1st Build GT LTS Full Suspension/Shift Kit
- Thread starter Wild Bill
- Start date
Thanks, I had to make a small brace to keep the front half of the fender from vibrating in rough terrain but it was easy and it doesnt vibrate any more. It was from "The Industries" but I got it from Ebay.
The rear fender has no vibration at all, at least not that I know of since I never look back on a ride.
The rear fender has no vibration at all, at least not that I know of since I never look back on a ride.
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My idler sprockets came today so I made a quickie chain tensioner. I had been having a problem of the right side chain coming loose even after a short ride and it caused the chain to jump off twice in bouncy terrain, one of those times it wiped out the main bike drive chain. I test rode it on the street a couple times around the hood and it seems to work great but I still need to test ride in the rough stuff to see if the chain still jumps off. I doubt it will. I still am gonna make one for the left side chain. I dont like the way you have to adjust that one, its a pain in the a$$!
EDIT:A day later and the idler seems to have done the trick, the chain hasnt jumped off yet. I have ridden over some rough terrain and left the clutch out and a little throttle on without a problem but I havent really stayed hard on the power thru the rough stuff yet, prolly next ride.
2nd EDIT: Several days later and still the chain hasnt come off and I have been hitting rough terrain everyday with the throttle on,but still not full throttle thru bigger bumps but that will be soon and Im sure it will be fine. This tensioner seems to work great!
Heres a pic of the new tensioner....
EDIT:A day later and the idler seems to have done the trick, the chain hasnt jumped off yet. I have ridden over some rough terrain and left the clutch out and a little throttle on without a problem but I havent really stayed hard on the power thru the rough stuff yet, prolly next ride.
2nd EDIT: Several days later and still the chain hasnt come off and I have been hitting rough terrain everyday with the throttle on,but still not full throttle thru bigger bumps but that will be soon and Im sure it will be fine. This tensioner seems to work great!
Heres a pic of the new tensioner....
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Street ride video (No Ca. motobike plate yet and no M1 or M2 license yet, Im playing with fire....lol).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tYRdnPcYSc&list=UUp2zIoY4JB6KWvEWedGWidg&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tYRdnPcYSc&list=UUp2zIoY4JB6KWvEWedGWidg&index=1
I made the chain tensioner for the left side today, sure beats removing the engine to get to the shims between the engine & jack shaft bracket then have the chain loosen up after the first ride.....arrrrrg!
Then another test ride-WOOT! I think I make changes just so theres an excuse for a test ride. I used the stock kit tension wheel for now but I need to find a better one thats not hard plastic.
Sure wish the moto bike plate from DMV would show up!
Then another test ride-WOOT! I think I make changes just so theres an excuse for a test ride. I used the stock kit tension wheel for now but I need to find a better one thats not hard plastic.
Sure wish the moto bike plate from DMV would show up!
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Wow! Coolest test ride so far. First I went for a dirt ride in the farm fields behind my house, then I went for a short street ride around the hood. As I rolled up to a stop sign up the street A guy on a motorized mountain bike was riding up to the same intersection, we both were kinda shocked to run across another motobike!
We stopped and talked for a few minutes and rode down the street and back, stopped and talked again for a few. That was a million to one seeing someone else on one of these things in this town. I told him about this message board and how useful it is.
We stopped and talked for a few minutes and rode down the street and back, stopped and talked again for a few. That was a million to one seeing someone else on one of these things in this town. I told him about this message board and how useful it is.
Thanks for the videos man. The more I explore this board the more I want to motorize my bike. This board IS very helpful 
You are welcome for the videos, I make new ones often but until I get my license theres no point posting the same ride over and over.
You wont regret building one! The newness hasnt worn off this one yet and I am ready to build another! I almost bought all the stuff to build a board tracker but I held off at least for a little bit.
I also wouldnt mind building one just to sell but Im worried about getting what I put into it back out of it.....lol
You wont regret building one! The newness hasnt worn off this one yet and I am ready to build another! I almost bought all the stuff to build a board tracker but I held off at least for a little bit.
I also wouldnt mind building one just to sell but Im worried about getting what I put into it back out of it.....lol
The California License plate came today, the things are huge! I couldnt find anywhere to mount it that didnt look bad so I mounted it here. I hope Johnny law doesnt mind it being there.
My new helmet should be here today, didnt want to use an old full face from my midget racing days, or an old BMX helmet or my old MX helmet that is wayyyy too big.
I still have to go in for the M2 test and put lights and a mirror on it to complete the red tape aspect of it.
