doing the front sprocket which saves time figuring out the details. It's really simple. You do have to grind a very slight amount which I did with my gf's jewelry Dremel. Not to worry as it's very insignificant amount. Going up 1 tooth on the front allows you to use the stock chain with no changes. I'm really pleased with how good the bike now feels at 60+ mph. I hit 90 yesterday passing cars on the highway and except for the law I could have cruised comfortably at that speed all day.

All in all I'm finding this bike is easy to work on, about the same level as an off road bike. The valves and fuel mods I'll leave the dealer and the tuner but most everything else is doable and there is a lot of great advice here.

 

[Hui]

Where possible the front should be changed before the rear. The reason for this is by making the rear smaller it brings chain closer to the swing arm causing more wear on the nylon protection at the front end of the swingarm, fitting a larger front puts the chain further away from the slipper and can as a bonus allow for heightening the rear suspension without rubbing problems.
One tooth up on the front is equal to three down on the rear, or there abouts.

 

[greer]

Let me show you my go-to master link, the EK Screw-Type, scroll down about halfway for the picture:

EK MOTORCYCLE CHAINS | Enuma Chain Mfg. Co., Ltd.

Easy as pie, eliminates all the guess work, and no more worrying about a lost clip.

Thanks again for posting up chesterburnet, didn't mean to derail your thread.

Sarah