Greg's Bandit 400 Fuel Injection Project...

[greg737]

Great job Greg! What kind of spray pattern does the ZX-6R injectors have? Their flow should be fine. I've been using injectors from the CBR600RR which have about the same flow IIRC with no problem. What I'm planing to do next is to hack the reservoir and fit an intank pump from a K8 GSRX600. I think my current simple inline fuel pump setup may not be adequate on some occassions. Also I can put back on the airbox after pump and pressure regulator are gone.

Waiting to see your ignition setup.  I did not dare to mess with it. Think I'll just copy you, with your kind permission of course!

 

Good to hear from you again.

I took one of these ZX-6R secondary injectors over to a shop here in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and had it tested in a professional injector test rig.  The injector is tested in a clear plastic enclosure so you get to watch the injector firing.  This injector has a good, broad and foggy spray pattern to it which should be perfect for my application (injecting only a couple of inches upstream from the valves).

The ZX-6R secondary injectors tested out to 160 cc/min at 43.5 psi.  I'm planning to run a Honda TRX-500 Rancher fuel pump which I believe runs at 50 psi (which would bump up the injector flow rate to 170 cc/min).  I'm hoping to have this fuel pump tested next week at the same shop to verify its operating pressure and to make sure of its ability to provide all the fuel flow that the Bandit 400 requires.  I'm still a fan of the externally mounted fuel pump and the Honda TRX-500 pump has been a great solution in my Kawasaki EX-250 project.  And I have a plan to relocate the battery to the bike's tail, under a solo cowl that will take the place of the passenger seat, which will allow me to mount the fuel pump down near the bike's shock.

Now that I can feel springtime coming I'm stepping up the pace on this project.  Hope to have it well along by late March, early April.

[PALERO]

Hi Greg,

keep us updated!

I loved reading your posts when I would frequent the Ninja 250 boards.   My Ninja was taken away and now it's great to see you again on another bike I own.  You have great taste =P

[greg737]

Back in the garage today, disassembling the Bandit, and this was my surprise of the day.

Suzuki calls this item a "Signal Generator Rotor" but the everyone in the Do-it-yourself fuel injection world calls it a "Trigger Wheel" 

A while back I purchased a used 1993 Bandit 400 trigger wheel off of Ebay, it matched the pictures and drawings that I saw in the Bandit 400 Service manual.  But today, when I took the left engine side cover off I found that my Bandit has a different trigger wheel.

This isn't the first time I've had confusion related to a product of the Denso Corperation.  Those guys produce some strangely configured stuff.

These two trigger wheels both fit onto my Bandit identically (after I removed the original trigger wheel I test-installed the Ebay purchased trigger wheel and it fits).  The Top-Dead-Center reference mark on both of them is lined up in the exact same place with regard to the Woodruff Key slot that keeps them properly located on the crankshaft.

It's pretty obvious that these trigger wheels are part of two different versions of the Denso ignition system that was installed on the Bandit 400 which makes me wonder if my engine might not be a 1993.  I don't know much about the history of this bike, I guess it's possible that the bike's original engine was replaced at some point.

Can anybody provide any information about this situation?  (The identification sticker on my Bandit's frame has a manufactured date of 8/92 stamped on it)

Anyway... here are the two trigger wheels.

First up, the trigger wheel I just removed from my Bandit


And here's the trigger wheel I bought off of Ebay.


(I even weighed them both and they are within an ounce of each other.)

[tomacGTi]

There were two distinct Bandit 400's in the US: the pre-93's and 93.

Looks like you got one of each, I don't know which one is which though. 93's had different cams, CDI and obviously cam trigger.

I'd ask someone with a known earlier motor for photo confirmation or scour the internuts. Perhaps ask the seller what year the bike was?

[greg737]

There were two distinct Bandit 400's in the US: the pre-93's and 93.

Looks like you got one of each, I don't know which one is which though. 93's had different cams, CDI and obviously cam trigger.

I'd ask someone with a known earlier motor for photo confirmation or scour the internuts. Perhaps ask the seller what year the bike was?

Thanks, that's the sort of information I was looking for. 

