Hey Bikemanic, good to see your bike is up and running. It was nice meeting you that day. Not sure if you remember me, I am the one with the Blue Fiero, also done up by Joel. I know exactly what you feel when u ride. Congratulations. Welcome to the Club. Joel is a magician.

+1 to satyen.
I sort the fuelling and hence there is no leaning problem. It always runs the right AFR. I run over 12:1 compression on my street R15 and run normal pump gas. NOt even 91 octane, just the ordinary pump gas. However in case of some speed test, I fill high octane just to be sure.
My engine runs a very sensitive set-up and hence I change the fuelling if I'm travelling. I run a different tune at Bangalore and when I take it for a long abuse or for my frequent rides to chennai, I change the AFR again.

In case of Bikemanic's engine, I have set a very conservative (read - rich) fuelling to be sure its not starving at any point of the year. Elevation and temperature plays a very crucial role on modified engines.

yes bro i remember u the guy from vizag ya he is one magician need a little more magic

@joel
Thanks for the informative reply. When I get bored with my bike's performance, I sure know where to go

Ahem. Updates?

Hot Roding my Storm. Performance Build on my R15. Reviews at every stage.

Before I begin I'd like to say that during the week spent in Bangalore, a few hours a day at Ten10 I realized that while the response is low online for these kits. Offline more people are upgrading their bikes. 2 R15s were kitted up when my bike was brought in for the works. RTRs etc were waiting outside to be worked upon. I came across R15s with just 8K+ on the odo going in for upgrades. I feel Joel's work on my bike needed to be fully appreciated, therefore I've tried to write down all the important details from this build.

And I felt I shouldn't have waited too long to get this upgrade. Here's why...

I'll begin with the review of my bike with the custom big bore high-compression 165cc cylinder-piston kit setup + reworked head with Altered port Geometry and improved cylinder head flow. It's a little peaky setup and the headwork does add to the overall setup but low-end and mid-range is mostly credit to the big bore as I'll explain in little comparison with my friend Uday's bike later.

Engine Characteristics: It has a noticeable grunt and free revving engine compared to the Stock setup. It felt a bit vibey soon (just a characteristic of the big bore, not any real issue) after assembly but after a lot of running it's very smooth now. Switched to fully synth Agip 5w40 after run-in and it feels smoother than stock now. Gear shifts are smoother and precise and overall the bike has a character unmatched by any stock R15.

Engine Performance During Run-In:

1. 900kms of Engine Run-in (Only 500 required): It was completed on the SL grade Yamalube Mineral oil present in the engine which had already run 1854.8 kms + 900kms including 450kms of Bangalore city commutes and ride to Mangalore. Stock bike was consuming a bit of oil. 870kms of ride on the big bore to Mangalore + 30Kms before oil change, there was no further noticeable drop in oil level.
   
2. Low-End Torque: Significantly improved to the point where the bike didn't feel sluggish when fuel was filled to the brim + 75Kg Rider + gear and minimum of 25Kg+ luggage. I was asked to keep the revs below 6K during run-in and for once I followed what I was told In Bangalore city traffic I never felt the need to go beyond 5K. During my trip back home, atleast 60% of the journey was completed in 6th gear alone.
   
   It has given life to the 6th gear and dose of adrenalin at triple digit speeds. While still running-in the bike pulled easily from 3.5KRPM+ with 75kg rider + 87 kg pillion in 6th gear. There's not much to speak about low gears here because the bike revs so quickly to 6K rpm that you'll be continuously shifting up to avoid going past it as there's no need to ride the bike in lower gears. It has made life easier in the city traffic. Never crossed 85-90kph during run-in.
   

Engine Performance Post Run-In:

1. Initial: I drained the oil over the evening at home and assembled it and refilled it with Agip Fully Synth 5w40 around 11PM. Warmed up the engine for a 5-6kms. On an empty stretch and full throttle from 1-6 gears and I was having an adrenalin rush.
   
2. Revs: Bike revs strongly towards it's rev limiter. Being a slightly peaky setup a slight increase in acceleration was evident around 8.5K-9.5K rpm. It retains a strong pull low-end and top despite being a near-linear powerband. There's plenty of torque for every kind of use.
   