Oh ya, the daily rides are getting better and I have caught a little air a few times off a small jump, and getting a feel for riding wheelies, I can ride them all day on a bicycle but I always have had trouble riding one more than 20-40 feet on a motorcycle. This seems easier to ride wheelies than a motorcycle since the rear brake is not on the foot.
The engine may be breaking in, it seems to have just a little more power. I have almost used the full gallon of 20:1 breakin fuel I mixed up, When its gone I will go to 32:1 and hope to see a little more power, I will likely put a new plug in since this one has been exposed to 20:1 sploooge. That way I can read the plug on the first run at 32:1.
My new helmet should be here today, didnt want to use an old full face from my midget racing days, or an old BMX helmet or my old MX helmet that is wayyyy too big.
I still have to go in for the M2 test and put lights and a mirror on it to complete the red tape aspect of it.
Oh ya, the daily rides are getting better and I have caught a little air a few times off a small jump, and getting a feel for riding wheelies, I can ride them all day on a bicycle but I always have had trouble riding one more than 20-40 feet on a motorcycle. This seems easier to ride wheelies than a motorcycle since the rear brake is not on the foot.
The engine may be breaking in, it seems to have just a little more power. I have almost used the full gallon of 20:1 breakin fuel I mixed up, When its gone I will go to 32:1 and hope to see a little more power, I will likely put a new plug in since this one has been exposed to 20:1 sploooge. That way I can read the plug on the first run at 32:1.
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The helmet came today, not bad for $15 plus $15 shipping for a new DOT approved helmet from Ebay! Went for the longest street ride so far even though I dont have my M2 licence yet. Also went for another dirt ride and got a flat rear and had to walk about 1/4 mile back home, once home the front went flat too. I will go to thorn resistant tubes!!!
After several test rides I have decided that my gearing needs to be lowered since I like riding slow technical trails most, and trails with steep up hill sections. So I ordered the 9 tooth jackshaft sprocket from SBP (Now running the 10t) and the 34-11 Shimano rear cassette to give me a lower 1st gear (my 1st gear is now a 32) and maybe make 8th gear usable.
Getting a lower 1st gear wont hurt my top speed since at this point 8th gear is too high of a gear unless after break in when I go to 32:1 instead of 20:1 I gain a ton of power which I doubt I will see that big of a gain.
Helmet pic...
After several test rides I have decided that my gearing needs to be lowered since I like riding slow technical trails most, and trails with steep up hill sections. So I ordered the 9 tooth jackshaft sprocket from SBP (Now running the 10t) and the 34-11 Shimano rear cassette to give me a lower 1st gear (my 1st gear is now a 32) and maybe make 8th gear usable.
Getting a lower 1st gear wont hurt my top speed since at this point 8th gear is too high of a gear unless after break in when I go to 32:1 instead of 20:1 I gain a ton of power which I doubt I will see that big of a gain.
Helmet pic...
The 9 tooth sprocket for the SBP shift kit came and I put it on but I didn put on the new Shimano 34-11 Megarange cassette yet since I wanted to see what 1st gear would be like with the new 9t. Much better gearing for trail riding and hill climbing!!!! Also much better off a stop sign, no real need to pedal or burn the clutch. The steepest hill on my daily dirt ride I still have to pedal but I dont have to help much, I think the new cassette will do the trick having a 1st gear thats 2 teeth bigger. Also 8th gear is now usable but barely.
I will install the new cassette in a day or two, that should give me a real low 1st for serious hill climbing!
I also finished the first gallon of fuel for break in(20:1) and I mixed up a gallon at 32:1. I put in a new plug so I could read the plug and saw what I suspected, too rich. After a couple test runs and plug reads I ended up going to the smallest jet that came with the RT carb, a 6.5. I may need to jet back up one step if I go to a leaner mix like 36:1 or 40:1 latter on. The thing definitely runs better, and its a noticeable power increase.
I also replaced the plug wire with a carbon core wire because the ignition was messing up my digital speedo, its good to have a working speedo now!!! My top speed so far on flat ground on dirt is 32.4 MPH and 35.6 MPH on street. I was surprised to see that much difference between hard packed dirt and street! Maybe there is a grade that just isnt visually noticeable.
I am having so much fun dialing this thing in! Still need to go get my M1 or M2 license.
EDIT a couple days later: I put on the new cassette and 1st gear is lower but I had to swap the new 8th gear out for the old one because the new one was a tooth smaller than the old one and that would have been too high. It will take a few rides to really decide if I like the new gears all the way thru the range but 1st is certainly a keeper. Also the ratio difference between 1st and second is better, before the two ratios were too close.
Also the lights came.....
I will install the new cassette in a day or two, that should give me a real low 1st for serious hill climbing!
