(08-02-16, 10:48 AM)hotmetal link Wrote: Knowing what RD350s were like, I always thought that the RD and Gamma 500 riders must be demigods. I used to look at those in bike mags and dream. They must have been a bit of a handful even compared to an R1?
Many were in standard from quite docile except the H1 - H2 my H2 I could wheelie just by accelerating
the H1 was much more all or nothing and closer to a racing 2 stoke with all the power in a very narrow band. Early strokes weren't very reliable unless revved hard, but as storker owners know this means wear, they eat piston rings/piston crowns partly down to wrong premix mixture or cheap even wrong oil, leaning the mixture too much and causing over heating.[size=1em] Factories in an attempt to make them more user friendly began to spread the power and widen the power bands to make them more rideable, t[/size]hen pumps appeared but these tended to over oil at all revs, again leaning the mixture causing loads of smoke, loss of power[size=1em],anyone remember oiled plugs!!! [/size] :'( [size=1em]My KH250 was a real bugger while running in just [/size]because you couldn't rev it hard enough to burn all the oil. RD air cooled were slightly better and had a more advanced engine design e.g. reed blocks to control high speed induction, all had points remember them. :eek All 70's - 80's strokers could be fairly easily tuned with not much more than a bit of knowledge, a TDC gauge, scriber, half round file (dremels weren't available back then) emery cloth, jet kit, K&N's and a set of good expantions.
Getting 10 or even 20hp was achievable in your shed but at the cost of rideability, reliability, the introduction semi synth oil really improved things in the reliability stakes anyone remember Castrol R......lovely stuff........not. Where they a handful.....by today's standards yes :eek mainly due to bendy frames, poor suspension, brakes (except the later YR5's and early RD's up to D which had twin opposed pistons calipers) and crap tyres, hence companies like Spondon, Bimoto to name a couple. Were they fast......, out of the crate some were compared to what else was available at the time. The H1 blow away everything, H2 was not really much faster but had more torque hence it's ability to wheelie, GT500,[size=1em] 550 and [/size][size=1em]water-cooled 750 the later 2 more touring orientated and quite refined. Learner 250's (KH, RD, GT etc) a really good one would hit mid 90's out of the crate, then came the X7 first to hit the ton.
Lets not forget the 350's soon replaced by 400's the big three all had them S2 (350) Kawa, GT 380, YR5 and then RD400, KH400 all good for between 105 - 115. Then it all went wild and water cooling, RD250LC 107mph no messing the 350LC 115 in better all round packages, both very easily tuned to reach 120 - 130 respectively quite easily, with water cooling giving reduced noise, much improved reliability, better fuelling/oiling, frame/suspension. Then the YVPS add another 5 - 10 mph and even better frame & suspension.
Then the really scary stuff started KRS-1,TZR250, RG250/RGV250, all blistering faster than had come before 120 - 140mph plus out of the crate, RD500LC didn't really deliver until tuned, but the RG400/500's did, oh my god even out of the crate, tune them and at last we had an 160plus unrideable on the road. :eek :eek
And then it all stopped just like that!
They were noisy, smelly, labour intensive but above all fun, in an age where the was very little big brother, as you can tell I loved them
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Later
