Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

I still don't get Joel's complacency, a 57mm gasket will not be a direct fit for a 60mm or 62mm piston, I had this argument with him initially when I got my 1st kit, he said to me, that it would be no problem, absolute bollocks! I had the sewing machine sound, rechecked valve clearances and same sound, filled the gasket down and problem sorted. What I don't get is that gaskets for the head are and have been available easily for years in a multitude of sizes and to relieve compression he could of also supplied the correct thickness of block gasket. This and recommending the correct spark plug would have prevented a lot of failures. He could have also provided better ECU maps, supplied jets for carbs etc. after all in India, most of us do not have access to dyno's and searching for parts is excruciatingly painful.

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

@danny R15.....Your's is another sad story of the Parts Supplier's unscrupulous exploits.....he has no conscience, commitment,or Knowledge in this field. I feel sorry for the huge amount of monetary Loss you had suffered, and more so for the breach of trust you had on him...
The Two Gasket adjustment is something he had picked up from the "Fiero" thread where in I had recommended the same to help out a noob experimenting with a big bore kit....I never thought it would become a standard practice with him , since selection of proper Piston head shape would have easily sorted out this ...

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

F***k

were you so crazy to burn 250000 INR this way?? curious to know your profession? or is it parent's money? this RC guy needs some good treatment. I dont feel it joke, playing with others money and bike in the name of so called concepts... damn it.

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

BAHAHAHA PARENTS MANY XD. No noI photography and savings from I was 14 years old. The R15 was my baby. Now I have no cash left xD just my 220 and that's it I'm done. Maybe some motozone parts.

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Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

May be some motozone parts.. HUH
only with head porting too , u will be flying high..
If on low budget , as the first step just go for the head porting from MOTOZONE.
And the Mr. Vikram is best when it comes to pulsars..

P.S : flying high here doesnt means it would do 160 kmph or so.. it just means the power delivery and engine efficiency would improve by good margin..

Actually most people in this thread are tooned and it all started with tall claims like after TOONING ur bike will feel like mini rocket, but the tooner never said that the rocket would be flying for only a couple of thousand kms and then when it gets seizes you can very happily keep it at ur home as a showpiece..

So no tall claims here.. and afterall I M NOT MOTOZONE , BUT I AM A VERY HAPPY CUSTOMER FROM MOTOZONE..

What they did on my CBR250R, in simple words I can just say that this is what HEAD PORTING actually IS..
Specially , porting on a new head or on a stock head is different but correcting somebodys crap is not everybody's cup of tea..
AND HERE I WOULD LOVE SAY Mr.Vikram a BIG THANKS , he saved my money which was to be spent for a new CYLINDER HEAD and also THANKS [MENTION=32641]shv18[/MENTION] for guiding me to the right place also a lot of inputs were from My another helpful sir I.e [MENTION=26077]abhimanyu31[/MENTION], thank you all of you..
The loud tractor like motor now has a different sound with much smoothness and power..

I am sorry if I am sharing my short experience in a wrong thread..

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

Bro my mech is a genius I trust him, I'm taking my gaadi for the drag in Coimbatore wish me luck xD will be getting cdi and stuff from motozone so yeah but as its been said enough my budget is low Coz whatever cash I had is gone. Wait I shall upload a photo of the current state of my first love.

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Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18



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Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

[MENTION=59231]dannyR15[/MENTION] oh man your R15 V2.0 is in coma . Hope you recover quickly from that loss.

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Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

It is very unfortunate that you had to go through a tough ordeal and the financial toll has even surpassed mine... If i may, from a Noobs perspective, the overall cost you have borne so far could have easily allowed you to go for a 1st hand KTM Duke 390 (with some spares left) or by now/ a mint condition, barely run Ninja 250/300R, all bone stock and capable of hitting beyond 150 kmph very very quickly...

I sincerely hope you learned something valuable out of the experience and it has allowed you to understand the workings of an engine even better.

Like senior riders @aargee and @psr ji have mentioned many times earlier, "Going fast ain't cheap!!", i Hope Noobs who are not hot roders, will first calculate the cost to be incurred in the pursuit of increment of per BHP over stock bike's power output before taking a plunge into go fast kits.

Taking a quote from a fellow member the only thing i would like to say is: your friend is not happy and but a lucky customer that his kits are working fine on his FZ.

The whole theory of the "Tooned kits" going bad primarily because the installation being done locally instead of the Tooning House can be thrown out of the window thanks to the no. of official and true ownership experiences shared by the respective riders here where the kits were installed right at that workshop in blore; a place where the shoddy parts are experimented on your vehicle while you break your bank balance after every few hundred or thousand kms!

