The thread about absolutely nothing...

[Podunkadunk]

411 # and 162 HP!!! YIKES! That's scary... I thought my '77 RD400 at 390# ~60 HP was scary. I couldn't imagine another 100HP on it... I could turn mid 11's somewhere over red line in 6th. Your bike would be doing the 1/4 in about, what, 2nd or 3rd gear?

Sportrider magazine (thier online version is Sport Bikes, Motorcycle Accessories, Sportbikes, & Sport Bike Reviews - Sport Rider Magazine) (then tech) (then performance numbers) has the quarter mile listed as 9.78 seconds. I read the original (magazine) article when they did the run(s). They said they had such a hard time launching the bike they had to strap the front end to keep it down. Having put almost 6k miles on my bike before selling it, I can attest to that fact. With a slight flick of the wrist, it would become a unicycle in a heartbeat. I would have never been able to attain that kind of quarter mile speed on it. But, they are "pro's", or at least have more riding skills than me. Another thing to note is this: Their test bike was completely stock! Those numbers and weights are right off the showroom floor with no mods. Scary isn't it. For 11k, you can buy something that not too much will beat...either quarter mile or down the road...unless brought in on a trailer or some exotic.

I did get "schooled" one night by a guy on a Ford GT...not Mustang GT, the exotic GT. It was a beast. He beat me 3 times in roll ons. We'd start out at 70 and go...each time, when I reached top speed (mid 180's), he'd come by me. That car will do 205mph off the showroom floor...and only cost a measley 150k. He was heavily modded (as was my bike)...he was running dual turbochargers. He was somewhere over 1000hp to the wheels. He carried around the dyno run results in the car. I wasn't embarrassed though...it's not everyday you get to run something that costs that much.

I miss the bike, but didn't want my wife to be a widow and didn't want to go to jail. At 40, that dog just doesn't hunt for me anymore. Thus, the cruiser

Here is the video from inside Joe's Ford GT of the night back last April when he raced my buddy Harvey on his R-1 Yamaha. This WASN'T me, but he did me the same way!!!! I was at this race though, and was about a mile down from where they started the roll-on. When they went by me, Joe's GT was pulling hard on Harvey, then in a matter of a second or so, he passed him. It was unbelievable! For those unfamiliar with a Ford GT, google it. Impressive American machinery.

Go here: R1 vs. Ford GT
R1 vs. Ford GT - Google Video

 

[SilverLake]

This is the Seinfeld of threads. I love it yada yada yada...

 

[MossRoad]

Sportrider magazine (thier online version is Sport Bikes, Motorcycle Accessories, Sportbikes, & Sport Bike Reviews - Sport Rider Magazine) (then tech) (then performance numbers) has the quarter mile listed as 9.78 seconds. I read the original (magazine) article when they did the run(s). They said they had such a hard time launching the bike they had to strap the front end to keep it down. Having put almost 6k miles on my bike before selling it, I can attest to that fact. With a slight flick of the wrist, it would become a unicycle in a heartbeat. I would have never been able to attain that kind of quarter mile speed on it. But, they are "pro's", or at least have more riding skills than me. Another thing to note is this: Their test bike was completely stock! Those numbers and weights are right off the showroom floor with no mods. Scary isn't it. For 11k, you can buy something that not too much will beat...either quarter mile or down the road...unless brought in on a trailer or some exotic.

I did get "schooled" one night by a guy on a Ford GT...not Mustang GT, the exotic GT. It was a beast. He beat me 3 times in roll ons. We'd start out at 70 and go...each time, when I reached top speed (mid 180's), he'd come by me. That car will do 205mph off the showroom floor...and only cost a measley 150k. He was heavily modded (as was my bike)...he was running dual turbochargers. He was somewhere over 1000hp to the wheels. He carried around the dyno run results in the car. I wasn't embarrassed though...it's not everyday you get to run something that costs that much.

I miss the bike, but didn't want my wife to be a widow and didn't want to go to jail. At 40, that dog just doesn't hunt for me anymore. Thus, the cruiser

Heck, I picked up my RD400 for six hundred bucks. Then, let's see... there were expansion chambers, $400. Bigger carbs and air cleaners, $400. Cylinder and piston work, $500. Lightened reed valves, $250. Gummy tire, $125. I had probably close to $2000 in a $600 bike. Oh, yeah, the best thing to lower my times for the $$... wheelie bars, $100. Those gave me the confidance to LAUNCH instead of start. No fear of the front end coming up at all. I highly recommend them for weekend racers. With the conventional shock absorber bikes, all you had to do was remove the shocks and put a solid strut in their place. Then the wheelie bars just bolt to the struts. Really just took 4 nuts to put them on or off. I've never looked closely at bikes with mono shocks, so I don't know how they'd go about it.

