Old school modifications

[derek badger]

When I was about 13 my cousin gave me a cardboard box of his old bike mags from the 80s, mainly issues of Performance Bikes & Bike. For many years after I was buying PB with my paper round money every month. I think it started out at 80p an issue...

I got thinking about the modified bikes, especially the readers specials in the back pages. This was the bit I always read first. Back then people modified bikes to not only to increase the power but improve the handling as factory bikes were still very much old school and racing tech hasn't filtered down to the showroom as quickly as it does these days. So people actually built bikes, rather than just bolting stuff on from a catalogue and plugging in electronics. I guess that's why I still prefer the look of older bikes and things like quick shifters and traction control do nothing for me. I know they work and improve the performance and are very clever, but in my world I can't ever see me owning a bike like that.

So here's a selection of old school brutes from the past...

[cheb]

It's probably the reason I like that era and type of bike too.

[derek badger]

It's probably the reason I like that era and type of bike too.

You knew my cousin Bryan from Goole?

[KungFooBob]

Turbo POWER!

[DefTrap]

I can recall craving pointless belly pan, braced swingarm and lairy painted calipers

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

I'll have to try and find a picture of a friends 236bhp Z1000, 1428cc, turbo and nitrous in an unbraced 1978ish Z1000 frame
The mid 80s were a good time to be motorcycling, there were plenty of relatively cheap big bikes about, LCs were plentiful and nobody could ride round corners - so we didn't worry about them and girls thought motorcycles were sexy and exciting.

[Skub]

The 80s?

Man I was 10 years in by then.

Maybe I'm odd,but even though I love looking at pics of old bikes and if I had the room I'd have loads,yet I'm still a fan of modern tech. I especially love the fact that the most wobbly modern bike you know of still handles in a non dangerous fashion,plus they can be improved by aftermarket goodies. I did loads of (expensive) mods to my old Z1 and the thing was still a ditchfinder.

Bikes are fuggin' brill fun no matter which era,but I think what we have at the moment is golden. Electric has the potential to be great too,but I may not be around for that anyway.

[JackyJoll]

Back then people modified bikes to not only to increase the power but improve the handling as factory bikes were still very much old school and racing tech hasn't filtered down to the showroom as quickly as it does these days. So people actually built bikes, rather than just bolting stuff on from a catalogue and plugging in electronics.

Back then an awful lot of people just bolted on various shit like four cone-shaped air filters, noisy exhausts and the biggest tyres that would squeeze in.

The PB featured bikes were always impressive though. They could stand a close-up photo!

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

A lot of the bikes that were on the back page of PB didn't run, or ran very badly, some of them had dangerous poorly executed modifications.
I sort of knew this at the time, but had it confirmed through conversations with some of the journalists who used to work at PB.
Anyone who's tried to get a Japanese bike running on K&Ns will know that the Japanese do know what they're doing and that Leon Moss was a saint, even with Leon's advice I never had a bike go faster on pod filters, most of the 4 into 1s you could buy worked no better than the standard exhausts despite being hideously noisy, the only ones I can remember working better were Motad and Micron, didn't stop me fitting them though.

[JackyJoll]

A lot of the bikes that were on the back page of PB didn't run, or ran very badly, some of them had dangerous poorly executed modifications.

Were they for winning prizes at shows?

didn't stop me fitting them though.

That’s the spirit!

[Bigjawa]

Were they for winning prizes at shows?

Years ago I was at a mainland rally and some trick framed GSXR won best streetfighter.

Which was absolutely great except it was brought there in a Transit and didn't even run.

It was pointed out to the guy that a streetfighter that doesn't actually see the street is a bit pointless. He took a hissy fit, loaded it back into the van then pisses off with his bauble.

[JackyJoll]

A bit off topic, but I saw a guy with tyres wrapped in clingfilm to push the bike from the trailer to his display spot in a field.

[JackyJoll]

Were they for winning prizes at shows?

Years ago I was at a mainland rally and some trick framed GSXR won best streetfighter.

Which was absolutely great except it was brought there in a Transit and didn't even run.