Thank you for your kind words..

But what you experienced first hand post head work was because this tuning house knows exactly what needs to be done in order to get the desired result.

STEP 1: The first thing Mr. Vikram did was welding back a lot of extra material inside the damaged CBR 250R's head's 2 inlet and 2 exhaust ports to "correct" the "ice cream scooping" done by our beloved Tooner: who has no knowledge about how things are a supposed to be done and he ended up actually making one inlet port larger than the other.

STEP 2: Next; Mr. Vikram started porting the head again and using Air Flow Bench equipment; measured the increment in the flow of the inlet and exhaust ports over stock and also the equipment allowed him to measure HPs gained over the stock in the process.

If i remember correctly Mr. Vikram had mentioned to you that one cannot expect greater no. in performance from that same head thanks to the earlier artwork done by the Tooner. And a lot of parts from your bike were also missing/were swapped by this gentlemen with his "race bikes" (This will include the OEM Shims and the air filter tray box as one of the few to be named). I was surprised with the amount of spares you had to get hold of in order to bring you beloved CBR back to her former glory and the engine now purring happily.

It is using correct tools like these and the necessary technical knowledge about how things are supposed to be done allowed Mr. Vikram to give you a satisfactory outcome if not more.. If i remember correctly, it took him over 3 days to get the headwork done properly and then install it back

For Noobs who have no idea about what i am talking about (head porting or air flow bench) and don't bother reading the earlier pages on this thread, visit this page: http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/general-...e-fz18-69.html and check out the video link on head porting done by a specialist on a Lotus Elise at Wheeler dealers TV show. The anchor and ace automotive engineer, Edd China has explained gas flow porting/head porting in a very simple manner and they have shown how a specialist shop uses Air Flow Bench system to measure the outcome of the same.


For the benefit of the readers I would also like to quote some interesting explanations on another thread written by a very senior rider and also a Super Moderator of xbhp @Old Fox sir hoping that it will allow the Noobs to understand the inner workings of their respective vehicles better:

Carburetted Vs Fuel Injected Engines:

"All right. First things first - The Carb and the FI are both fuel metering systems and that's where the commonality ends. Its like both I and Bruce Lee are human beings

The FI systems are about very precise fuel metering that is just not possible with a carb however close to the required specification it is made and however well set it is. Because a carb does not have the kind of metering flexibility built into it that an FI system has. A carb uses fixed size jets that allow a fixed amount of fuel for a certain throttle position. And a carb cannot atomize the fuel as well as the positive pressure fed FI systems do. This atomization (breaking up of the fuel stream into a fine vapor cloud) also leads to better combustion which in turn leads to better fuel economy and less environmental pollution. So in a nutshell an FI system is usually better than a carb - the qualifier 'usually' applies to rare occasions where a well set carb gave better control to the rider than a basic FI system did. Such rarity was not as a result of an exceptional carb but due to the primitive nature of the FI system. The 220 is one such case in point.

So much for comparing jack-fruit and oranges. Now to your basic question - the difference between open loop and closed loop FI systems. First a short informal premise on what FI systems are. All FI systems feed fuel in accordance of certain measured parameters of the engine vis a vis the amount of air being sucked in (the Mass Airflow Sensor), the engine RPM, the position of the throttle (Throttle Position Sensor), the position of the crankshaft (Crank Position sensor) and a few other apart from these. The ECM or the Engine Control Module has a microchip that has a 'fuel map' i.e. a table of values that relate the above mentioned parameters to the amount of fuel to be squirted into the combustion chamber. The 'amount' of fuel is actually usually the time duration of the squirt. For example for an engine at 1000 rpm with the throttle open at 79 deg, the fuel map allows for a 7.1 millisecond fuel burst.

Open loop systems are called so because the FI system does not get any feedback about how the fuel it had injected was burnt i.e. whether it was in excess or was less than the ideal. It just feeds fuel based on the results from various sensors and by relating them to a pre-fed fuel map. The difference between this and a carb? The FI system can change the amount of fuel being fed in variance with the variation in outside air temperature, density, humidity etc. In practical sense if you ride from here to Leh, with a carb you need to install a smaller jet to compensate for the lesser available oxygen in the air at high altitude. However the FI system will compensate for that automatically and feed progressively less fuel as you gain height.