I used to put a larger front sprocket on it for street use and a smaller one for the strip. It would cut my top speed at red line in sixth from 110 down to 99. Sometimes I'd leave the smaller one on on the street. Remember when the VMax came out? I pulled up at a light next to a couple of those guys and rev it a little. They'd look over and chuckle at my little 400. The light would change and I'd dust them for a block because they didn't think they had to give it everything to take a 400. Of course, I'd shut down instantly and then refuse to run them again just to make them feel bad.

Sprockets and gearing are intersting things. With the factory sprocket I could run 110 on the highway at redline in 5th gear. 6th gear I would actually slow down and couldn't get the rpms to stay up. I could barely turn 14s and rarely get just into 5th in a quarter and run mid 90s.

I took two teeth off the front sprocket and I could easliy exceed red line in 6th and turn 11:80's at about 108 or 109.

With a bike like yours, I wonder what you could get a stock bike down to in the quarter if you started changing the sprockets and added wheelie bars? It would be fun to try.

Oh, yeah, I gave up the bike riding when we had children. I was hit twice by cars on my bike and escaped injury. That was enough. I still have the bike (in little pieces) and some day I'd like to restore it and do bracket racing again. It really is fun.

 

[Podunkadunk]

I edited post number 21. I added the video of my buddy Harvey racing Joe on his Ford GT. Pretty good video even though it's at night and in the car.

 

[Dallas_Lilly]

I notice you are from Flagstaff. Beautiful country there! I stopped in there one time while on my way to the Grand Ravine in the ground. My previous stop was Winslow...the meteor creater. Man, that was cool. My wife hated it and didn't see why I wanted to spend all day at a hole in the ground

Yeah it is really nice here in northern Arizona. Meteor crater is really cool. It is amazing though how little I seem to visit places like that even though they are in my back yard. I did take my wife the the Grand Canyon this year for her B-day and went for a helicopter ride- now that was fun.

 

[czechsonofagun]

Felt like I was "hijacking" another TBN member's thread, so I thought I'd start one about nothing, that way I won't be stepping on anyone's toes.

I was talking to Soundguy about my garage being so clean. Since the wifey is always on my arse about not doing this and not doing that, I stay out in the garage, making noise, running power tools etc. At least she thinks I'm busy doing something constructive.

Any thoughts?

There was this trick I saw in military - in the shop you get under a truck and hang your hands somewhere around the engine. For anybody walking by, you are working and you can catch a snooze or two

 

[Podunkadunk]

Yeah it is really nice here in northern Arizona. Meteor crater is really cool. It is amazing though how little I seem to visit places like that even though they are in my back yard. I did take my wife the the Grand Canyon this year for her B-day and went for a helicopter ride- now that was fun.

Awesome! It's amazing that the meteor crater (600ft deep x 1/2 mile across) was left by a rock only 100ft in diameter! I can't remember how fast those guys said it was travelling, but it was enough to cause nuclear fission upon hitting! Beautiful country - Flagstaff. I have an aunt and uncle in Silver City, NM...I want to get out and visit and go back to AZ.

 

[Podunkadunk]

There was this trick I saw in military - in the shop you get under a truck and hang your hands somewhere around the engine. For anybody walking by, you are working and you can catch a snooze or two

We called that "skating".

 

[RobertN]

Sportrider magazine (thier online version is Sport Bikes, Motorcycle Accessories, Sportbikes, & Sport Bike Reviews - Sport Rider Magazine) (then tech) (then performance numbers) has the quarter mile listed as 9.78 seconds. I read the original (magazine) article when they did the run(s). They said they had such a hard time launching the bike they had to strap the front end to keep it down. But, they are "pro's", or at least have more riding skills than me. Another thing to note is this: Their test bike was completely stock!

About 15-20 years ago, one of the sport bike magazines talked about how they got the best possible time from a bike. The first thing did was to mimic horse racing. Thier "jockey" was a gentlemean who was short, and very thin. I remember the article stating he wieghed only about 110lbs. Same as a horse race; less weight=faster. This guy was only like 5' or 5-2. He was a good rider too; fast with the clutch/shift/hookup and go go go.

