Tuesday 30 October 2018

seabiscuit 2.0

Here's what you can do to better an already awesome Hero Impulse

list of my mods so far from 2013 to 2018 - 5 Years of farkling what started its life as a 150cc farm bike.

1. Engine swap
2. Fork upgrade to 43mm Showa Cartridge from 1989 Honda CR125R
3. 21'' DID Al rim w/ Ceat 90x90 21 Himalayan tyre
4. Speedo wont work with the 21 inch wheel, so used a wheel sensor magnet with a generic computer for Speedo, ODO
5. Pro Taper CR high SE bars, MSR handguards
6. Tank painted white and shrouds removed
7. Taper roller 32005 Bearings replacing the cup and cone ball bearings
8. Swingarm swapped from a 1986 Honda XR250R - increases wheel base by 40mm and reduced flex
9. Zedling Suspension (Pune) custome made rear shock for the XR250R swingarm
10. BBR big bore kit and CAMs, BS33 CV carb 118 Main jet, 20 Idle jet
11. Same old mega phone exhaust, the DB killer fell off in the event !
12. 1988 XR200 rear wheel and hubs along with Drum Brake backing plate with cam.

Built the bike with little to no time to prepare for a motorsport event, however, went ahead anyway with a "i don't give 2 shits attitude" - a poor decision in hindsight as I did not make it. Crashed badly and broke the bike badly enough to pull out on Day 1.

All in all, great experience. Not I can proudly say that i know the rules of chassis mechanics and a bit about how the kinematics and suspension work when we have one wheel behind the other. However, I had to spend the next day fixing what I broke and rode back from the India Baja in Jaisalmer all the way back home to Chennai over a month. Which if you ask me, was a good shakedown. Bikes great ! small glitches here and there, tiny niggles... lots of learning and more than happy to share if anyone else wants to do this to their bike, and make a radically different bike out of the Hero impulse.