Closed loop systems have an Oxygen sensor that tells it whether the amount of fuel fed was correct, less or more than needed. For petrol, the 'ideal' air to fuel ratio is 14.7:1. This ideal ratio is also called the stiochiometric ratio. In the real world there's actually some variation in this value because air happens to be 2/3rds Nitrogen, the fuel is not exactly just one hydrocarbon but a mix of quite a few different compounds. But all said and done, the Oxygen or the Lambda sensor tells the ECU whether the fuel was in the right ratio mainly by measuring the excess air factor (EAF) of the exhaust gases. The EAF is the ratio of the 'ideal' air/fuel ratio to the 'actual' air/fuel ratio. In fact a ratio of ratios! Going glassy-eyed already - hang on, there's more! You asked for it, didn't you?

If this ratio of ratios is a perfect 1 it means that the 'actual' air/fuel ratio is exactly 14.7:1. If less than 1 then there's more fuel than air i.e. the mixture is 'rich' (and you get less mileage), if more than 1 then the mixture is 'lean'. Closed loop systems are more sophisticated than open loop systems, require greater processing power from the installed chip in the ECM and so are more expensive"....

Explanation about Torque:

"The engine only produces torque. The turning force. The rotative force. Power is a unit of convenience invented by us to understand and compare engine potential and also what happens when we are past the peak torque RPM. Power is purely a mathematical concept with no physical status. Hard to believe when power is bandied about so much but thats where it stands. Power is as you correctly stated - torque times RPM. In simple terms this means - Increase torque at same RPM or increase RPM at same torque and you get more power....

The acceleration not just depends on torque but also on the gearing.

Drop a couple of teeth from the Duke 200 rear sprocket and I doubt if you'll get those sub-10 sec 0-100 kph timings. Same engine, same torque, same power - just the gearing is different. The gearing defines how quickly those RPM's increase. That 'rate of increase of RPM's is translatable to a rate of increase in torque and so power. So the quicker the RPM's build up, the faster will be the acceleration in absolute terms. Of course if the gearing is so low that you run out of available RPM's every 10 kph, then a comparable bike which gives an increase of say 30 kph for every shift will get to 100 quicker because you'll be wasting lots of time in shifting gears on the lower geared bike.

A simple adage defines the difference between torque and power - Power needs RPM's for its existence while torque is the beginning. Remember the mixer-grinder at home - peak torque at zero rpm! Torque is a turning force, a primal manifestation of energy while power is just a measure of convenience. You need 22 ft-lbs of torque to unscrew your bikes wheel nut and that torque value is breached the moment you feel the spanner turning. With the turning of the spanner was born the measure of power..."


1) What exactly happens inside a 4 stroke motor while in operation. Video sharing credit: rider @deejay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOksuRwfovw&feature=youtu.be

and




2) How fast an overhead camshaft has to work to allow the smooth intake and outflow of exhaust gases from the engine:



and on a BMW S1000RR superbike




I guess these videos will give the Noobs some idea about the synchronised dance that takes place inside our bike's engine away from our view while we happily putter along on the roads..


I hope we learned something new today..


Cheers,

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

Hi All,

A very interesting read here. Honestly I am surprised that so much negative criticism is happening to RC. I believed in joel and his work, but after reading this thread I am thinking other wise.

FYI to all, I am also a RC customer. I own a GS 150 which has been modded by RC. I will refrain from calling him tooner,tailor etc, so please don't mind.

My first Journey into hot rodding started around 2 years back. I bought my baby in 2011. Great bike and fun to ride. But after exactly one year, I wanted more. I wanted more power. The kind of acceleration jolt only a bike can give. My bike was lacking that. As a part of XBHP community, I came across RC and their work. I emailed them and asked if they do any work for the GS. I got a response saying they do. Also a fellow GS owner had recently got a mod done on his bike from RC. He had a "Cylinder head work" done on his bike. I contacted him and met him as he was in Bangalore too. We swapped bikes and rode it. I could see the difference easily. The throttle was very free and it would hit three figures quicker than my stock bike. I was hooked. Spoke to RC and asked them what they could do. They recommended big bore and cylinder head work as part of stage one upgrade..

Here I would like to state that I had no knowledge at that time about bore's, cylinder head work etc.(which in hind sight is very bad. One should always know what is happening. Don't we do extensive research and comparo before purchasing a mobile. I should have done the same, but ignorance and laziness prevented me.) I read reviews of other RC customers and all of them were positive. So I went for it blindly.

ROUND 1.(mid 2012)(odo reading approx 13k)
180CC BB
Cylinder head work

Gave my bike and cash and 2 days later I had my bike back. Apparently the stock bore was re-bored and cylinder head work was completed. I was wondering what had changed as nothing was visible to the naked eye. I was asked to run the bike in for 500 km and then come back to RC for another check before opening the throttle. I waited out the run in carefully following run in procedure.(at least the procedure I know.) During the run in period, I found that the throttle was very light and the bike wanted to rev a lot. I resisted temptation to open throttle fully and diligently followed the run in procedure.