When they tested bikes, they basically made them unstreetable. They loosend the rear sping, sometimes to the pooint where it was completely loose, so the back end squatted. Sometimes they even lowered the forks in the triple trees. They did other stuff I do not remember. Basically, they did this, trailered to the drag strip, then brought it back to the shop to readjust everything.

As a speed demon, you might enjoy what I found at a Borders book store. I got the first 12 episodes of Speed Racer on DVD

 

[Podunkadunk]

About 15-20 years ago, one of the sport bike magazines talked about how they got the best possible time from a bike. The first thing did was to mimic horse racing. Thier "jockey" was a gentlemean who was short, and very thin. I remember the article stating he wieghed only about 110lbs. Same as a horse race; less weight=faster. This guy was only like 5' or 5-2. He was a good rider too; fast with the clutch/shift/hookup and go go go.

When they tested bikes, they basically made them unstreetable. They loosend the rear sping, sometimes to the pooint where it was completely loose, so the back end squatted. Sometimes they even lowered the forks in the triple trees. They did other stuff I do not remember. Basically, they did this, trailered to the drag strip, then brought it back to the shop to readjust everything.

As a speed demon, you might enjoy what I found at a Borders book store. I got the first 12 episodes of Speed Racer on DVD

Go to post #21 and click on the google link I posted and watch that video. It's pretty cool.

There is another crazy person out there called Ghostrider. He lives in Sweden I think...maybe Holland. He makes high speed video's and posts them to the internet. You can also buy much clearer videos he makes. Do a google search for "Ghostrider video". He's a frickin' fruitcake!!!!

As for the bike testing, I'm not sure who they use to test the bikes, but I do know they have no "loyalty" to any brand. They don't care what the numbers come out to be, they just post'em. With the modern day advances in sportbikes there are so many things you can do to inch up hp and you don't even have to go inside the engine. Being computer controlled, fuel injected the options are limitless if you have the $$$. I had about 2500.00 in extras on my bike. Aftermarket Akrapovic exhaust, Timing ****** Eliminator, PC-III USB for tuning the fuel curve, replaced a lot of platic and aluminum with carbon fiber, BMC Race air filter (nothing more than a screen and a piece of dryer sheet, basically). Lots of other add ons, but they were mostly cosmetic.

A lot of guys dropped teeth or added/subtracted teeth in the rear to make it have more torque or to add top end speed at the expense of losing low end power... it's endless.

 

[Farmwithjunk]

After a few years of being married to me, I've got my wife repeating something I always say when I see a garage with lights on in the night time.

"Must be a married man that lives there".

Almost 40 years of marriage, and I have a garage with heat and AC, 'fridge, microwave, TWO TV's (w/ cable/satelite) a recliner, a restroom, and even room for some tools.

Long, successful marriages don't happen by accident.

We still like spending time together. That comes from spending adaquate time APART.

 

[MossRoad]

I had to rewatch that video two or three times and crank the surround sound. Very fun. Hard to find an open road around here anymore. Wasn't a problem 20 years ago. For that matter, I worked at a couple airports back then and we'd have to check the runways for F.O.D. (falling object damage) from time to time, which required a couple trips down the runway to look for debris.... yeah, that's what I was doing.

As for skinny guys on bikes, my posted times were from 20 years ago when I weighed 135 and was 6' tall. Talk about a bean poll. Now I'm still 6' tall but about 75 pounds heavier (all muscle, of course ) and I doubt my poor little RD would break 13 with me on there.

 

[MossRoad]

After a few years of being married to me, I've got my wife repeating something I always say when I see a garage with lights on in the night time.

"Must be a married man that lives there".

Almost 40 years of marriage, and I have a garage with heat and AC, 'fridge, microwave, TWO TV's (w/ cable/satelite) a recliner, a restroom, and even room for some tools.

Long, successful marriages don't happen by accident.

We still like spending time together. That comes from spending adaquate time APART.

Well, I'm only half way there with 20 years of wedded bliss behind me. But I can proudly say that I have a one car garage, a two car garage and a rented 20X10 storage shed and not one running vehicle in any of them! Tractor excluded, of course.

 

[Podunkadunk]

Well, I'm only half way there with 20 years of wedded bliss behind me. But I can proudly say that I have a one car garage, a two car garage and a rented 20X10 storage shed and not one running vehicle in any of them! Tractor excluded, of course.

