Wallrat

Sign in and go to "My Controls" near the top just under the Banshee H.Q. banner. Select the avatar settings from the left column and then you can either use one of the ones that is stored in the bansheehq database or you can do a google search for avatar and download one to your computer. Then just upload it. Its all very simple.

You want to use the lowest octane gas that you can without having detonation problems. At that compression you're right on the edge of pump gas. You could mix race/pump gas for a little added insurance but don't expect any kind of performance increase. Higher octane fuels resist combustion longer but provide no power benefit. As far as jetting goes, just do a plug chop to see how its running. You won't have to alter the jetting by switching octanes.

Mothers metal polish works great.

Damn for some reason I just can't think of the pilot size right now. Thing is though, it ran fine a couple days before, under identical circumstances. Shouldn't be old gas either, its only 10 days old if that. Its really a minor thing now, but still, I'm paranoid.

Already tried to adjust the air screws. The air box is removed and I'm running dual K&N's that are clean.

My shee developed a flat spot right when I get on the gas. At less then 1/4 throttle its pretty boggy but at 1/4 it hits hard just like an extra powerband. It was really bad the other day so I pulled the carbs thinking that a pilot was gooped up. Cleaned em up and it was still doing it. Then I noticed that my carbs were way off sync. I fixed that and it helped alot but I can still feel just a hair of the old hesitation still. Any ideas on what to try next? Plugs looked rich before I did the sync with the left cylinder being obviously worse. Now they're looking better but the left one still seems darker. Compression is ok with the left cylinder being about 4 lbs less at 131 lbs. I was thinking that maybe it was time for some new reeds. Air screws are the same on both at about 1 1/4 turns out.

After reading his post, I have to say that I'm not terribly surprised that BansheeRider had a problem. As for mine I moved the mounting so that its near my handlebar clamp and got a chance to really ride with it today. Works excellent! Easy to read even while flying through tight trails. There is a slight delay in the speed update but if you maintain a certain speed for more than a second or two then you'll get an accurate reading. I compared it to my GPS and it seemed right on with its reading.

It wasn't terribly difficult to install. I'm thinking it may have just been an 87 thing. I gave it low marks given that I think some people would have just said, "it doesn't fit" and not wanted to continue. I think I spent about an hour on the whole installation, 50 minutes of which was tweaking that bracket.

My wife surprised me today with a Trailtech ATV computer as an early xmas present. So this evening I spent my shift at work installing the beast. First off if you've never heard of this product its a small waterproof computer that uses a magnetic sensor to give you your current/avg./max speed, odometer, tripometer, time riding, time on the machine, and also has programable maintence and lubrication reminders. Also you can edit the odometer/hours so that you don't lose all your information when its time to replace the battery. All this for about $75. Packaging: Box arrived well packaged with the parts nicely seperated in baggies and the computer itself protected in foam. Two sets of instructions were included - one for installation and the other for the computer. Installation: First step was to jack up the front end and remove either of the front wheels. Two options are available for mounting the magnet. Either you can epoxy an included magnet into one of the holes in your disc brake or you can do what I did and replace one of the disc brake bolts with their magnetic head bolt. Its nice that they include both magnets in one package. Instructions were very complete up to this point even suggesting that I heat the old bolt before trying to remove it. A dab of loctite later and I was ready to mount the sensor. Two options were available here. For those with disc guards you can just drill out one of the holes in the guard and install the sensor. For the other method the instructions were semi-vague. They included a halfmoon shaped bracket in the kit that I should bolt to the spindle. A picture was shown of a raptor and a 400z but that didn't help much. The instructions stated that banshee owners will have to hammer the bracket a bit to get it to fit to the bolt holes but included no pictures. Well I dunno about other years of banshees, but on my '87 there are only 2 bolts in that area - the ones that hold the brake caliper on. Unfortunately the shape of the caliper makes it impossible to get a fit with the supplied bracket without hammering the snot out it. Not only was the bracket about 2 inches too wide, the caliper has a ridge that must be cleared to get the sensor in the right area. So after some serious hammering in a vise followed by some major tweaking with pliers, I managed to get the bolt holes to line up. I used a drill press to increase the size of the holes in the bracket and bolted it in place. At this point I hammered the bracket even more to get it to curve up over the caliper, around the spindle and back out towards the disc at the rear of the spindle - whew! After all that hammering the bolt hole in the bracket that the sensor is supposed to go through was egg shaped. I drilled it out and installed the sensor with some loctite. All that's left is to run the wire and mount the computer. The computer comes with two mounting types, flat mount or handlebar mount. In addition trailtech makes some billet bar clamps designed to mount the computer to (not included). I opted for the handlebar mount. Mounting the computer was straighforward. A few screws later and I had my computer sitting just next to my twist throttle. The handlebar mount is plastic, meaning that it will hopefully break before the computer gets torn off in the event of a rollover. The zip ties included are really small, only long enough to attach the sensor wire to the brake line. I used a few longer zip ties to attach the cable to the frame in an attempt to avoid the radiator. Calibration: Suprisingly easy step here. Take a pen and draw a line at the bottom of your sidewall. Draw a line adjacent to that line on the ground. Hop on and roll forward until the tire mark has travelled around once and is back next to the ground. Draw a line on the ground and measure the distance between the two lines drawn on the ground. The instructions include the information on how to convert this measurement to millimeters. Input the measurement on the computer with a few buttons and its done. An alternative and more accurate method involves riding a known distance and then using the included formula to adjust to the correct wheel travel. Riding: Ok it was 1am and I didn't want to really lay it on and wake up the neighbors. But I did putt around a bit and it seems to work fairly well. I'll have to see how much it bounces around out on the trail. Conclusion: The easy to use computer functions and oversized buttons were a treat to play with. Installation was easy except for that stupid bracket and the lousy instructions concerning that part. I'd like to see a bracket that's actually made for banshees and maybe even have a kit offered for my year of spindle design (assuming that this was just something to do with the older design). Rating: Packaging: A Installation: D- Ease of use: B Overall: B

adjustable timing plate nerf bars just depends on what you want to do. If I had $450 I'd get a-arms

I read a review online about one of those glow whips. It broke before the end of the review. Apparently it has the tendancy to flop all over the place.