3. Acceleration: It accelerates very quickly. While testing late night, my friend and I decided to drag against his stock R15 with the rider weighing 24Kilos lesser than me from standing still start and poor shifting on my end and partly crouched my bike was neck to neck with the stock and started pulling away when reaching 100Kph in 4th after which we stopped. With my weight it's leaps and bounds quicker compared to a stock bike. How I wish i was some 15 kilos lighter
   
4. Top Speed: This was a revelation but I had low fuel in the bike so maybe that's adds to the lower weight but on a slight decline I was doing 131kph sitting fully upright on the bike and 125 kph on flat surface. It may not have a higher topspeed over stock but it certainly gets there very quickly. Need to check the speeds again as my chain was fully dry with some slack, my air pressure was off the mark and I need to have more fuel in the bike. But nevertheless the bike gets to speed and stays there with ease. I wanted a good touring setup which can have the bike stay in 6th gear easily doing 120+kph upright with my weight throughout the day and I got what i wanted.
   
   At this point I'd like to mention that the distance it takes to achieve these speeds is cut down. Cant tell exactly how much but atleast 15-20% Will do some more rounds of testing soon and post what the best this setup has done.
   

Fuel Efficiency: This was a shocker: During Running-in on a full tank I got Excellent FE in Bangalore heavy city traffic with lots of idling at signals. On my trip back home it went upto 48+kmpl. Now the tank is near-dry and therefore on a full tank it's nearly 50kmpl (My Fuel Reserve Trip reset after some 20Kms) with the last 40kms done with a wide open throttle. During my trip to Mangalore with my friend who was on the P180 I constantly kept checking my tank as my Fuel Indicator never dipped (switched off the bike several times to check if it would correct itself) as fast as it would on the stock setup.

For those of you wondering. My stock bike with 25854.8kms on the odo before upgrade gave me a poor 35.xkmpl enroute to Bangalore without crossing 100kph to Madikeri (~150kms) and after that a decent 110-115kph and about 6 top speeds runs to 130-134kph on proper decline. So for 90kph touring my FE is up by 27%. I saved up nearly 300 bucks on two tank fulls after the upgrade. FYI. I still have some fuel left in the bike, havent filled since monday morning when I was leaving Bangalore. Probably another 10-15kms more to go.

Joy Of Riding:

It's of prime importance to understand that the gains maybe 15-20% over stock but you gain A LOT MORE MENTALLY. The pleasure of riding your bike and the ease of it. My trip in B'lore city and back home, never had me open throttle beyond the 1/4th mark depending on the gear and need to accelerate quickly. Perhaps 5-15% throttle and the bike was raring to go in every gear to 6K rpm. What I spent in upgrading it Im already getting back in terms of savings on fuel. Stock setup was fuel efficient to a certain number of kms and even after 25K on the odo it used to give around 36-40kmpl with total FE conscious riding and touch 138-140kph in terms of top speed fully crouched only on proper declines but at speeds higher than 120kph the fuel efficiency was nothing to write home about. But this setup has turned the stock on it's head.

Uday's R15:

With big bore + stock exhaust: Low-end and midrange similar to my bike and a good top end whack (I've only ridden it in lower gears it felt like it would do good speeds and I'm told it does) Later when the exhaust was bolted on the bike it made it more punchy throughout the powerband.

Joel's custom exhaust weighs approx 1.2Kilos and is 5.xx kilos lighter than stock. In terms of weight alone you are making your bike go a little quicker and you can lift his custom exhaust with your pinky finger. It's that light. Quality build. It looks and sounds great. It's loud, but then it's supposed to be loud. It's a performance exhaust after all.

With the exhaust + Big bore kit Uday's bike I felt it revved up quicker and freely than my own bike (considering my r15 has a reworked head) and this was noticeable while riding his bike. His bike had run 3K-4K kms on the big bore before exhaust upgrade.

Reliability: Many of you might be wondering how reliable this might be. Joel has spoken a lot about it already. I'd like to mention that there's oversize pistons available so when it's time to change, plonk in the next oversize and run the bike. It will last a long of time. I've learnt how much abuse the R15s Stock crank and clutch can take during my stay in Bangalore so not worried about my setup's reliability.

Cost: PM Joel. It's nothing compared to what you get in return. Just a fraction of the cost of the whole bike. IMHO It's a TOTAL VFM setup. I will recommend everyone atleast the big bore kit.

I feel a little stupid for initially deciding to wait till 30K kms to go for an upgrade only because I have perfect service record on my bike. Anyways I've decided to continue working on my build whenever feasible. Some more upgrades will happen soon since the options are many. Until this build happened my bike's engine was never opened up for any kind of work. There's no point in feeling proud about the stock engine anymore. And after this there's no way I can revert to stock. It's just not good enough.