When I was living single, seeing double and sleeping triple I used to dream of a house with a 2 car garage. Some years later I got married, built a house with a 2 car garage and needed a 3rd car garage. Bought this house with a 3.5 car garage and now I need a barn!

Funny how things work. I don't need the things I want, nor do I want the things I need.

 

[Podunkadunk]

Almost 40 years of marriage, and I have a garage with heat and AC, 'fridge, microwave, TWO TV's (w/ cable/satelite) a recliner, a restroom, and even room for some tools.

QUOTE]

I have garage envy.

 

[greenedeere]

Where is this Podunk?I have lived in same area @50 years and have never heard of any such place.What road is this on?

 

[N80]

I thought there was a podunk in every county somewhere. There is in mine.

 

[Podunkadunk]

Where is this Podunk?I have lived in same area @50 years and have never heard of any such place.What road is this on?

Like "N80" said, almost every county has a "podunk". Down here in SE Alabama, everywhere is podunk...the same as over in SW GA. I live about 25 miles from Blakely, GA. between a one horse town called Headland and another one horse town called Columbia.

It's just a figure of speech. It may well be Timbuktoo...you get the picture.

 

[dbdartman]

Ken, that's a '68 2dr sedan (LL21). Originally 273 V8, 904 auto trans, 2.71:1 7¼" rear A/C, PS, variable speed (not 2-speed, not 3-speed) wipers, all tinted windows, up-grade interior, yellow W/black PAINTED roof & gold vinyl bench seat interior car. It's now painted 1970 Y-1 (Top Banana) yellow W/black vinyl top, mostly black cloth interior (still bench seat), has a mild (about 350 HP) 360, A-518 (4-spd AOD) trans, 3.91:1 8¾" narrowed C-body station wagon rear, NOS firm feel police PS box, C-body (Newport, New Yorker) pitman/idler arms & tie rod ends (arms are 2" longer for faster steering, tie rods are bigger, 11/16" vs 9/16"), 1.04" torsion bars, slightly relocated HD leaf springs (moved inboard ¾" each), Koni shocks, 1¼" anti roll bar, 10.875" (soon to be 11¾") disc brakes & 10" drums both running carbon metallic frictions, hand made tri-Y headers (to clear the steering mods), hand made welded frame connectors, & ½" full recirculating fuel system feeding the Holley 650 double pumper. It rides on 16" X 7" Torque Thrust II wheels with BFG KDW tires (205/55's on front, 245/50's on back). It's not REAL fast (but it's not slow either ), & rides like a buck-board, but it'll take a 25 MPH 270° interstate on/off ramp at 55 MPH easily (& at that speed the tires are just beginning to "talk" to me). I built it to chase Corvettes, & considering I did it all "on the fly" (for under $15K) by just picking parts, it came out surprisingly well balanced. When it does eventually start to lose grip in a turn, all 4 tires start to move laterally very gently; none of this suddenly having the rear try to pass the front, or having the front wheels scrub out drama! The only real "weak point" in the car is the tire/wheel size. I could use an 8" wide (5" back space) wheel on the front without changing anything, but without moving the rear springs INTO the frame rails & widening the wheel tubs (which would make tail pipes a nightmare without narrowing the fuel tank), I can't go any larger than I already have on the rear (the tires JUST touch both the inner wheel house & fender lip in "spirited" driving). As a point of comparison, my bro's '68 Barracuda fast back has 16" X 8" (5" back space) wheels with 245/45 tires on all 4 corners (& in the trunk too!) with nothing moved or modified (his rear is slightly wider than mine, I cut mine down to fit my wheel combo).

All in all, it's a very fun ride; a real blast to throw around the back roads, not too shabby in the stop-light grand prix, & with the overdrive trans it cruises at 70-75 MPH quietly & effortlessly. Unfortunately, it's been parked for just over 2 years now. One day, it'll return to the road sporting new Edelbrock aluminum heads & a better cam. Before that happens though, my bro's 69 Coronet 500 wagon is getting a new Dana 60 rear with Cal-tracks & mono-leaf springs. Since we dropped the 550 HP 493 (stroked 440) in it, he's been worried about the old rear (it was my first R&P swap & it's not real quiet).

Now, who want to get me started telling skydiving stories?

 

[dbdartman]

I thought there was a podunk in every county somewhere. There is in mine.

I've been to Maybury (Graham NC, home of Herb McCandless) & my girl friend lives not far from Dogpatch (Shirly Ar).