Greg's Bandit 400 Fuel Injection Project...

[greg737]

The frame and swingarm came back from the powdercoater yesterday.  I opted for a low-gloss black powdercoat rather than a full flat-black so it does have a bit of "gleam" to it when light hits it, but it isn't too shiny.
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Here's the before once again...

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Besides being very happy with the color change I'm also glad to see all of the many paint scrapes and smaller dings and lightly rusted areas gone and the frame protected from future rust issues.

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I'm not going for anything like "spotless perfection" in the cosmetic end of this project.  In the case of the frame I didn't bother to have a few of its larger dents fixed.

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The swingarm... before:

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And after:

[greg737]

Another small but important item also came in yesterday, the Throttle Position Sensor (normally referred to as the "TPS" in the Do-It-Yourself fuel injection world, but this abbreviation always reminds me of the movie "Office Space" with the TPS Report coversheet thing).
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This TPS comes from an '03-'04 Triumph Daytona 600.  The TPS is the part on the left-hand side of the picture.  The connector on the right-hand side was cut from the '09-'11 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R Wiring Harness that I bought for this project.  In addition to this TPS connector the ZX-6R wiring harness has also provided 4 injector connectors and 1 fuel pump connector.

[greg737]

I really, really don't enjoy working on motorcycle forks because there's no way to do it without making a big, oily mess of myself and the garage. 

So I put off refurbishing the Bandit's front suspension.  After I disassembled the bike back in November I just put the forks in the corner of the garage and ignored them.  This approach worked for a while but eventually the fork had to be dealt with so today I decided to go ahead with the work.

As I've mentioned before, I don't know much about my Bandit's history.  After disassembling the forks and getting a good look at the parts and the state of the oil I'm pretty sure that they haven't been serviced in quite some time.  The fork oil was a very thick, sludgy muck.  Both of the dust seals had failed (the rubber coating had split and rust was erupting through from the metal insides), the surfaces of the low-friction bushings are mostly worn through and both of the metal "Stopper Rings" where rusted.

After making a huge oily mess of the garage during disassembly I finally managed to end up with a nice bunch of clean parts to evaluate.  Here they are in no particular order...

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Any of you who have disassembled the Bandit's forks will already know which step of the process is the most difficult: Removing the Damper Rods, which requires a "Suzuki special tool" (essentially a 28.5mm hex-head) and a very long T-handle driver to reach all the way down into the fork leg to engage the top of the Damper Rod.  Instead of buying a "Suzuki special tool" I went to Ace Hardware and bought a 3/4" bolt nut (which just happens to have a 28.3mm outer diameter which is a perfect fit for the Suzuki Damper Rods) and I mounted this nut on a 1/2" bolt to make a tool out of it.

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The smaller nuts hold the larger 3/4" bolt nut stationary and allow it to be engaged by a 3/4" ratchet driver so it can hold the top of the Damper Rod while you loosen the Allen bolt in the bottom of the fork leg.

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Here's a picture of all the bits and pieces lined up together.  This is to show how the ratchet driver with extensions reaches down into the fork leg to engage and hold the top of the Damper Rod while the allen wrench is used to loosen the bolt that holds the Damper Rod to the bottom of the fork leg.

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All of this disassembly and cleaning is in preparation for an upgrade to the forks.  I'm going to install Gold Valve Cartridge Emulators along with .85 kg/mm springs and 15w fork oil.  The Gold Valve Emulators are a way of upgrading old-school Damper Rod forks so they behave like modern Cartridge-style forks.

[andrewsw]

Nice! I love the custom tool, and will be ripping of your patent soon. My forks are long overdue for this treatment, with one bad oil seal and probably quite worn bearing surfaces (as evidenced by the discoloration on the upper leg). Keep us posted!

A

[greg737]

Nice! I love the custom tool, and will be ripping of your patent soon. My forks are long overdue for this treatment, with one bad oil seal and probably quite worn bearing surfaces (as evidenced by the discoloration on the upper leg). Keep us posted!

A

Well, to give credit where it is due I have to show you this web-page from over on the advrider.com forum: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=415263&page=7

This is where I got the how-to information from, although I would warn you that our Bandit front fork Damper Rod Tube needs a 28.5mm (outer diameter, across the flats measurement) hex head not the 30mm size that the advrider.com guy used for his front fork.  Other than that one little difference all of his information applies to working on a Bandit front suspension.

