After longing for an M Coupe for nearly ten years, one finally followed me home. I am so excited I can hardly contain my enthusiasm. Even mundane activities, like filling up with gas, or checking the tire pressures, seem exciting with this car. I really am that big a dork.

So far, the car is fantastic. Pretty well stock, with Bilstein HDs and some urethane bushings in the rear.

The previous owner painted the stock calipers red (Come on now. That’s just not okay.) - reverting to stock black is the first order of business. While I am in there, I am going to replace the semi-warpy Zimmerman drilled rotors with OEM Brembo units, upgrade from PBR Deluxe pads to PBR Ulitmates for a little better fade resistance, replace the stock brake lines with new braided items, and rebuild the calipers with new bushings and seals.

Tires are the next items that needs to be addressed. Since the plan is to keep this as a street-only car, I am debating about what tires to put on. Knowing me, the “street-only” will last until the first track day or autocross of the season, so I will likely go with some maximum performace summer tires - the Hankook RS2 is a strong front-runner. Super cheap and super sticky. I have heard the sidewalls are soft, but I am willing to throw a set on to see whether that is indeed the case, and if so, if it bothers me.

Also high on the needs list: an M badge for the rear. Who takes those off?

After removing the stock exhaust from my SV1000S and replacing it with a Yoshimura 3/4 system, I have to say, the stock system is a mess.

Have look at the pictures below and imagine you are a molecule of combustion gas trying to escape an engine through the labyrinth of flattened, bent, twisted and hideously ugly pipes that lead to the totally restrictive honeycomb-filled mufflers.

You would be a pretty sad little molecule. Bruised and beaten and generally tossed about. Not the best design I have ever seen, to be sure. Compare that to the nice Yoshimura kit.

The good news is that stock system weighs 26.2 pounds - WITH the baffles removed (at just under a pound each). Wait, that’s awful. We are talking an almost 30 pound system, that can be replaced with a roughly 13 pound system. Come on.

I will be interested to see what the throttle response is like with the new pipework.

The stock exhaust on the SV1000S definitely gives the bike some of its “big twin” character, thanks to the dual pipes - but the sound from those pipes does not do justice to the motor, and the pipes are so low and wide as to severely limit cornering clearance at the track.

To remedy this, I chose a single pipe conversion from Yoshimura. The system is not available on the Yoshimura website, but can pretty easily be found by searching for yoshimura 3/4 system SV1000S in Google. I went with a carbon can because the look complements my bike, and because I plan on outfitting the bike with other choice carbon bits as soon as they are available from Speed Research. Neat.

Internet wisdom says the installation can be difficult, as apparently the slip fit onto the header pipes is sometimes very tight. I had absolutely no issues with this. See below for more details.

Yoshimura 3/4 system install

(or, how to lose 11 pounds in 35 minutes)

Installation of the 3/4 systems is pretty straightforward, and the instructions included with the package were pretty good. Below is my experience with this very easy project. I didn’t take many pictures of the process as all bolts are very easy to find, and there wasn’t much trickery involved.

Materials required:

• Loctite for reinstallation of all bolts and fasteners
• 12″ extension (or similar) for your ratchet preferably with “wobbly” u-joint
• A breaker bar/extension that can be used with a 10mm allen wrench (or a 10mm allen socket for a long-handled ratchet)
• The kit from Yoshimura should include a an M8 nut for the back of the chassis mount for the new pipes. If it didn’t, don’t panic, you will have plenty of them from all the crap you take off during the install.

Time:

• I spent about 35 minutes actually working. I probably spent another hour BS-ing, weighing parts, and taking pictures.

Difficulty (one bleeding knuckle to five bleeding knuckles):

• One bleeding knuckle - seriously kids, this one’s WAY easy

Process:

1. Raise the rear of the bike on a stand. This is not optional, as you have to remove the sidestand to get the stock midsection off the bike.
2. Remove the belly fairing/chin spoiler/shovel. Just pop out the four bolts, and the gently stretch the sides of the chin spoiler outwards to pop it free of the mounting bosses on the frame.
3. Remove the bolts holding the mufflers to the passenger pegs. (If your kit didn’t come with one M8 nut, or you bought the system used and didn’t get one, hang on to a washer and the nut from the passenger peg muffler bolt. You’ll need it later.)
4. Optional: Remove the mufflers from the pipework (4 VERY WELL LOC-TITED nuts each side) or remove the passenger pegs for clearance. I removed the pegs cause they were easier to get to, and easier to wrench off.
5. Remove the two 10mm cap head bolts that affix the sidestand to the frame. These bolts are on tight. I had to use a 10″ breaker bar on my 10mm allen key to get the bolts to budge.