I also finished the first gallon of fuel for break in(20:1) and I mixed up a gallon at 32:1. I put in a new plug so I could read the plug and saw what I suspected, too rich. After a couple test runs and plug reads I ended up going to the smallest jet that came with the RT carb, a 6.5. I may need to jet back up one step if I go to a leaner mix like 36:1 or 40:1 latter on. The thing definitely runs better, and its a noticeable power increase.
I also replaced the plug wire with a carbon core wire because the ignition was messing up my digital speedo, its good to have a working speedo now!!! My top speed so far on flat ground on dirt is 32.4 MPH and 35.6 MPH on street. I was surprised to see that much difference between hard packed dirt and street! Maybe there is a grade that just isnt visually noticeable.
I am having so much fun dialing this thing in! Still need to go get my M1 or M2 license.
EDIT a couple days later: I put on the new cassette and 1st gear is lower but I had to swap the new 8th gear out for the old one because the new one was a tooth smaller than the old one and that would have been too high. It will take a few rides to really decide if I like the new gears all the way thru the range but 1st is certainly a keeper. Also the ratio difference between 1st and second is better, before the two ratios were too close.
Also the lights came.....
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Well aside from the chain jumping off in bumpy riding forcing me to make a couple chain tensioners (That solved the problem), I hadnt really had any real part failures until saturday. After a good pull up to speed or a hill climb the engine would idle high and slowly come back down and seemed like it was running hotter than normal but not real hot yet.
I Thought right away that it might be sucking air somewhere or the RT carb could be slightly plugged. I pulled the carb and blew thru the jets and cleaned it out but didnt see any problems> I put it back on and still had the same thing so I put on the smaller stock carb on that I had never run to see if that solved the problem and besides I had never run the stock carb before and wanted to see the performance difference in power. The carb change did fix the problem so in a couple days I will go over that RT carb.
In the mean time the performance difference I saw between the RT and stock carbs was certainly noticable but not huge. The RT had better bottom and top ends but not by a whole bunch, the top end is most noticable but the bottom end wasnt that far off. My highest MPH so far with the RT carb was 35.8mph no wind and flat ground and the stock carb I hit 35.1 but that was with a slight tail wind of about 3-5 mph. Im guessing the stock carb on this bike is gonna be about 32-33mph. I also ordered an NT Speed carb from Piston Bikes to give one of those a try.
I also just got a Puch head that I will put on in a few days, I have read a lot of good things on them torque wise (Huge thanks to the forum members that gave info in my Puch head thread.....very helpful!) but also the draw backs, but the draw backs are easily overcome. I also ordered a Jaguar cdi with the advance curve ( another thanks to a forum member on the Jag cdi, helping me spend all my money lol) to help with the high compression ping that you can get. Also going up in octane, colder plug and double head gaskets are some of the things to do with a Puch head.
I will update the Puch head, Jaguar cdi after I get them and put them on.
I Thought right away that it might be sucking air somewhere or the RT carb could be slightly plugged. I pulled the carb and blew thru the jets and cleaned it out but didnt see any problems> I put it back on and still had the same thing so I put on the smaller stock carb on that I had never run to see if that solved the problem and besides I had never run the stock carb before and wanted to see the performance difference in power. The carb change did fix the problem so in a couple days I will go over that RT carb.
In the mean time the performance difference I saw between the RT and stock carbs was certainly noticable but not huge. The RT had better bottom and top ends but not by a whole bunch, the top end is most noticable but the bottom end wasnt that far off. My highest MPH so far with the RT carb was 35.8mph no wind and flat ground and the stock carb I hit 35.1 but that was with a slight tail wind of about 3-5 mph. Im guessing the stock carb on this bike is gonna be about 32-33mph. I also ordered an NT Speed carb from Piston Bikes to give one of those a try.
I also just got a Puch head that I will put on in a few days, I have read a lot of good things on them torque wise (Huge thanks to the forum members that gave info in my Puch head thread.....very helpful!) but also the draw backs, but the draw backs are easily overcome. I also ordered a Jaguar cdi with the advance curve ( another thanks to a forum member on the Jag cdi, helping me spend all my money lol) to help with the high compression ping that you can get. Also going up in octane, colder plug and double head gaskets are some of the things to do with a Puch head.
I will update the Puch head, Jaguar cdi after I get them and put them on.
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I tried an NT Speed carb and really like it but I still like the RT a little more since it seems to have a very slightly better top end. The Speed carb may have a barely better low end.
I just got a fuel tank for a KTM 50 (kids dirts bike) and I may build a second bike using it. The bike in the pic isnt the bike I would use for the next build for obvious reasons but thats the tank and maybe even the fork...