At this time, I noticed that when I would open throttle slightly and close it in any gear there would be a kind of "phat, phat" sound from the exhaust. Reported this to RC and they said its ok. Its a carb jet issue. Run in the back and come here, Will put a bigger jet on the carb and it will be fixed.

After 550 km, I went back to RC and told them to check everything. My carb was opened and something was changed.(at this time I knew nothing of what was happening. I was told Jet was changed(or JETTING was performed). ) In hindsight, the pilot jet was changed to a bigger one. Once this was done, I was asked to rev the bike hard and go for a test run. This was the moment I was waiting for. Took it to an open stretch of highway and gunned it. Oh boy!! what a feeling. It was amazing. The acceleration was mind blowing. I was doing 0-60 in under 5 seconds and hitting 100 at around 12-13 seconds. It was pure bliss. One thing that remained was that "phat" sound from the exhaust. Came back from ride and reported to RC. They said that its normal, it happens on all bikes. Should not be a problem. At this time, they also said that for this upgrade to work properly, I need to install a bigger carb and better air filter to extract maximum gains. I didnt have the money for it then so I let it be.

Now Ride experience.

It was amazing. Honestly, I had no problems. Service was normal. Oil consumption was normal. Oil would get dirty quicker, but it was acceptable. Performance was good and I was happy with what I had. I would easily hit 3 figures on the bike and maintain it. Fuel consumption too was better than stock.

Post this, I rode the bike for around 5k Km. It worked like a charm. No problems or issues. But that "phat" sound was irritating.

Also, I started saving money for the bigger carb and air filter. I hoped that this would complete the package, and I would have a fast GS(maybe the fastest GS in India). Due to work, I would travel a lot leaving my bike to my brother.

Around 21k got first problem as such. There started a metal scraping metal sound.(kanch, kanch types) around 4k rpm. Called RC and reported. Also enquired about carb and FFE. Both were available, so thought of getting next round of upgrades as well.

ROUND 2. (Mid 2013) (odo reading approx 22K)
28MM mikuni carb
Air filter.
Bike Tune/fix noise

Happy with the performance, and hoping to get a bit more out of my bike, I went for the second update. I also wanted to the the FFE as well. But RC could not get it ready in time so I came away just with the above two items.


I was told the metal sound was a blown gasket and would be replaced/changed.

Ride experience.

Honestly, not much different from before. Slightly more free throttle, Better engine response and no more "phat" sound. Did speed runs, and found that there was slight change. 0-60 time was less than 4 seconds and 0-100 around 10-11 seconds. Bike's low end torque was reduced and it would knock and low speeds, something that was not happening before. No change in top speed. In fact, have not been able to hit the speeds I did after round 1. But I guess All ok so far.

Problems:
(initial)
Engine heating up.(expected)
Busted clutch cable thrice. Running on fourth now.(not sure if related.)
delayed cold start. Engine would not idle.
More recently(2-3 months) almost no engine oil. engine oil goes black after 3-5 days and almost nil after 10-15 days. My mechanic says there is problem with piston ring and engine has to be opened up. When oil is drained, hardly 100-200 ml comes out and is pitch black and sludgy. There is black residue in the exhaust which my mechanic says is because the oil is seeping into the cylinder and burning. Although there is no white smoke from exhaust. "phat" sound is back but much lower than before. Power has dropped and the bike struggles to hit 105 now. FE has dropped as well. I have to start the engine with choke and idle it for almost a minute, else when I open throttle the bike stops. Also when riding there is power loss in low gears/speeds, but in high rpm and speed I face no problems. I guess it has something to with the vacuum being generated in the carb.

Wondering what to do now. I have spoken to RC about the above issues. I have been told that carb needs re-jetting. Nothing on the oil part. Have to follow up with RC again.

I have written what I have gone through. For me the experience with RC has been ok. The reason I say this is because, I repeatedly enquired about the FFE for my bike, one day actually went and met them as well. I was advised that I should not spend on the FFE and should rather buy a bigger bike. For that I respect RC. They could have just taken my money and given me a FFE, but advised me against it.

I am trying to write as a average person today who would go for a mod. I have read up quite a lot on this thread and added to other things I have read on the internet. This is indeed a good knowledge bank for anyone who wants to mod their bike. Thank you for regulars who keep the thread clean and provide advice to everyone.