   Note: Removing the sidestand is NOT explicitly called for in the Yoshimura instructions, but the post for the sidestand spring definitely prohibits the removal of the stock pipework.

6. Loosen the pipe clamp at the front header-midpipe junction. Piece of cake.
7. Loosen the pipe clamp at the rear header-midpipe junction. Pain in the ass. If you are lucky, the adjuster bolt will be aimed such that you can get an extension on it by coming in from the right side of the bike (the brake side, not the chain side) just behind the heelguard on a stock footpeg assembly. I got it from there with a 12″ extension on a 3/8″ ratchet. A wobbly (u-joint) on the extension would have made this easier, but it is not necessary.
8. Loosen, but do not remove, the two bolts holding the midesction to the frame on either side.
9. With the pipe claps loose, remove the 2 loc-tited bolts that hold the front header flange to the front cylinder head. The flange will slide down the header. Clang it around it to make annoying sounds. I did.
10. Pull the front header pipe out of the cylinder head, and then twist and pull to remove it from the midsection.
11. Brace the whole exhaust system (or have a buddy hold it) and now fully remove the bolts that hold teh midsection to the frame. The incredibly massive weight (26.2 pounds baby!) of the system means as soon as you remove those bolts, it slides right off the rear header towards the floor.

    Check those pipes out! They are flattened and smashed, and likely as restrictive as a catholic schoolmarm. That can’t be good for performance. Plus, that whole assembly weighs more than a warehouse-store-sized bag of dog food. Sweet. Note also the removed sidestand assembly and front header pipe in the first pic below.

    Also have a look at how narrow the bike is without all those mufflers everywhere. That’s a big reason why V-twins are so cool. After swapping for this new system, you will be better able to take advantage of that narrowness with improved flickabilty and lean angle. Be excited.

12. Position the new clamps onto the fancy new (and incredibly light) midsection, such that you can get a wrench on them when they are installed on the bike. Use your head here. It will save you time later.
13. Slide the midsection up onto the rear header pipe (mine slid on with nearly no effort) and hold it in place while you loosely install the bolt to hold the midsection to the right side of the frame.
14. slide the front header pipe into the midsection (again, mine slid right in) and then pop the other end of the header into the cylinder head and loosely tighten the flange bolts to hold it in place.
15. With all fasteners still loose, wiggle and jiggle the midsection until you have it as snug and close as you feel is right. Tighten down the frame bolt, and then the front and rear header clamps.
16. Slide the muffler clamp over the midsection, taking care to orient it such that you can get to the adjuster once the muffler is on.

    Note: The muffler clamp will eventually need to be tightened A LOT. There will be a lot of threaded post exposed, and if you have it pointing directly at the swingarm, it will scrape when the swingarm moves. If you have it pointing directly away from the swingarm, it will look silly and potentially scrape YOU when you are getting on and off the bike.

17. Slide the muffler over the midsection, slide the outer bracket over the pipe, attach that bracket to the back side of the passenger peg (reinstall that passenger peg if you removed it before), and then tighten down the clamp. Keep tightening. It is way too big, isn’t it?

That’s it! Your bike is now 11 pounds lighter, sounds WAY cooler, makes more power, and has more lean angle than you can use without running out of tire. Not bad for half an hour!

After having crashed my SV650 on track due to a nasty headshake, I was determined to never again get a bike without some kind of steering damper installed. The SV1000S had such a damper, and I was therefore reassured that horrific headshake would be less likely to toss me off.

Well, turns out that after riding the ‘thou for a while, I found the stock damper to be too stiff, and actually a hindrance rather than a help on track.