I just got a fuel tank for a KTM 50 (kids dirts bike) and I may build a second bike using it. The bike in the pic isnt the bike I would use for the next build for obvious reasons but thats the tank and maybe even the fork...
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Just put on the Jaguar CDI and test ran it in the stock settings. I noticed a little more bottom end torque and more top end RPMs. My top speed went up to 37.1 at the same stretch of road I hit 35.8 mph before the new ignition, and I let off a little early.
The best money spent so far and I havent even tried tuning it yet. I wont bother tuning it until after I put on the high compression head, this ignition is supposed to really help a high compression engine. I am hoping to notice even more bottom end than I did with this cdi and that will maybe let me pull a little taller gear.....we will see.
The Jag CDI comes with a coil and a seperate box where you take the rear cover off and change the 2 little jumpers to change the ignition curve. I mounted it upside down for now to make it easy to tune it.
The best money spent so far and I havent even tried tuning it yet. I wont bother tuning it until after I put on the high compression head, this ignition is supposed to really help a high compression engine. I am hoping to notice even more bottom end than I did with this cdi and that will maybe let me pull a little taller gear.....we will see.
The Jag CDI comes with a coil and a seperate box where you take the rear cover off and change the 2 little jumpers to change the ignition curve. I mounted it upside down for now to make it easy to tune it.
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I just put on the Puch high compression head and went for a short test ride around the block but I took it real easy since I havent mixed up any high octane yet to keep the ping down. I was worried it would be hard to crank to start the engine with the high compression (you cant drop the clutch to fire the engine with a shift kit, you have to pedal down almost like kick starting a motorcycle) but it was a piece of cake! You cant see it but I had to grind a lot of cooling fins down to clear the pipe but since this has so much cooling area compared to the other head I still have way more cooling than before.
Just in the brief putting around I did I could tell it had more pop now, you can hear it at idle. And the hill I live on it walked up it at less than half throttle and felt like it had way more torque but I wont really be able to tell until I mix up some high octane. Then I can also play around with the Jag ignition timing curve.
Very happy with every after market part so far!!! And the head and ignition go great together.
Just in the brief putting around I did I could tell it had more pop now, you can hear it at idle. And the hill I live on it walked up it at less than half throttle and felt like it had way more torque but I wont really be able to tell until I mix up some high octane. Then I can also play around with the Jag ignition timing curve.
Very happy with every after market part so far!!! And the head and ignition go great together.
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I found a brand new 1997 chromoly GT LTS that had been in a bike shop its whole life and still had the teets on the tires. I swapped the forks for some better forks and picked up a KTM 50 gas tank. Even as good as the alum bike rides this one rides a million times better than the aluminum one as far as a pedal bike goes and I wont be so worried about the frame cracking on the chromoly one because of hard riding. I may sell the first one later on to fund a future build.
So I will start a thread on the second build when I get farther than this.
So I will start a thread on the second build when I get farther than this.
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I recently went out on a test and tune session on a long flat road with tools, parts and no wind. I changed things like ignition curve and different plug gaps, RT carb and Speed carb among other things and I have hit the wall at 42.4 mph, I hit that exact 42.4 many times consistently with a couple a little higher that I believe were flukes.
I am happy with the speed and torque on that bike so thats it, Im leaving this one as it is and when my next build is done the first bike will be for my son to ride when he is in town so I have someone to ride with. And if I start racing I will let one of my old racing buddies race it in one class while I run the second bike in another class.
I ordered a KTM clone engine and a KTM 50 pipe yesterday,for my second build, a chromoly GT LTS . The pipe was from ebay and its here already. I have hung it on the bike and I can see it can easily be made to fit.
Bummer is that the engine wont be here for a couple of weeks, when it shows Ill start a build thread for it. Heres the second build with the pipe hanging and the tank mounts finished.....
[URL=http://s391.photobucket.com/user/yukinfahoo/media/DSCN1050_zps93fbc990.jpg.html]
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I am happy with the speed and torque on that bike so thats it, Im leaving this one as it is and when my next build is done the first bike will be for my son to ride when he is in town so I have someone to ride with. And if I start racing I will let one of my old racing buddies race it in one class while I run the second bike in another class.
I ordered a KTM clone engine and a KTM 50 pipe yesterday,for my second build, a chromoly GT LTS . The pipe was from ebay and its here already. I have hung it on the bike and I can see it can easily be made to fit.
Bummer is that the engine wont be here for a couple of weeks, when it shows Ill start a build thread for it. Heres the second build with the pipe hanging and the tank mounts finished.....
[URL=http://s391.photobucket.com/user/yukinfahoo/media/DSCN1050_zps93fbc990.jpg.html]
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