I saw that somebody (maybe Cascade) had a 6 pack rack with fender braces in addition to just selling fender braces.

For sand I'm really happy with ITP Sandstars. Tons of bite on those bad boys! Or did you mean one tire for everything?

$40 each you can get some 8" pro comps from www.4wheelparts.com

I know I saw a light kit on albaaction.com called a desert star system that you can add to your exsisting whip for $14 or something. Either that or just make your own. Pre-built lighted whips usually run around $30-$40. Making your own will cost ya about $5 for a bulb and wire + $7 for a whip and take you about 15 minutes to solder and hook the whole thing up. I enclosed my bulb in some tygon tubing for impact resistance, no problems yet.

Hi honey, can we keep her?

You could use a dry erase marker (like the kind used on white boards) to draw a cut line. The marker will wipe off with your finger when done.

I was thinking of a solution to the mold problem and came up with an idea that should work: Use the current plastics as the mold, but use the insides of them. Sand em smooth and then lay one or two layers of glass on the inside using the car wax method and then CAREFULLY peel it out once it cures. This should give you a very thin and almost perfect relief of your plastics. Then apply extra glass to the OUTSIDE of your fiberglass relief. By doing this you'll only be a couple millimeters smaller than the original plastics. The only thing that you'll have to be careful of is that you don't tweak the fiberglass while its thin and out of the plastic mold thus distorting the shape. You might even try drilling the bolt holes and zip tying it to the bike so that you know it'll fit and then glass the outside layers in position. When you've added several layers (I'd say 24 oz. thick at least) then you should have a fairly rigid piece and be able to cut the ties. For a general idea one 6 oz. thick piece of glass has about the same properties as the pain in the ass plastic containers that they put stuff like RCA cables in and that sort of thing. If it were me I'd use 6 oz. biaxial glass for the initial mold and then use 4 oz. carbon fiber or a 4 oz. carbon/glass weave for the outside layers. Either that or keep layering 6 oz. glass on the outside until you've got at least 4 layers. Carbon is evil to work with but its twice as strong - that's why you want to use a thinner fabric. So if you determine that 24 oz. of glass is strong enough, you could have the same strength with 12 oz. of carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is also incredibly rigid whereas glass will allow more flex (could be good, could be bad) but at the price of being fairly brittle. A small amount of kevlar fabric (2 in. kevlar tape should be ideal) would be excellent for reinforcing the bolt holes since the stuff is incredibly resistant to abrasion and will almost guarantee that you'll never snap a bolt attachment point. I'm guessing at the finished thickness of the fiberglass. You might have enough strength with 24 oz., or you might need more. Whatever you decide, take pictures and write up a tutorial so others can see how it was done.

Still available? If so do you know what kind of silencers they are? How about if they have a spark arrestor or not? Also, how much $$$?

If Fro isn't interested I might be for cash. How'd the welds turn out?

Couple of options here: For a mold release using your current plastics as the mold, use car wax - lots of car wax. Get your plastics good and shiny if they're scratched by sanding them with thousand-something grit sandpaper. Apply several coats of wax and then put a thick final coat on and leave it there. Let your wax dry and then lay your glass over that. The finished product will peel right off. If you want to make the mold from scratch, use styrofoam. Sand it into shape and glass right onto it. Then when you're finished glassing just pour gas on the styrofoam to melt it. As far as the resin:cloth ratio; for maximum strength you want to have 50/50 by weight. You can either weigh each in turn as you apply (Pain) or just apply resin to the cloth and then squeegee as much resin out as possible without pulling the cloth fibers. You'll get damn close to 50/50 this way (trust me, I measured). For added strength you could use carbon fiber. Carb.com has some glass/carbon mix that's pretty cheap. Either of the above methods will require that you use epoxy and not polyester resin.

WD-40 is a degreaser and a magnet for dirt. Don't use that crap for anything.

The sticker is to prove that you've registered your OHV with DMV. Basically its a license plate for OHV. No sticker = big ticket + no ride.

Canon makes some cheaper mini-dv camcorders that have video input. The ZR series (ZR-40 or so is the cheapest). I bought the ZR45 about 2 years ago for about $500 I think...maybe it was $400. With that all you need is a lipstick cam or you can even use one of those CCTV cams from Fry's ($50 for a mildly decent one). The lipstick cam is usually powered off a 9-volt and uses regular RCA plugs. The Canon's come with an adapter to plug RCA's into the camcorder. Don't bother trying to mount the camcorder itself to the shee. I tried this with my old camcorder and it turned out like crap - too shaky to even tell whats goin on.

I did some fiberglassing on my street bike fairing to repair some damaged areas. Worked really good too. Also I repaired some major cracks in a freinds ATC plastic. Both came out very strong, never had to worry about it again. Only thing is that you have to use epoxy since polyester resins don't like plastic. Just make sure to sand with some 220 grit beforehand so the resin has something to grab. Oh and a good lightweight filler is mandatory for a good finish.