I tried downsizing to a 65 series front tire, but then things were still weird. I raised the forks to compensate - still weird. The bike would lean in quickly, but counter-steering was artificially slowed down, feedback was reduced, and mid corner wallowing would lead me to run wide. Less scary than headshake, but not exactly great.

I decided I still wanted a damper, but I needed less damping. Enter Ohlins. I got a used Ohlins kit from an SV650 on www.sv-portal.com, and it bolted right up - the head tube bracket fit was a little off, but it was actually slightly oversized so it worked out.

I installed the damper on top of the triples so I could adjust it more easily, and also because I am a dork and thought it looked cooler than if it was hidden away behind the fairing. 11 clicks from full soft seems to be the ticket – nice quick steering, but no shake, even under hard acceleration over crests. Nice.

I also installed some Pazzo Racing levers that I bought at a great price from Moto Mummy, where the prices apparently raise the dead. Scary.

The levers far exceeded my expectations in terms of quality, and they fit up flawlessly. That being said, I bought the “Short” levers, and I think they are actually heavier than that full-length stock items. I am talking about tenths of an ounce, but still, I guess I expected that they would be lighter than the stock bits.

Regardless, they look pretty trick.

I have already posted pictures of my SV1000 on track, but I didn’t post any “Hey, it looks like this” kind of shots.

So, uh… Hey, it looks like this.

Well, it did. Before I started modifying it. Stupid winter. Too wet to ride, but not too wet to spend money. Damn.

My first street bike experience was aboard a Honda CBR600 F4i. I had only learned how to operate a motorcycle the day before, in the dirt on a tiny pit bike, and I was completely terrified to ride the Honda. The terror subsided about 5 seconds after I let the clutch out.

While not the pinnacle of sporting motorcycles, that F4i seemed to be wired directly into my brain. Before that ride, downhill skiing had been the most natural-feeling sporting activity I had ever experienced. That experience, the connection between the bike and me, was impossibly close to the feeling of skiing. I was hooked. I needed a bike of my own.

Through the kindness of a very generous boss, I ended up with a free motorcycle. Maybe not the sporting steed that I had so longed for, but something to get me out on the road. It was a Honda, but that’s damn near where the similarities to that F4i ended.

That Shadow 650 VLX lasted about 2 months in my care. I sold it to a guy who was tired of riding on the back of his wife’s Harley, and needed a bike to learn on. I am not kidding.

With the spoils from that sale, and a little help from a friend, I bought an impeccably cared-for 1996 Kawasaki ZX-6r. Though nearly ten years old by the time I bought it, the bike had only 13,000 miles, and the motor was nice and stong. Now I was on the track to recapture some of that sportbike magic.

Sadly, the bike had a scary front end clunk, and steering almost as vague as the plot in a German art film. Those traits, coupled with the dated styling and angry hairdryer exhaust tone still left me jonesing for something more. That bike was sold to some guy with a flatbed truck, and the much-missed SV650 entered my life shortly thereafter. Then that Sv650 died on track, and was itself replaced.

That’s right. Two years of riding. Four bikes. One Incredibly Understanding Wife. Pretty incredible, huh?

I just sent this in an email to the Incredibly Understanding Wife. The same one who lets me do all the things I usually write about on this site. I am lucky to have her. She… well… she is stuck with me.

Hello wife,

As is typical on a Thursday, I am wearing my blue sweater with the grey and green stripe. You know this blue sweater, it’s the same blue sweater I have had forever. There are a number of things I could say about my day today, but they can all be summed up thusly:

I need a new goddamned sweater.

Why am I so lazy about buying clothes? I am only wearing this sweater because my three real work shirts (lovingly named Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) have already been rotated through, but it is not yet Friday, when I feel I can go to my office in a stained and faded polo shirt that I probably dripped salsa and motor oil on last week. I clearly need to be put on some kind of clothing plan, where I must buy one new garment each month.

