A Run Turn Brake module or RTB module is an easy addition for greater visibility and allows your motorcycle’s turn signals to operate like the tail lights in some older sports cars. They’ll stay on constantly at 1/2 or 3/4 power (running lights) and go to full brightness when you hit the brakes or use the turn signals. Many chopper guys with the super wide rear tires don’t have space for a traditional dedicated brake light and only have turn signals. Together with the addition of the RTB module the two turn signals work together as the brake lights.
NOTE: By law any rear running lights have to be red. If your turn signals are amber, you’ll need to fix that with red bulbs or red lenses. Mine were already red so I didn’t have to change anything.
Hopefully the additional lighting from the rear will make me a little more visible, especially when loaded down with a tour pack and all the luggage we’ll have during our up coming trip.
The AIS or Air Injection System on the Yamaha V Star 650 is designed to dilute the exhaust stream with fresh air to help burn unburned or incompletely burned fuel so the bike can pass emissions tests. Many cars have similar systems to get oxygen to the catalytic converters so the breakdown can happen. As far as I know the AIS has been on these bikes from the beginning and predate the later years where catalytic converters were put in the pipes and indeed other types of motorcycles had AIS or Pulse Air systems as BMW called it back into the late 70′s.
It seems to be the first thing people do with these systems when customizing their motorcycle is ripping them off and throwing them in the trash. Some of the reasons for this are simply to clean up the looks, and get rid of excess parts that could potentially fail and introduce air leaks. More importantly for people who install aftermarket pipes removing the AIS helps stop that annoying backfiring on deceleration, however, if it was tuned properly it wouldnt do that. If it was optimally tuned for your riding conditions from the factory it also wouldn’t need it, but bikes get shipped all over the world to many climates and altitudes so they have to use general settings that will work anywhere.
UPDATE: I have been reading some of the forum threads that have linked to this page and it appears to be possible to get better than stock emissions tests after the AIS is removed as long as the idle mix screws are adjusted and fine tuned. Like I said, If the bikes were better tuned it wouldnt need AIS to begin with.
There is also the theory that removing the AIS causes the bike to run cooler because it is burning extra unburnt fuel and generating more heat that it otherwise wouldn’t have. I can confirm by closely monitoring my crankcase temperature gauge that my motorcycle does seem to run about 5-7C cooler with the AIS gone, on the other hand, I also had been doing lots of carb tweaks that week and cant entirely attribute it to only the AIS.
I had heard about these Dynabeads on the CC&D and ADV forums and supposedly they were very good with no real complaints against them. I understand the physics behind them. If your tire is out of balance and say the weight moves it up then the beads will stay in place causing them to move down and counteract it, Newtons laws of motion. The videos are convincing also. I decided to try them with my new set of tires and got some more for my dad’s Father’s Day present.
Latest mod: Wire headlight stone guards off a 1959 Austin Mini.
I got this idea after my first trial run to try out the new pipes and check my overheating problem. Bike was doing well so my short trip down to Madrid turned into a longer trip down to the Greenside Cafe (highly recommended if you’re ever in the Cedar Crest area) where I parked next to an old Packard and the famous Bentley thats there regularly.
Classic Bentley in Cedar Crest
With the 2 into 1 pipes with flexible covers that remind me of the supercharged Duesenbergs, tri-bar headlight, the old school Goodson air cleaner and the ’39 Lincoln Zephyr tail lights, my bike is starting to develop its own style from that era. I love the way the headlights look on the Bentley, I thought wire guards just might work.
Got in my Goodson Air Cleaner from Rich at Shamrock Fabrication, it looks fantastic! I guess Dennis had been waiting on the polishers and these had been back ordered for a while.
There are some little casting marks and imperfections on the top half that could not be polished out, the bottom half is perfect. I would have preferred it to be reveresed so it wouldnt be as noticable but from a pace or two away I dont think its visable and gives it that hand done look. Maybe I should mount it upside down on the other side and keep the GAK air kit so it looks like an old Indian and really throw people off.
The faux vents on mine were polished out also and not blackened like in the pictures, possibly from them having to do extra polishing on this one. You can see how shiny the vents were in this pic, I forgot to take one before I started masking stuff off.
Bikes a little over a year old now, up to this point I’ve only done mostly bolt on parts with little modification to the stock bike. This was my first new vehicle I bought myself, I havent had the courage to start cutting her up. Its true what they say, once you start modding you never stop.
