Zia Rider Blog

After doing the GAK mod to my bike I have noticed that the crankcase breather likes to spit oil all over everything when doing lots of Interstate travel at 80+ MPH.  Its usually not so bad but if doing 4 or 500 miles or more it can start to drip down the side covers and generally make a mess along with building up lots of gunk under the tank and coating the outsides of the carbs.

This was my home grown attempt to fix that problem on the cheap.

Heres what I used, a few plumbing fixtures, another new filter, and a Jim Beam salt shaker can I had laying around and never threw out aka free!

Ignore those scrub pads, Do NOT USE SCRUB PADS.    Many types of scrub pads use fine embedded abrasives which could destroy your engine if they got introduced into the oil.  Since it is hard to determine which have them and which don’t its better not to take the risk.

I had to seal up the seams on my can to get it water tight.  it was able to hold a full cup of water overnight without spilling, hopefully that should do.

I did not have much room to work with so I have the air going in from the side and exiting through the top,  many of these catch can designs use a long internal tube for the line to the bike and a short internal tube for the line to the filter.  Either way will work, you mainly want to create a change in direction for the airflow inside to help separate the oil gases from the air.

I have this side connector cocked to the side for clearance under the tank.

Testing the fit, perfect.    The only problem with this location is you will eventually need to take the tank off to drain this can.  You could also use a longer line and attach your catch can where the AIS components used to be.

Instead of using scrub pads I used a lawn mower air filter.   Since this media is designed for air intakes to begin with it should be fine for the engine and help filter out the oil mist a little better.

Completed.

UPDATE:    This catch can worked beautifully for over a year but one day I noticed a few drips on my floorboards on the right side and sure enough it was coming from this catch can.  I pulled the tank to check if it was full but nope it was seeping through the seams in the can!  I hadn’t sealed it good enough.   I have removed this until I can find something else to use for the container, preferably something made in one piece with no seams.

The AIS or Air Induction 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.

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.

Continue reading V Star 650 AIS Removal

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.

Continue reading 1959 Austin Mini stone guard mod

New Lights

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.

Continue reading My Shiny Hiney – V Star Tail Lights