I have one pair of jeans, I wear hobo shoes, and I keep wearing this sweater that isn’t fit for a dog to sleep on. Well, I guess that depends on the dog. Certain dogs, like terriers and boxers, or even a small lab or a young German shepherd, would actually be able to sleep IN the sleeves of this sweater, thanks to the fact that the cuffs have lost all elasticity and hang open like the sleeves on some scooby-doo ghoul’s robe. Meddling kids. These sleeves droop like mouths in a constant state of shock, and my hands and wrists ding-dangle about inside their gaping maws like the metal beater that a farmer’s wife might use to ring the “come and get it” dinner triangle.

You know what’s sad? That woman is better dressed than me.

In other news, a coworker wants the recipe for that delicious pumpkin cake you sent with me yesterday. He loved it. You should be proud. He actually, “Hella” wants it. Which is a lot, I hear. But I don’t know, because I am clearly stuck in 1987 when this goddamned sweater was still new, and Bill Cosby wore it.

Rudy!

Sigh,
Chris

With the recent passing of my beloved sv650, I was left with nothing. Perhaps that’s a little melodramatic. I had the love of my family, and my wonderful wife, good friends and a cute house, a mediocre cat, and more cars than I have a right to. Oh, and a welder. Probably some things I forgot. I am still so grief-stricken at my loss that I can’t be expected to think clearly.

I loved that stupid motorcycle. Like a happy puppy it was always ready to play, and didn’t seem to care what we did, as long as we were together. And then, in metaphorical puppy style, it took a huge crap on the living room carpet of my psyche.

After getting tossed off on track, I was not only completely bereft of motorcycles, but it seemed I was - for the first time - totally horrified of riding. Some people would call that a good thing. A safe thing. Smart. It’s survival instinct. You touch the fire, or perhaps you engage in a tryst with an unseemly but amiable stranger with whom you share nothing more than an ability to rationalize nearly any decision, you get burned. Or perhaps more accurately, you get a “burning sensation.” Your brain associates the two, and you live a safer, if slightly more embarrassed, life.

Thinking that smart decisions are best left to smart people, I decided to buy another bike. A better bike. A new puppy if you will. (And you will. Do it. Come on. You have read this far, you are gonna start fighting me now? No. I didn’t think so. )

So, a new puppy. But, having been so badly scarred by the cuddly little guy I just buried, my subconscious prevented me from getting another cuddly little companion. I needed emotional distance. So I got a different kind of dog. Bigger. Meaner. A mutt - half greyhound, half pit bull, half Labrador, half-assed implementation of basic addition skills there, for sure, because that equals 150%. Whatever. This new bike just ain’t the same.

It’s an SV1000s, and it is more powerful, has better brakes, better suspension, wider tires, and generally more of everything that should keep my ass out of a ditch. Well, except for the more power part. That’s like putting a huge ass magnet IN every ditch I ride by. That is, if someone actually made ass magnets. Someone should. Man, talk about a million uses.

To combat magnetic ass, and my ever intensifying fear of riding, I decided more track events were in order. Days in which I didn’t lay the bike down at barely sub-sonic speeds. Days where the bike left the track in pretty much the same condition in which it arrived. Days where I could get my confidence back. Or get my hopes (and, potentially, my femur) crushed in a high speed incident.

So far - so good. See below.

I decided to run for office in my local BMW club. I have no opposition. My platform was summed up thusly:

I’m Chris, and I would like to be your club Secretary.

See, way back when in college, I chose English as my major. It’s sort of like choosing unemployment as a major, except easier to spell. I thought maybe I’d write the next great novel, or maybe just a supermarket suspense book. I wanted to do something to put my stamp on literature in some small way.

Well, here’s my chance! I can write the minutes at club meetings! Come on! How do you think Chaucer got started? Yup, just like me he was an avid autocrosser and track junkie, and he probably owned at least 2 BMWs at any given time. Heck, I bet he even owned an e30 M3 at one point, and installed suspension in it 6 times. He and I are peas in a pod, man. I tell you. I am going to BE somebody.

I hope I win.

Apparently scientists are very willing to admit that they know nothing. Reassuringly they are also willing to build incredibly complex machines based completely on that very lack of understanding, and then turn those machines on in an attempt to recreate the big bang - on a small scale.

Swiss scientists are mad

The possibility of accidentally destroying the universe as we know it is very slim. (Ten to the minus 40.) I feel better. Right?