New member here, 82 450 moddified.

[NightRunner]

hello guys and gals, first post so i figured id introduce with pics as most forum members love that. Ive had this bike for 8 years, been legal to ride it 6 and it only has 12k miles on it. these are the only pics ive got right now because i usually take pics of my truck and not my bike but after i get done theyll both be in the pics.

In the last week ive completely torn it apart and order several hundred in parts. everything but the engine and trans (had them built up over a year ago; 85hp)
the carbs are ported and jetted also, but this rebuild im doing new tires, chain f&r sprockets and lowering it 2". also new brakes f&r, and painted a few chipping chrome pieces. I swapped out the fork springs for less weighted ones so itll be softer in the turns lower too. ill be redoing my exhaust this week also. took off the factory muffs (despite several good runs with them) and will be focusing more on street cruising than speed now so ill be straight piping them with slant cut ends coated in high heat gloss black.

any way, heres my bike the way it sits right now as i wait for my parts to arrive.









some of you will prolly ask why and try to make a 450 run fast instead of getting a bigger bike, 2 reasons. one i already had this bike, and 2 it only weighs 370 lbs.
ive been clocked at over 145 mph before on this and that was before i installed the aftermarket clutch and custom gears. fastest run was a 13.1 at 113 had a little spin off the line so im sure id have made it into the 12's but after than run it started getting hot out.

this bike is ridiculously fun and great on gas so i dont plan to get rid of it. 

[popo303]

 

[ariwhiteboy]

  to the forum!  Looking forward to hearing more about your quest for speed! 

[flynavyj]

  My first bike was a CM400, loved that little bike. Would have also loved having the engine built to make a few more ponies, as the45ish she came with stock was a tad underpowered, but in all honesty, for my first bike that i was learning on, it was plenty enough to have killed me. Be safe, and have fun....can't wait to see some finished pictures, the forks and rear brake unit look pretty slick.

[detdrbuzzard]

hello nightrunner and welcome to NHF

[SirSeanSean]

  Looks like a fun project. The black looks tight. Are you going to go with a solid black for the gas tank too?

[NightRunner]

i havent decided on what color i want to go with for the body panels and tank. i want to paint it the same color as my truck (06 Ram Night Runner), its brilliant black metallic but itll cost me $300 just for the color coat because it has crushed pearls in it. but its almost identical to the Cosmic black that was original to the bike, just shinier.

[Laminar]

Ooo - looks like your caliper is hanging by the brake line, if so, that's a bad idea.

Besides that, I'm curious to hear exactly what you had done to squeeze that much power out of the little 450. Dyno tested?

[JB1290]

  to the NHF. Cool project you have there. It's unique because you just don't see anyone trying to hot rod a 450 NH. Looking forward to seeing more progress pics. 

[highwayjamin]

   To the group. 

[fishball]

Hi and welcome to the group Nightrunner.

[NightRunner]

Ooo - looks like your caliper is hanging by the brake line, if so, that's a bad idea.

Besides that, I'm curious to hear exactly what you had done to squeeze that much power out of the little 450. Dyno tested?

caliper is hanging by a bungie.

and to actually clear up that myth, car and truck calipers weigh alot more than a bike one, (mine weighs like 3 lbs) and that brake line is a steel reinforced spun-web kevlar line. holds up to 3000 psi. letting 3 lbs hang from it wont hurt it at all. but yes, it is actually hanging by a bungie because i had the brake line off of it for a bit.

it was dynoed, by buddy has one he uses for his harley rocker (195 hp with 35 shot of NO2) it banged out at 85 horse. the pistons are custom keith black duel dish and the intake has been ported and smoothed with oversized valves. ive got custom ground low end gears in it and stock ratio upper end ones.

as most of you prolly know engine parts are hard to find for these in the aftermarket world so everything has been custom made. ive done most of it but the pistons and porting i had contracted out.

[Laminar]

Got pics of the internals? Dyno plot? And 13.1 seems pretty slow, especially when the 420lb Nighthawk 550 with 20 fewer horsepower runs mid to low 12s.

[NightRunner]

yea, i thot it was slow for it too but i only got the one good shot the day i was at the track for my bike. the other run i was in my truck. A week later my clutch went out so im thinking it had to be slipping when i did my run.

as for the dyno plot. no. my buddy has yet to set up his system to plot and data log on a spreadsheet. all he has is 2 gauges on his laptop that show max tq and hp. (hes cheap) ive been trying to get him to let me go in on the rest of the software for it but hes been busy and hasnt had time to work with it.

