XJ550 vs R6?

How well should I be able to keep up with my friends R6? I seem to do an ok job at it until I hit 9k RPMs and gotta shift.

Past first I've got nothing on him.

 

He's got 120 HP and is about 100 # lighter. . .
I'd say it's about even. Have him spot you a bike length per year diff.

 

You'd do slightly better with a 550 Seca; but at 120hp he's got nearly double our ~60hp so I wouldn't sweat it; take a day trip and see who has to get off his bike more often.

 

That's the reason I like this 650 so much. I get to ride a machine that handles like a sport bike but I do not have to ride bent over all the time. Your right you have nothing for him. His power to weight ratio being twice yours and the modern running gear on the R6 brings the equation to 3 times your potential. Then again how often will the average rider use ( or can use) all of that potential. An R6 is a great bike but so is the Maxim.

 

The only time I feel I'm lacking when I'm riding is if I need some power when I'm moving. If I'm trying to pass another car or something like that. I do like my bike a lot, and I've learned a ton.

I wouldn't ever own a crotchrocket.

 

I've never found mine to be lacking power when I want to pass. Downshift and it puts this engine in the center of it's power band and off we go. The 50 to 85 times is pretty impressive for a 650 cc machine. Its no 1100 which will still pull tree stumps in 5th but it dose handle better.

 

the new sport bikes were built with purpose and technology that just wasn't real when our bikes were built!!! on a practical level we are in great standing, but on a performance level the new sport bikes were simply built for different applications than ours! The new cbr 1000rr will run the 1/4 mile in mid 9 seconds at approx. 140mph but I wouldn't want to ride it from calgary to vancouver.
Shaun

 

Shaun I agree, The new equipment is purpose built race equipment. Our bikes were leading edge at the time they were designed but the performance standards have been eclipsed by a factor of 3. Although there are bikes out there that provide the comfort level for cursing and the modern day performance.. The XJR1300 comes to mind. Shame we can't buy one over here.

 

From 0 to the legal speed limit, the R6 will beat you by a few seconds. Unless you are doing an illegal Cannonball run across country, he should still only be a few seconds ahead of you.

 

From 0 to the legal speed limit, the R6 will beat you by a few seconds. Unless you are doing an illegal Cannonball run across country, he should still only be a few seconds ahead of you.

 

I guess I'm trying to figure out if my bike is running the way it should, or if I'm missing some performance that I should be looking for in various places in my bike (even more carb work unfortunately springs immediately to mind).

Downshifting to 3rd might give me some significantly better pick up, but 4th isn't that much better than 5th.

While the speed limit of 30 or 40 (mph) that might be true of, but when the speed limit is 65 or 70 and people are normally going 80, this is not true. By the time I get to those speeds, he's way past gone on me. Especially since we are typically talking about it from a 35 or 40 roll as speed limits change.

On the other hand I went 150 miles to a party yesterday afternoon and came back last night, and I only got off my bike during the rides for gas. I don't know that he could have done that. When I got a little uncomfortable I'd sit a little higher up and further back, like halfway onto the queen seat.

 

I sit on my rear seat and pegs all the time haha. It's REALLL good for the cushion in the backside!

My Backside!

Really doesn't handle much worse, like you would think. But I wouldn't go through the twisties on it like that!

 

you're too cautious. i slide back and ride like that all the time when the regular position gets uncomfortable and i don't usually slow down in the turns

...then again, i've been known to stand on my seat or ride with no hands too, so i guess take my riding advise with a grain of salt. lol.

As for the R6, he SHOULD be walking all over you. Don't lose any sleep over it.

 

You can add a little bit of power to that 550 without getting into another Stage of Tuning.

Make a set of your own Main FUEL Jets.
A set of old stock jets works fine.
Get a set of Number Drills and Increase the Jets Metering Inside Diameter one drill size at a time.
(Do the same with a spare set of Emulsion Tubes, too. As you punch-out the Main Jet one notch ... increase the Air Metering Ports on the Emulsion Tube to the next size.)

Polish the Diaphragm Piston Bores to a Mirror Finish.

 

... Ok, I'm not willing to start trying to do that. I'm not I'm not gonna rejet my carbs and that sounds like something that will quickly get me in trouble.

Let me clear something up... I'm not a gearhead. I'm a techie that is starting to learn a little about motors. If you need your PC fixed, I'm your man. This is a completely new area of stuff for me to learn. I've found that I like wrenching a little, but precision drilling out metal in my carbs does not sound like fun to me.

I'm ok with being slower. I just want to make sure to get the bike as good as it should be. It didn't run when I got it... I cleaned up the carbs and got the thing to run. After a couple hundred miles and too much starting fluid I decided to let the pro's handle the carbs (I figured they were experts). They took care of the starting issues, but I'm not perfectly happy with how the carbs are running now. They don't seem to have quite as much pep, but they don't foul out my spark plugs (very quickly) and I can start it without starting fluid.