[tomacGTi]

Greg, as nifty as that tool is you can use even a 3/8" electric impact while the springs are in to loosen the bolts: no wrestling. Little late now but thought I would put it out there.

Installation is reverse of removal. And if you already have the springs out and you have impact: use a wooden broomhandle. Works just as well.

Also, poor man's .90kg springs: cut off the tighter portion of the progressive coils, also known as the NC Rick mod. Add PVC spacers for preload as necessary. Try this before dumping $200 into springs since you'll be shit-canning your old springs anyway.

When you install your gold valves: do not hog out the holes to their suggested numbers, instead go to 1/2" (I think they want 3/8, it's been a LONG time since I did this.) and open up all the holes, not just the bottom and don't drill any additional. It completely eliminates the circuit at all oil heights forcing the DR to give all the work to the gold valves. I did not drill any additional holes since I hogged out the others.

I did this because I was afraid of weakening the DR even further with the hole size they suggested. This worked just fine.

This is my setup and how I do forks.

-Randy

[greg737]

Now we come to the point where some metal gets cut...

This is the process of turning the Bandit's Carbs into Fuel Injection Throttle Bodies.

These are pictures of the machine work to allow the Ninja ZX-6R secondary injector array to be mounted onto the bottom of the Bandit's BST-32 carbs.  I removed the carb's float bowls and had a local machine shop do some light work.  Now the carbs have cutouts to accept the Ninja injector array.

First, here's what the Ninja ZX-6R secondary injector (airbox mounted) array looks like...

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Here's what the carbs look like after machining...

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Here's a closeup shot of one of the carbs.  The gray stuff you can see in the picture is JB Weld that I used to plug the unneeded passages in the carbs.  There are a lot of passages in these carbs and I don't need any of them.

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And here's what the carbs and injector array look like when they're mated together (remember that the injectors are mounted to the bottoms of the carbs where the float bowls used to be).

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In this picture you can see the injector nozzles pointing up through the bottoms of the carb's bores.  I'm pretty pleased with the location and angle of the injectors.

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I know it looks a bit scraped up around the injector nozzle holes.  The Dremel isn't easy to use on them, but I needed to open the sides of these holes to accommodate the injector spray pattern.  At that angle the Dremel bit tends to jump around in the hole so it ended up a little less than pretty, but the job is done.

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I haven't finished machining the clamps that will secure the array to the carbs, but I think the whole assembly will take up the exact same space as the original carbs did.

[greg737]

Greg, as nifty as that tool is you can use even a 3/8" electric impact while the springs are in to loosen the bolts: no wrestling. Little late now but thought I would put it out there.

Installation is reverse of removal. And if you already have the springs out and you have impact: use a wooden broomhandle. Works just as well.

Also, poor man's .90kg springs: cut off the tighter portion of the progressive coils, also known as the NC Rick mod. Add PVC spacers for preload as necessary. Try this before dumping $200 into springs since you'll be shit-canning your old springs anyway.

When you install your gold valves: do not hog out the holes to their suggested numbers, instead go to 1/2" (I think they want 3/8, it's been a LONG time since I did this.) and open up all the holes, not just the bottom and don't drill any additional. It completely eliminates the circuit at all oil heights forcing the DR to give all the work to the gold valves. I did not drill any additional holes since I hogged out the others.

I did this because I was afraid of weakening the DR even further with the hole size they suggested. This worked just fine.

This is my setup and how I do forks.

-Randy

Yeah, my Ace Hardware tool is cute.  I don't have an impact driver (either electric or air powered) so this will have to do.

I did the Race Tech Gold Valve Emulator modification on a set of Kawasaki EX-250 forks about 7 years ago.  I can't remember the specifics of things like the holes in the Damper Rods but I got very good results, performance/handling, from the modification.  I do think I remember being concerned about the size of the holes I had to drill in the Damper Rods.

For the Kawasaki EX-250 I put in .70 kg/mm Sonic Springs.  The Bandit 400 is a bit heavier than the EX-250 so I'm going with .85 kg/mm Race Tech springs on it.

