First tank was some putting around the neighborhood, spirited twisties, and 70+ mph highway plus a good amount of tucking. 70.4 MPG. It is important to mention that this was a slight overfill. I had the radiator blocked a little more than halfway, but the 60-65 degree ambient temperature was enough to keep coolant temps around high 190s. I went down to 1/4 block to keep temps around 170. Oil cooler was probably 80% blocked.
Michelin road 5s are on and scrubbed in. They had been ridden for 40 miles or so before the twisties, so I can't comment on warmup time, however, once they were there, they performed excellently. I never slipped on them, and they gave enough confident traction to allow me to scrape the exhaust clamp bolts! I thought I had finally scraped pegs, guess not!
The matching set of road 5s is definitely a better fit than the road 5 front and Shinko raven rear on my brother's SV. The other setup needs more bar effort to crank it over, the road 5 set feels more natural. That Shinko, despite being a rather flat profile still gave good grip when leaned over. Wet roads were the only situation where I doubted that tire.
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Originally Posted by jkv357
Non o-ring chain?
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Nope, its got o-rings. This bike is intended to be my reliable long distance bike, so a non o-ring chain that wears out quickly is not really exciting. If I get an auto oiler rigged up, I would consider it, but not until then. Current chain is freshly cleaned and lubed, so if I run another tank through it before changing the gearing it may help give better mileage.
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Originally Posted by jkv357
Rear fender removal would be mostly for aero reasons. I never used the grab bar. Even with the blocked cooling a hotter plug may still help with combustion efficiency at low RPMs.
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Yes, I figured it may help aero. I still like the idea of a functional rear fender complete with reflectors. Flush mount signals can make it difficult to tell which way you are turning. When I replace the
4 plugs, i'll consider getting hotter ones.
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Originally Posted by jkv357
Flush mount front signals and smaller more areo mirrors would be an improvement.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jkv357
You will need to pull out all the stops to get to 100 MPG with the SV, but it should be interesting.
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It might be as much work as getting my accord to 50 MPG was, which took 2 years.
We will see!
I still have two other motorcycles that need to be ridden, and as they are carbureted, they should be ridden often to keep problems at bay. It may take a while before I can run another tank through this thing.