Archives

by phil

Not the usual road rage

So, I was riding home, stuck in traffic on when I hear the driver of a bus in the lane next to me start shouting something out his window at me. Being accustomed to Brisbane drivers, I was ready to tell him to go fuck himself, till i heard him say something about Supermoto racing.

Turns out, there’s a supermoto event down at stanthorpe, and seeing the supermoto I was riding he thought he’d do a bit of spruking! Quite awesome really, and I’ll definitely be going. Supermoto racing (or motorcycle racing in general) is one of those things that seems hard to find out about. I’m always keen to go spectate (and participate, if I had the time/money!) but it just seems to hard to find info about when events are being held. Good thing there are friendly supermoto-racing bus drivers out there!

Here’s the details:

12th & 13th March
Qld SuperMoto Championship Round 1
Carnell Raceway Stanthorpe
(Promoted by Motorcycle Sportsmen of Qld)

by phil

EBC Supermoto disc for XT600 – update

Well, I figured out what the hell was going on finally. The “alloy caliper relocation bracket” is actually a replacement caliper mounting plate. As it is a two piston sliding caliper, there is a steel mounting plate that is part of the caliper. I’ve now fitted this, and it does indeed seem to fit well.

I have, however, completely lost faith in EBC as a company, and will be doing my darnedest to make sure that I, nor anyone I know, buys anything EBC ever again. When a company is selling a product and they describe it as having an “anodised alloy relocation bracket”, but then come back to you saying that “it should be made out of stainless steel because of the high stresses in a bracket”, you can’t help but realise that they don’t know their arse from their head. (Kedo.de sell a similar kit made by Lucas, which is an alternative)

So, yes it works, but EBC have demonstrated to me that they haven’t got a fucking clue, and I will never buy anything EBC ever again.

by phil

EBC Supermoto disc kit – an exercise in frustration

I ordered an EBC supermoto disc kit from this ebay seller for my XT600 three months ago. So far all I’ve gotten is frustration and irritation. After a three month wait for manufacture and delivery of the disc, it finally arrives. Yay, I thought initially, but upon closer inspection, there’s a problem with the caliper bracket.

The included bracket, to put it bluntly, is completely wrong. It has a pair of holes with the correct size and spacing to mount on the fork legs, then it has another two holes that some nut dreamed up. They aren’t the same spacing, one is the right size and not threaded, but the other is smaller and threaded. It is made from 8mm stainless plate rather than machined aluminium alloy, and spacers/mounting bolts are not included.

EBC are saying that they don’t make the bracket, but rather source it from another manufacturer, who swears that it is correct, despite the above description and the below photos. Considering there aren’t even two pairs of matching holes, I can’t imagine any possible way this could be a caliper relocating bracket.

So, after three months and AU$425, I still have nothing. Quite frankly, it would have been nearly as cheap and a lot easier to just buy myself a small lathe/mill and learn how to make a bracket myself to go with a YZF-1000 disc. I can in no way recommend dealing with either EBC or the ebay seller, since EBC’s got a shoddy product, and the ebay seller is not being helpful at all. Apparently they will be getting back to me with their solution soon, but I’m not holding my breath.

by phil

Trailtech vapor dash for the XT

Trail Tech Vapor

The dash on the XT has been bodgy ever since i got it – the tacho was damaged, the backlights only worked after a shoddy wiring repair, and the turn signals light doesn’t work. After putting on the motard wheels, the speedo is out too, so I decided it was time to upgrade to a Trail Tech Vapor speedo.

I got the kit from an Australian eBay seller, BigPigMCA, who sells them for AU$170 delivered. Pretty competitive with sellers in the US, and it arrived in around three days, much quicker than getting it from the US.

The first part of the installation was fabricating a mount. I made this mounting plate from 2mm aluminium checkerplate. Pretty rough, but does the job and is fairly hidden. I made the bends by hand and annealed them with a butane blowtorch. Shaping was done freehand with a die grinder and files. Probably the trickiest parts was shaping the top to fit the underside of the headlight cowl, and making the spacers for the mounting bolts – since I don’t have a lathe I had to roughly cut them to length then file them down till they fit.

Mr Dash is happy to accept your Vapor

I pulled the speedo cable off and covered the drive output in tape. I plan on machining up a spacer to replace it at some point in the future. With the tacho cable, i’ve just covered up the cable end. I intend to remove the tacho drive and install a blanking plate. The previous model XT6 (1990-1995) doesn’t have a tacho, and apparently it will fit mine (1996) no issue. If I had a lathe I’d make one myself, but again, sadly I don’t.

Here’s a picture of the tacho drive:

Below is a parts diagram of the cylinder head from a 1990-1995 XT600. Part 24 is the blanking plate I intend to use (so long as it isn’t ridiculously expensive, which there is a fair chance it is)

I wired up the tacho sensor inductively, using five wraps of the positive lead around the spark plug lead, and the negative tied to ground on the chassis.

The speedo pick was a bit of a bodge – I’ll be getting an EBC oversized disc (hopefully!) in a few weeks. Doing a proper mount would have been a pain in the arse, so I figured i’d do a bodgy mount until then.

I didn’t install the temp sensor, as it is unfortunately the wrong size – DR650’s must use a smaller spark plug. I am going to try to find another spot to mount it (oil tank?)

Here’s the finished product:

Still to do:

  • Replace speedo drive with spacer
  • replace tacho drive with blanking plate
  • wire up dash lights (high beam, neutral, turn) using LEDs and mount on dash.
  • proper speedo pickup mount once new 320mm disc is installed