What are people modding with medium size bikes?

[alvaro84]

Hm, I don't know how humidity affects FE, but low temperature and wet roads hurt it (rolling resistance gets higher too). Wind is even worse. I can clearly see that I can't coast as long as I usually do (at the same places on my commute)!
Extra weight counts too - my last 100% 2-up tanks reached a disappointing 3.2l/100km (~73mpgUS).

[kawboyCAFE]

interesting bike. i love the gs500. i had a 92 model about 10 years ago, but it was rough looking. anyways, cool mods, keep up the good work. one thing i might suggest, instead of those panels you put on the front forks around the fender, it would work alot better using a larger fender that actually covers most of the front of the tire. i am doing this myself this winter, just a suggestion.

[redyaris]

Alvaro84 You are right about what happens when it rains, what I am saying is that until there is so much water in the volume of air that no more water can be absorbed the air gets less dense, as more water is added to the volume of air; beyonde its saturation point, and actual water droplets form, creating rain, fog, hail, snow sleet etc the density of a volume of air goes up. My daughter looked up the data and did some sample equations and even she was surprised at the outcome untill she thought about it for a minute because it seems so counter intuative. But once she thought about it and explaned it, it made sence, even with my more limited understanding of such things.

KawboyCafe What you see in the EMgarage pics is the quick and dirty version, not the proper solution that you suggest. I will keep this version on until I have run 3 [1200km, 750miles] or more tanks of fuel through it and then do what you suggest, probably next summer.

[alvaro84]

Originally Posted by kawboyCAFE

...i love the gs500. i had a 92 model about 10 years ago...

It seems I'll have a part gs500 soon too. At least the front rim. Potholes pretty much ate Teresa's front rim, to a point where she needed a guest rim just to pass our version of MOT - while we practically don't have flat enough roads to actually sense the dents in it... (Are most of our roads so dangerous? Then repair them, and leave me alone with this rim that got hurt by THESE roads, right...?)
OTOH, if BMW makes so soft rims (I'm not the only BMW owner one who got their front rims deformed because of bad roads, not at all...) I don't want to have another time bomb attached to the front fork. That rim is a piece of art, but a pretty time bomb is still a time bomb. I'd rather get something different. GS500 parts are easy to get, the tire size matches and brake disc size is close enough and it's on the same side...

[redyaris]

Alvaro84 Do you know others who have done this conversion before? If not then I would caution you to take lots of mesureurment of all the parts. I have in the past modified wheel rims; both cast and spoked wheels and rims, to fit onto mini road race bikes [honda cr85 with suzuki cast wheel rims] and the amount of critical mesurements is amaising, to name just a few; axle and wheel bearing size, spacer size disc offset speedo cable, wheel to fork spacer and so on and on...

[alvaro84]

TTT I have a mechanic to take this measurements and give the nod if it's OK to do (and implant the new wheel too). I lack the knowledge and experience to make mods to such crucial parts. If an "alpha test" fairing piece fails it probably won't cause any serious trouble - unlike a failing front wheel

[redyaris]

Alvaro84 Did you manage to find rims that are the same colour or will you have to paint them? As you can see my GS500F rims are black and I don't remember if they where any other colour.

[alvaro84]

It'll be a quest
I've seen GS500 rims in natural metallic color (at least on the 'net), that must be becoming.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by redyaris

I have a Suzuki GS500 F which I have been modding for the last year or so. There are lots of threads on small bikes but not much on 400cc to 650cc bikes. What are people doing to improve fuel economy on medium size bikes and what are the results? So far I have got to 3.3L/100km [71mpg]... I hope to get to 2.5L/100km [94mpg]... click on Gray to see pics.

Red- What MPG were you getting before the aero mods?

I'm guessing the main reason I average 40mpg on my CBR600 is the gearing. I'm doing 5000rpm at slow highyway speeds.

[redyaris]

Before the aero mods I could get as good as 67mpg at 53mph average speed and at 75mph average speed I would get 57mpg. after the aero mode I get 67mpg at 75mph and 71mpg at 63mph. At this stage I do not have a large enough sample size to be confident of my numbers. I am using the trend in my fuel log as my test, so until the number of entries gets to about 30 or so with a strong trend line I won't be sure. By some peoples standard this is not a very good test of aeromods, however my objective is fuel economy so this method works for my perposes.
On your cbr600 I would agree with you that a gearing change would help fuel economy. However you would have to accept a loss of acceleration and top speed in 6th gear. On my GS500F after the aeromods and gearing changes, one of the things I notice is I need less throatle to maintain speed on the highway at 75mph. The other thing I notice is that top gear acceleration is better than before the mods. These are subjective so a grain of salt is in order, until the sample size on my fuel log is large enough, and the average fuel consumption is better.