Perfect Street Setup: Big Bore + Custom Exhaust w/o DB killer. w/db killer kills the purpose of having a custom exhaust in the fist place.

Conclusion: The very minimum of big bore is the best thing you can do to improve your R15s overall performance and ride-ability. Everyone might not get an exclusive setup, regardless it's a very straightforward job which a good mech can do anywhere. Get the kit, bolt it on and RIDE. Any further upgrades will only make it more worthwhile. It comes at a fraction of the cost of your bike. Don't think twice about it!

Cheers,
KwokFist

P.S. I request the mods to open this thread and not merge it with Joel's thread even though I have the same post there. I will update this thread with info related to my bike alone at different stage of it's build.

Topic Approved

A whole lot of details over there

Seems like a worthwhile upgrade.

I might go in for the exhaust, but getting is couriered to delhi and then fitted by a local mechanic is not what I'd ideally want. Will come to bangalore personally with my bike as and when I feel the need for a performance upgrade.


Thanks a bunch for the detailed report. It will surely help the ones looking for getting something more out of their steeds to make a decision.

Thanks for the approval MG!

Arey it's such an easy job Parth. You can do it yourself at home man. If required I'll put up a DIY later when i get my exhaust. A mech will do it easliy. Big Bore Kit is what you should get first!

Thats a proper Review.

can you please put the timings??
without timings, its all guesswork

@Winzee: Thanks bro!


What timings? If you are talking with respect to the drag then there's no timing sheet to be presented. It was just two friends having some fun with their bikes and checking if the more powerful bike is indeed quick enough. Besides I don't have any v-box/testing equipment.

Regardless the bike's more powerful over the stock and is far more quicker throughout the rev-range. You don't need timings to tell you that. A single run in any gear on the bike will show you that it's quicker than stock. That's how good the stuff is on the bike. When i get the build to the stage I want to, I will post up a dyno graph.

If anyone wants to dyno a stock R15, feel free to go to Pacer Motors and do it for 1000Rs/Single Run. I will have something to compare with at later stages of my build.

Minor Update

Ran till the bike started choking under acceleration around 6K. Would have run some more but decided against it. It ran a good 579.2kms on 12 liters of fuel. Average now stands at a good 48.26 kms/Lt. This includes 40kms of Blore city traffic, 40kms of horrible Shiradi Ghats and ~40 kms of proper belting around on the R15 post the Run-in.

Did a short 133km trip to Manipal and back:

Could stay in 6th gear for most part of the ride. Even when the speeds dropped to 30-35kph I could pull away from 6th.

Speed: Top speed was 137kph and 135kph on two runs respectively on a fully flat stretch of road fully crouched. Couldn't check on declines owing to pockets of traffic and only managed to get two empty stretches where i could manage this. The best I had managed on my stock setup was 130-132 with some good tail wind. This is indeed very good. Chain has developed slack and needs to be adjusted.

FE:Didn't really check the FE. But despite being on full throttle in 6th to accelerate quickly from 60kph-80kph speeds to 130kph+ the bike returned excellent FE. I had exactly 4 liters of fuel in the bike and my round trip was ~133km. I ran another 22kms around the city before fueling up. Still had enough fuel to ride a little longer.

Coolant: I had topped up my coolant reservoir to the max when I had my radiator replaced for free (during the replacement drive) at 21000kms. The coolant level is more or less the same even after completing over 1150 kms with the big bore kit and total of 6000 kms. Coolant was drained from the radiator during setup but the reservoir was untouched. This is a good indicator that the engine isn't heating up more now.

Clutch: 27000kms done and not a sign of clutch slippage despite hard riding everday from 1000kms on the Odo. The engine's strong and therefore more upgrades will follow when $-feasible.

@kwokfist : A DIY of exhaust would be appreciated

7 years ago, folks on xbhp believed what they saw on the speedo was correct and swore by it. Then started the filter trend, where anybody assumed some 20% bump in power with a stupid cone filter. Then came the speedgun and sigma trend that we started in 2005 using top-speed runs and that became the norm of true speeds and everybody realised what true speeds were. Somewhere later, came the timing trend, which I started back in 2008 with v-box testing. Till then we would hear of all weird acceleration figures without any back-up. Now, I sure know the timing and have tested all these products very well before making it public. In any case, if it didnt beat the efforts of the factory provided engine kids, I would dare not make these public. Simply put, with a well-run-in bigbore alone, you can outclass your daytona kitted R15. Hope thats clear enough.
While the daytona kit costs 38k, this one is a mere tiny fraction of its cost.