I also don't have much faith in them cause I had to take it back to them 3 times just because they kept fouling out about a half mile from the shop.

I need to put the time and effort into the carbs, and to be honest I have a parts bike that I will probably take the carbs out of and very very very very very very thoroughly clean them eventually and put them into the bike and attempt to accurately tune them myself. As Chacal says, no one else will care about your carbs as much as you do.

 

I'd be pissed if I spent the money to have my carbs done and then had any issue what so ever.
It sounds like they might have just dropped the bowls and cleaned the circuit in the bottom.
Finding a good shop is hard.

 

You may also have sapped a bit of performance with the 4-1 pipe; the stupid collector box, although admittedly heavy, is a marvelous piece of engineering in terms of the exhaust system performance on the 550s.

My '81 came with an unbaffled Kerker 4-1 and PO had never done anything carb-tuning wise. The bike ran OK, although ungawdly loud. The switch back to the stock exhaust system was amazing! Not only is the bike now nice and quiet but it absolutely SCREAMS. (Actually, both my 550s rip.) In any gear up thru 5th, once there's 6K on the clock you really need to be pointed in the right direction; they will run through 2nd and 3rd almost as quickly as you can shift.

If you still have the stock exhaust, throw it back on and see. Or find someone with a stock 550 Max to compare with.

 

R6 vs 550 heck, worry about the ninja 250s and the suzuki 500, both will take the maxim 550/650

 

Hah, the 1-cylinder ninja 250 ain't got nothin on my max.

 

Wow! He said he was goin 9k in FIRST!? Isnt that terrible for your clutch!? I loose a lot of my "pull" or power band in first when I hit like 3 or 4k, 15-25 mph.
Huh.. Posts like this make me wonder if Maxine is performing properly
-SLK

 

last I looked the ninja 250 was 2 cyl, passed my 650xj like it was standing still

 

My mistake. I thought some of the smaller ninja's were 1-cyl. And I've gone up against some smaller ninja's on my 750 and faired pretty well.

 

Running to redline, especially in the lower gears, is pretty much SOP for me (although it gets through first so quick I usually short-shift around 8K then wind out 2nd and 3rd) the clutch is spun by the motor so 9K is 9K no matter what gear you're in. The real power kicks in at around 6K, you should be able to grab a handful of throttle and ROCKET away. (Don't do it in 1st though the front wheel may go skyward.)

 

I put the 4-1 on Saturday, and I don't feel like I lost any power. I find that it is about 200 rpms higher, which in my book is fairly negligible. I also really like the new system because it now makes what I would consider a good noise. The old system was probably pretty rusted out internally, and it would almost never really resonate. Also two of the header pipes were semi crushed in when the PO dropped the bike. I would say one was 20% and one 10%. With the new system I hear my bike make awesome sound through almost all of the gear.

So like I said, I might have some more performance to really get out of the bike.

If I tune it with the new system on it, are the odds that I can get close to the same performance as if I tuned it with the stock system? I'm not gonna end up finding a good stock exhaust and if I do, it will probably be on a bike that is in better shape than mine anyway.

As for the front tire going skyward... I can do that if I clutch drop the bike from 3k, but not much. I'm also a pretty big guy, so I help keep the front down. That's the other reason I'm not sure my bike is running as well as it should... sometimes I can make it do it, and sometimes I can't. Never the kind of thing that gets very far or very high... no concern about it going to high at this point.

 

As long as you didn't/don't rip out the airbox, tuning for a much more open exhaust (without the OE collector) will probably be just a matter of needle position, MAYBE jets. It sounds like you might need to do some more carb cleaning before tuning; and if not done recently (or if you don't know) check and adjust the valves first too.

I'm not advocating wheelies; we had a member that seriously pranged himself when his throttle stuck open in 1st on his 550 and dragged him down the block trailing sparks. Nice visual, nasty abrasions. It was more of a warning; I accidentally pulled the front end WAY up on my '81 right after I did the first valve adjust and scared the bejabbers out of myself.

 

Yeah I didn't exactly follow all of Chacals rules for the house of clean, so I didn't "adjust" the carbs at all. All I tried to do was clean them the best I could. I have a parts bike now, so I'm thinking I could pull the carbs out of that bike and go through a very thorough cleaning and rebuild, and then I gotta learn all the stuff on the vacuum gauges and valve adjustments.

On my current running carbs I didn't separate the carb bodies so I didn't clean out the passages between each of them, but I also didn't have to screw with any of the throttle linkages either. My idle circuit was probably the saddest part of everything I put back together, but now that I know about a clunk test, I will make sure the new set passes it. Hopefully I'm ok with the diaphragms in the parts bike carbs.

 

The point with the clunk test is to ensure the slides are moving freely. If they don't "clunk" they also won't LIFT properly. You can do quite a thorough BASIC carb cleaning without splitting the rack, it's how Yamaha has you do it in the service manual.