I think the problem today is that we(read youth) want to have fast bikes without having to spend the premium for it. For ex - someone buys a GS because it give them comfort and is a VFM bike, but then when they ride it, the find that its not fast enough. Every other bike on the road goes faster and over takes you. You get this thing in your head that you need a faster bike. Now we can't sell this bike or afford a new bike as parents will not allow it. So save money and go for performance mods because we think that its better to spend 10-20 k rather than spend 1-2 lakhs. This I think is the main reason why people still will go to tuners and modification experts to get their bikes worked on.

Can you please advice what do I do now. I am eyeing a CBR 250r. Although am tempted to wait for the CBR 300.

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

In less than 30k on the odo your bike is gone. You are ok with it?
There is a btoken piston image posted by abhimanyu31 in this thread. Your bike's piston would be looking similar.
The time and effort you have put in GS150 is sufficient to buy a rtr 180.

Previously, any 150 cc bike can overtake you. Now if I ask a splendour owner and you to bring a medicine from a nearby shop, he would be back before your bike hits the road(choke and engine warming as you said).
Get your bike rectified as low oil would sieze the engine anytime now.

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Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

Hi,

Bike ran 22k with the mods. Right now my odo stands at 34k approx. No I am not ok with it, but I dont want to curse and cry now. I did the mods without knowing long term consequence and have learned that better to stay stock and buy a bigger bike rather than mod a small engine. If modding, should know what is happening and what changes are being made and its effect. Most people don't do that.

My thinking before was like any other kid out there. Just want a bike that goes fast. Things have changed now I guess. I would want people to know that performance comes at a cost. Don't blindly do it and make the mistakes I made.

I would like to know reasons for low oil so I can get the bike rectified. Should I just go to SVC and tell them to revert everything to stock?

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

Thanks to shv18 for saving me, my money, Headaches, HeartBreaks..... back in 2012 had spoke to him, since he had a RC exhaust & he was impressed by the RC work & performance.
Later he confirmed, that he would be going full bonkers on his FZ-X project. (thought lets wait out & see how things go for him and then invest)

Meanwhile this is what the Tooner Quoted -


"Hi,

We gave the following parts for teh FZ to make it a pocket rocket.

The exhaust 7500 pls shipping 600
180cc bigbore kit - 6500
hi lift racing cam - 3500
replacement filter - 2200
clutch springs - 1500
larger 29mm carb - 3500 with jetting

Shipping charges are extra.


Exhaust will give u a bump of 15% and the bigbore will increase about the same 15% power and torque. Also expect a fuel efficiency bump of around 10%.

There are simple steps to follow,

Pls deposit the money in the account as mentioned below,

Name - Joel Joseph
A/c no - 00771610150523
Bank - HDFC bank
Branch - IT park
Bangalore
IFSC code - 0000077

Once done, pls send me a msg or inform me at 9886058653.
Also send me a mail mentioning your full name, address and contact info.

Joel "






A year & Half later....RIP RC, RIP FZ-X, RIP Money, RIP patience...and only repent. (Sunn rahaa hai na tu .....has been the favourite song for RC customers for the waiting period of the Junk Kits - Heck even RE wont be having such long waiting periods for delivering a whole Bike)

One of my friend from Kolkata also confirmed on the Sad Demise Of the RC Kit....(Boht suna mai tera...)

But I (we) sincerely thank him for guiding other members and sharing the knowledge.


REQUEST EVERY ONE TO PUT UP A STATUS on FB - Warning : Tooner Alert - RC and the link to this thread.
MSGS on Whatsapp too..


Its about time, if we cant slap a law suit or recover our money - Hell
We have the power to shut down his business. Spread the message. Save fellow community members.

Regards,
Rohan

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

The reasons are pictorially depicted in the piston images from two esteemed riders here. see here - http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/general-...e-fz18-75.html

How you get it rectified is your call.
[MENTION=38603]The Monk[/MENTION] - Thanks buddy for the edit. Was using mobile app and getting late for office. Thought of editing the quote myself once back.

Re: The POWERHOUSE Fz18

If you take time and read the thread from the beginning all the answers to your queries are already there. Coming straight to the point, if you have the stock parts still with you then revert to them asap. If not then you should go and buy a new block, piston set, engine mounting bolts and the new set of engine gaskets to revert to stock at the earliest. The piston rings have failed that's why your bike is consuming oil.

If you are running on stock carb then you will have to revert to the stock jet sizes which should be available at the SVC. If not then you will have to get hold of the stock carb. Since, you have already sighted lack of funds, it would be wise not to invest any further on these go fast kits and accept normal bike's speeds, FE and reliability.

2014, the Indian motorcycling industry is expected to witness a lot of launches including the speculated Pulsar 375cc motorcycle. Probably it would be wise to wait out for a while and then see which one suits your needs and the budget. You can then take a call whether to go with existing models like a CBR 250R or something else.


Cheers,