As to the price of new springs, I don't mind spending the money on the Bandit.  The way I see the Bandit is this: If there was a brand new Suzuki 4-cylinder 400cc sport bike sitting on the showroom floor in a dealership today, I would buy it.  No question.  And it would probably cost close to $10,000.  But there's no such thing in the U.S. so I'm left with no choice but to reach back in history to get what I want.  In the end this Bandit, even with all the things I'm doing to it, will be much cheaper than purchasing a brand new 4-cylinder 400cc sport bike (if such a thing existed in the U.S.).

I do have to admit that I really enjoy tinkering with machinery, so having to refurbish and modify an older motorcycle is fine with me.

[tomacGTi]

Fair enough Greg! If it's your hobby, I can certainly understand.

I'm too practical and frugal though, I just like to expend all options before I expend more money. The springs cost me nothing to try and they endt up staying.

My 3/8" cordless impact has been an invaluable tool for me in and out of the garage (drywall screws are no longer a stripping proposition). One of those "how did I get along without this thing?" sort of tools.

I'm just curious on how you're going to seal all the passages in the carb with the bowl area open. I know unless you run a speed density setup, air leaks will reak havoc on setting up correct a/f ratios on FI.

-Randy

[greg737]

I'm just curious on how you're going to seal all the passages in the carb with the bowl area open. I know unless you run a speed density setup, air leaks will reak havoc on setting up correct a/f ratios on FI.

-Randy

One of the Carb's passages (I think it was the idle jet orifice) was removed completely in the process of milling and drilling the new passage for the injector nozzles. 

The other passages are now permanently plugged with JB Weld. 

The largest passage in the carb's casting was the hole that the emulsion tube occupied just underneath the carb's slide carriers.  That passage is now filled, top to bottom, with JB Weld.  The three tiny little passaged that are located just below the carb's butterfly are also plugged by JB Weld.

Here's the closeup picture of the carb's bottom, showing the various areas filled up with JB Weld.


I've still got more JB Weld work to do on the carb's Choke plumbing.  I'm going to preserve both of the brass tubes that lead into the Choke.  One is the tube that sticks up through the carb's plastic diaphragm/slide cover, the one that is normally capped off and only used for balancing the carbs.  The other tube is the fuel feed tube that draws fuel up from the float bowl to the Choke. 

I'm going to use one tube as the connection for a tube to the input for the fuel injection system's Manifold Absolute Pressure sensors and the other tube will be connected to the fuel injection system's Fast Idle Air valve.

I am planning to run my fuel injected Bandit in a speed density mode.

[greg737]

Yesterday the mail brought something I should have purchased a long time ago...

A set of Hozan Japanese Industrial Standard screwdrivers.


Up until now I've always used Drywall driver bits from Home Depot to work on JIS screws.  I learned a while back that the profile of a drywall driver bit is essentially the same as a Japanese Industrial Standard screwdriver which prevents the dreaded "cam out" that regularly occurs when you try to use a Phillips type screwdriver on a JIS screw.

But it always felt a bit ghetto to use drywall bits on a Keihin or Mikuni carb. 

(The important difference between a Phillips screwdriver and a JIS screwdriver is that the Phillips is actually designed to "cam out" of a screw that won't turn.  Thats why the junctions between the blades of a Phillips screwdriver are rounded, it makes the tool cam out under very high loads.)

[Squishy]

Ye I don't understand why anyone decided using Philips screws is the way to go.
I guess they are fine for the first 3 years but after 20 years they are so stuck the thread will be destroyed 1st try.
I don't understand why they don't use hex.. which are nearly impossible to destroy and allow you to apply much more force because of leverage....

I really like working on my b400 ..but the absolute worst part is when you've collected all the parts you need, you finally have the time to do it, the weather is nice etc... only to be completely stuck after 5min because a goddamn philips screw on the floatbowl carb is completely stuck.

[tomacGTi]

The fasteners are fine if you have the correct tool: JIS is indicated by the little dot in the diagonal of the cross. It makes a HUGE difference.

Hex is fine but not perfect. Most people overtorque anyway and these can make that even worse. Not saying that you should use a torque wrench for everything but it helps to have a referenced hand for finer work.

Greg, I've used JB a ton in the past but the only thing that has me questioning are the heating and cooling cycles and the dissimilar materials. I'd just be concerned with it eventually cracking out because it doesn't move and flex with the aluminum carb bodies. Granted, they're fairly insulated from heat but they do bake over the motor/trans.