I dropped off my engine when i had the internals made and installed and picked it up all back together and clean so i didnt get any pics. i had some pics of my gears but i cant seem to find them on my new computer. ill keep looking though. i know the rule. threads are worthless without pics. 

[Laminar]

How are you managing all of the additional heat?

[NightRunner]

i run redline full synthetic racing oil in it and ive never really had an issue with it overheating. ive used my digital thermometer on it after riding it for over an hour and it still doesnt get over 215, which is only 10 degrees hotter than it was before i started modifying it.

when im out to ride it im usually just cruising anyway, usually doesnt even see 4k on the tach. so it doesnt get too awful hot.

[Laminar]

As a very basic generalization, the energy contained in gasoline is divided up 33/33/33 - horsepower/heat/pumping losses. If you increased horsepower by 189%, then you did the same to the amount of heat the engine's producing.

An oil temperature gauge would be much more telling than a simple thermometer pointed somewhere at the engine.

[NightRunner]

thats not always true. the ignition creates a certain amount of heat from the spark of the fuel/air, the rest of the heat build-up in an engine is created from friction of internal parts. with less friction in an engine there will be less heat build-up from that leaving only the heat created from spark which in an internal combustion engine can only get to a certain temperature, which varies based on what the block and heads are constructed of. a cast block will stay at a higher temp that an aluminum one.

most aluminum blocks have a heat dispersion rate of .004 ks, which is less than 40% of that of a cast iron block. and theses are air cooled block numbers by the way. water cooled are much higher due to the fact the walls are thicker to strengthen then for the rapid heating and cooling the cold water introduced into the block can create.

the energy contained in fuel is solely based on the process and efficiency in which its used. thats why my 6200lb truck still gets 19 mpgs on the highway with just over 500 hp with 35" mud tires on it. and no its not a diesel. because it its optimized for the time of fuel i put in it and uses the most of it. unlike 90% of vehicles on the road.

i will agree that higher octane fuel has a higher ignition temp. but it also does a complete burn more rapidly. so if you were to go from 87 octane to 97 racing octane it would need a drastic ignition upgrade just to ignite the fuel BUT it would burn faster leaving more time between sparks to neutralize.  thus only raising the running temp a few degrees at most.

oh, and when i check my temp with my IR probe. i open the oil fill cap and point it down at the internal oil to get the most accurate temp.

[NightRunner]

oh, and update on my project. i just got the seat done, still waiting on my parts to come in tomorrow. i hope to have it all back together by saturday so i can get it re-tuned for the new gearing and have it ready to ride labor day weekend.   

my carbs are ported and jetted too so thats why i will have to retune them a bit. higher rpms in my cruising band limit the power in other gears.

[Laminar]

Looking forward to actual dyno plots. 

[jerjohn]

Welcome to the forum. Let us know when you got spare parts to sell! Nice bike

[andyfsr]

Ooo - looks like your caliper is hanging by the brake line, if so, that's a bad idea.

Besides that, I'm curious to hear exactly what you had done to squeeze that much power out of the little 450. Dyno tested?

caliper is hanging by a bungie.

and to actually clear up that myth, car and truck calipers weigh alot more than a bike one, (mine weighs like 3 lbs) and that brake line is a steel reinforced spun-web kevlar line. holds up to 3000 psi. letting 3 lbs hang from it wont hurt it at all. but yes, it is actually hanging by a bungie because i had the brake line off of it for a bit.

it was dynoed, by buddy has one he uses for his harley rocker (195 hp with 35 shot of NO2) it banged out at 85 horse. the pistons are custom keith black duel dish and the intake has been ported and smoothed with oversized valves. ive got custom ground low end gears in it and stock ratio upper end ones.

as most of you prolly know engine parts are hard to find for these in the aftermarket world so everything has been custom made. ive done most of it but the pistons and porting i had contracted out.

Hey I am new to the forum but really liked this one-I has an 82 450 that I bored and stroked way back in 84.  I do not know what rods we used, I do know the pistons were by Powell(?) we sent them the rods and cylinders. Custom pipes etc head work done at some flow place in Pomona Ca.  Anyway bike was wicked fast and 12 second 1/4 miles were common.  Clutch had to be be replaced often, due to abuse mostly.  Bike ended up with a busted crank.  I sold bike and it came back to our shop a while later with the dead crank. But was fun while it was alive.   Oh and we replaced the front forks with 650 units so I could run dual disks up front.
your post brought back some fun memories