With that information in mind I've just spent some time looking around online and I do see that the U.S. Bandit 400s were made up of two groups: the "400M" (or "400N", I'm not completely sure) from 1991 until November of 1992, then from November of 1992 until they stopped importing them it was the "400P".  As I mentioned in my last post, my Bandit has a build-date of 8/92 stamped on the frame sticker.

What are the main differences between the two sub-groups of U.S. Bandit 400?

[greg737]

A while back I sent the exhaust header out to be media-blasted and then ceramic coated.  Here's what it looks like, before and after...

Here's a couple of pics of what the header looked like on the bike when I brought it home...





I don't know a lot about this bike's history, but I think the bike has a Yoshimura exhaust system on it.  Here's a few "before and after" pics...



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Here's where I'm going to mount the threaded bung that will hold the Bosch wideband oxygen sensor.  It will be welded onto the pipe located on the silver spot where I've Dremeled off the coating.

[greg737]

The electrical system of my Bandit will be undergoing big changes as I add all the fuel injection bits-n-pieces. 

The Bandit electrical system will now have to supply power to the Fuel Pump, which it never had to do before.  This will also include things like an Idle Valve (which is an automatic, ECU-controlled, version of Choke) and the Wideband Oxygen Sensor controller which has a circuit in it that provides electrical current to quickly warm up the sensor to its proper operating temperature.  There are also minor electrical draws from the Microsquirt ECU and a number of sensors (Air Temp, Water Temp, Throttle Position Sensor, Manifold Absolute Pressure Sensors, etc.)

You really can't change/modify/improve the bike's generator, but you can handle the power it makes in a more efficient way to make the most of its potential.  A modern Rectifier/Regulator that employs MOSFET technology is a way to do this.

There will be more demand on the bike's electrical system so I'm making a few changes to insure that it's as healthy as possible.  It could be that my Bandit's original R/R unit is actually in good condition, but I don't know that for certain, and it is over 20 years old now so I'm just going to replace it with something newer that has upgraded technology.

This will be the biggest electrical system upgrade item I'm implementing, a new-generation Rectifier/Regulator (MOSFET type) from an '07-'08 Yamaha YZF-R1.  Here's the original Bandit R/R unit (on the right-hand side) in a side-by-side comparison with the Yamaha YZF-R1 unit.


The new item is a bit bigger than the original so it will require some creativity to get it mounted on the Bandit.

[tomacGTi]

Just make sure the 02 doesn't hang too low and that it catches the most of the exhaust. I'd mount it just a little further down. That is the Yosh 4-2-1 as well. Nice pipe.

I know that the redline is not as high on the 93 bikes and that the power delivery is a little different, outside of that I'm only speculating. Funny thing is that I have run a 93 CDI on my 91: no problem, just a lower redline.

I'm running a CBR MOSFET RR on my bike, I got tired of dealing with the standard type burning out (went through 2). Since it was larger, I mounted it underneath the seat. Airflow isn't as important because it runs much cooler but it gets plenty back there. If you cam get the plugs, it will make for a much cleaner installation. Just about everything matches up. Search on the SV forums, they do this swap all the time.

[greg737]

I'm making an effort to get my Bandit's frame and swingarm sent off for powedercoating. 

With a few days off this week and nothing else to do I'm working hard to tear the bike down to its component parts.  This is the first time I've taken a motorcycle completely apart and I'm not enjoying it but I know it has to be done.  My Bandit is 20 years old now and it needs this sort of attention.

Today I got the engine removed from the frame (it was a cold and snowy day here in Spokane so I rolled it outside for pics:

[greg737]

As I was disassembling the Bandit I decided to drain the oil and send a sample to Blackstone Laboratories for analysis.  Because I don't know much about my Bandit's history I wanted to see what a used oil analysis said about the engine's health.

I got the used oil analysis back from Blackstone today and I'm pretty pleased with what is says.  The numbers on my Bandit's oil seem to compare pretty well alongside the used oil analysis reports from other healthy motorcycle engines (that are within my Bandit's age/milage range).  I went to bobistheoilguy.com to find some used oil reports to compare mine to.