I know there are flexible epoxies that are available with bits of aluminum to allow expansion and contraction and JB not biting has been found often in certain applications I've experienced. Vibration is also another concern.

That being said, I have used it to patch a holed engine cover and it did hold for a little while in that environment but did eventually leak.

-Randy

[greg737]

Greg, I've used JB a ton in the past but the only thing that has me questioning are the heating and cooling cycles and the dissimilar materials. I'd just be concerned with it eventually cracking out because it doesn't move and flex with the aluminum carb bodies. Granted, they're fairly insulated from heat but they do bake over the motor/trans.

I know there are flexible epoxies that are available with bits of aluminum to allow expansion and contraction and JB not biting has been found often in certain applications I've experienced. Vibration is also another concern.

That being said, I have used it to patch a holed engine cover and it did hold for a little while in that environment but did eventually leak.

-Randy

Yeah, I understand concerns about the long-term viability of JB Weld.  But I wouldn't have filled in the passages on the Bandit with it if I didn't have some positive history with the product.

Seven years ago I filled in a couple of passages in the throttle body of my Kawasaki EX-250 fuel injection project bike.  In the years since doing that fill-in job I've been watching it closely to see if it was coming apart, separating from the throttle body casting or just generally degrading in any way.  To date there has been no change in the JB Weld in the EX-250's throttle body.  In fact, the JB Weld is still smooth and glossy looking on its surface just the same as it was from day-one.

I have the camera in the garage this morning so here's a few pictures of the EX-250...
This first picture is of the left-hand side of the bike, looking up into the area occupied by the bike's throttle body.

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Now, zooming in to focus on the throttle body itself...

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And now even closer to focus on one of the JB Weld spots.  In this spot I used JB Weld to plug the hole in the throttle body that was left when I removed the secondary butterfly assembly (the secondary butterfly assembly was electrically servo-controlled by the ECU of the bike that I got the throttle body from and I had no way of using it so I removed it and plugged the holes with JB Weld).

This spot of JB Weld was lightly sanded to level it out with the metal of the throttle body casting after it dried so it doesn't have the shiny appearance that other spots on the throttle body have, but it's the one that is easy to photograph.

The point of all this: This is 7-year old JB Weld and it looks just like it did the day I installed it.

Also in that same project (the Kawasaki EX-250) I used JB Weld to fill in the vacuum passage on the petcock.  This fill-in job is also looking great after seven years.

It may be that the bike's petcock and throttle body don't get enough of the engine's heat to cause anything like expansion problems.

[greg737]

Got back into the garage yesterday.  I'm mostly finished with the task of converting the Bandit's bank of Mikuni carbs into a bank of fuel injection throttle bodies...

Here's a run of pics that show all the parts being assembled.  So, here are all the parts...

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First the neoprene rubber washers go into the carbs.  These washers will take the hold-down force that will be applied by the braces and they will prevent any vacuum leaks from occurring at the injector array.

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Then the Keihin injector array goes in on top of the neoprene rubber washers.

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Then the Keihin injectors are plugged into their individual holders.

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Now the bracing starts to go onto the carbs.  At the bottom-rear (airbox side) of the carbs I used a thick piece of aluminum stock because it is screwed onto the screw-holes where the float-bowls used to attach and these screw-holes are at a different elevation when compared to the front-bottom (engine side) of the carb assembly.

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Now the short pieces of 90 degree aluminum go into the machined-out valley of the carb bottom.  These three pieces will apply a gentle and even pressure across the injector array when the top-brace pieces are added.

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Now the top-braces are added.  The end-pieces are made of 90 degree aluminum and they stick up about an inch at each end of the carb assembly.   The end-piece on the far right-hand end (when mounted on the bike) will hold the bracket for the throttle position sensor (to be added later).

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Now all of the screws are added.

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And finally, the fuel supply rail is added.

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There's more work to do:  I've got to transform the carb's choke circuit into a Fast Idle air circuit (an automatic, ECU-controlled cold start-up air source), the throttle position sensor has to be mounted to the end of the shaft of the right-hand carb's butterfly and I have to add ports for the four Manifold Absolute Pressure sensors.
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... and a few more random views of the work.

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