It was pointed out to the guy that a streetfighter that doesn't actually see the street is a bit pointless. He took a hissy fit, loaded it back into the van then pisses off with his bauble.

It wouldn’t put up much of a fight!

[The Spin Doctor]

most of the 4 into 1s you could buy worked no better than the standard exhausts despite being hideously noisy, the only ones I can remember working better were Motad and Micron, didn't stop me fitting them though.

Most were worse, and some of the Motads were dire - they had a seriously good PR department working for them!

A mate put a 2 into 1 Motad on his 250RS and, honestly, it was like someone had stuffed a potato down the pipe. A decent RS would easily top 80 and nudge its way up to about 85 on the flat with a bit of a following wind, but the Motad lopped 15 mph off top speed, shafted acceleration and dropped average mpg from 80 to 70. And they rusted too!

Having said that, the system on my FZ was about equivalent to the original 4-1.

Nothing much has changed now, either... yet people still bolt on hideously expensive 'performance' exhausts.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

most of the 4 into 1s you could buy worked no better than the standard exhausts despite being hideously noisy, the only ones I can remember working better were Motad and Micron, didn't stop me fitting them though.

Most were worse, and some of the Motads were dire - they had a seriously good PR department working for them!

A mate put a 2 into 1 Motad on his 250RS and, honestly, it was like someone had stuffed a potato down the pipe. A decent RS would easily top 80 and nudge its way up to about 85 on the flat with a bit of a following wind, but the Motad lopped 15 mph off top speed, shafted acceleration and dropped average mpg from 80 to 70. And they rusted too!

Having said that, the system on my FZ was about equivalent to the original 4-1.

Nothing much has changed now, either... yet people still bolt on hideously expensive 'performance' exhausts.

I only had one Motad, a Nexxus on an early GSXR750, it went a little better than the stock pipe, I later put the standard pipe off a 1990 GSXR750 on it and that worked better than the Motad or the original exhaust.

Micron's work on FZ750s, but only with a noisy can, with the quiet can it's slower than standard.

Anything American is loud and gives a minor top end boost at the expense of all of the mid range.

Weird really because nearly all of the two stroke pipes sold in the 80s were at least as good as the standard pipes, so long as you didn't care about mid range power.

[The Spin Doctor]

I only had one Motad, a Nexxus on an early GSXR750, it went a little better than the stock pipe, I later put the standard pipe off a 1990 GSXR750 on it and that worked better than the Motad or the original exhaust.

Micron's work on FZ750s, but only with a noisy can, with the quiet can it's slower than standard.

The OE system rusted out so I fitted my FZ (a late Genesis model) with the full system and a road can and it seemed quite happy. But quite frankly I only topped it out twice, once before and once after and on both occasions it hit an indicated 150 (after a long run)

I'd forgotten but my '90 Gixxer 750 also had a Micron road can on it. It came s/hand with the race can (the dealer kept promising to 'find' the road exhaust but never did), and after a couple of weeks riding via Germany to Austria and back, with me getting splitting headaches after an hour or two, I popped the road can on the end. I can't say I noticed the difference at road speeds on that either.

Weird really because nearly all of the two stroke pipes sold in the 80s were at least as good as the standard pipes, so long as you didn't care about mid range power.

Probably because the race pipes were designed according to gas flow requirements, the styling department would have had a lot to do with the OE two stroke pipes.

[derek badger]

Ah, exactly as I expected. It smells of piss and swarfega in this thread.

[mangocrazy]

Ah, exactly as I expected. It smells of piss and swarfega in this thread.

You forgot elderberries...

[Scotsrich]

I had an XJ650 that I fitted a Piper 4:1. I think they made a brief foray into making exhausts for bikes and at the time being a new model this was all I could get.

I struggled to get the headers into the ports, the mounting bolts wouldn’t line up , it scraped if you leant over too far invoking at least one impressive speedway style slide.
It was noisy (which was okay) but the internal baffling eventually blew out.

Apart from that it was great

[wheelnut]

I like them all, but that last one - my eyes!

And as for mods, my DT50MX has a 60cc big bore kit!