It's a relief to see that the engine isn't eating itself.

When I get the bike back together and running I'll eventually send in another sample, probably from the second oil change after getting it back on the road.

Here's the used oil analysis from my Bandit.  Bear in mind that I didn't know what brand of oil was in it, or what weight of oil it was or how many miles were on the oil.  I told all of this to the Blackstone people when I sent the oil in to them.  That's why some of the comments are very general in nature.  Usually they are much more specific with their commentary on the analysis.

[TJS]

 

[greg737]

Managed to get back into the garage during the last 3 days.  Unfortunately, I had to spend a lot of this time just cleaning up the parts of the Bandit.  It's 21 years old and now that I've got it completely disassembled I'm seeing how horribly dirty it really was.  Also, I had to spend some time cleaning up my garage work-space, which was a real pain but now I feel good because it means that I'm ready to begin "Part 2" of the project, the re-building phase.

The one piece of work on the project that I was able to get done this week was modifying the Bandit's header to accept the threaded sensor bung that will hold the Bosch Wideband Oxygen Sensor.  I had to do a lot of very careful measuring and eye-ball work to insure that the threaded sensor bung and the wideband oxygen sensor will remain clear of the frame and engine and the arc of the suspension movement.

Here are a few pics of the work on the Bandit's Yoshimura header:

In this picture you can see the hole that I've cut into the header's collector.  The hole appears to be oblong because it is.  The angle at which the threaded bung had to be mounted (to clear all of the bike's other components) required me to do quite a bit of Dremel work on both the original drill hole in the collector and the threaded sensor bung (to conform it to the header collector's compound curves).

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Another view...

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The bright silver-colored area around the hole is where I have removed (more Dremel work) the black ceramic coating from around the hole.  The ceramic coating would have made welding the threaded bung onto the header either very difficult or impossible, so it had to go.

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Here's what the sensor bung looked like before I went at it with my Dremel.

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... and here it is after a lot of shaping and test-fitting.  In these pictures it might look like a simple, straight cut but it's actually shaped to conform to the intersection of the radius of two circles (which you can see when you look at the header collector).

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Here's how the threaded bung would have fit before being shaped...

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And here's how it fits after the Dremel work...

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Here's the Bosch wideband oxygen sensor and the threaded bung...

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Here's a view of everything all together in a "dry fit" to see how it looks before welding.

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And, finally, here's what it looks like after the threaded bung has been welded.

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[Squishy]

Very nice!

I hate it when I find a project like this and it isn't finished yet so I can't read all of it....:P.

Anyway I wonder how different a bandit 400 with injection will ride compared to a stock one!

Good work

[greg737]

Today I was able to finish prepping the frame and suspension swingarm for powder coating.  I had to press the bearings out of the swingarm and I had to cut the center stand brackets off of the frame.

Here's the frame all de-greased and clean.  Goodbye scratched up pinkish-red, hello flat-black powdercoat.

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Here's the bottom of the frame where the center stand brackets used to be.

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These brackets had to go to make room for the body of the wideband oxygen sensor which will protrude from the header collector and go directly through the space that the center stand brackets used to occupy.

[greg737]

I'm going to use a Honda TRX-500 Rancher (ATV) fuel pump.  It's a good all-in-one solution for a do-it-yourself fuel injection project.
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The only drawback to the TRX pump is that it's a bit large, which is why I'm going to relocate the battery to the bike's tail (under a solo cowl).  Here's a picture with a soda can to give an idea of the pump's size.

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The TRX pump acts like an in-tank pump.  The large aluminum housing fills up with fuel, acting as a "swirl pot" to prevent fuel starvation.  So the actual pump, which is pretty small when compared to the overall size of the pump's housing, is fully submerged in fuel just like a modern in-tank pump.

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Also inside the housing is a standard "sock" type fuel filter and a 50psi regulator.  This combination of features is what makes this pump such a neat overall package.  During operation the pump constantly feeds itself from the fuel tank and constantly returns the excess fuel (the bleed-off from the fuel pump's regulator) back to the fuel tank.