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By Lynx, on November 7th, 2009
By Lynx, on November 7th, 2009  Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church moved from Rodney, Mississippi On our way to Vicksburg from Natchez Trace Parkway we saw a tiny sign for a civil war museum. The Grand Gulf Military Park was a pretty cool place, many original earthen fortifications were still in place. They have quite a few interesting artifacts from the area. Most of it is Civil War related but theres everything from mastodon bones to Indian tools to a bootleggers submarine too. Its definitely off the beaten path, its a ways down a narrow 2 lane road deep into the woods that feels like you must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. There was also these odd roadsign markers in tenths of a mile measurements that I eventually figured out were distance markers from a nuclear power plant hidden back in there too, yikes! I dont know what I was worried about, I lived in Los Alamos and think the Trinity Site is a cool place to visit, we already glow in the dark.
If passing through the area check it out:
Located eight miles northwest of Port Gibson, Mississippi off Highway 61, this 400 acre landmark is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and includes Fort Cobun and Fort Wade, the Grand Gulf Cemetery, a museum, campgrounds, picnic areas, hiking trails, an observation tower, and several restored buildings dating back to Grand Gulf’s heyday.
– www.grandgulfpark.state.ms.us
(I’ll put up these new July Trip posts here for a while, then backdate them to July where they belong when they fall off the first page)
Continue reading Day 8 – Grand Gulf Military Park
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By Lynx, on October 20th, 2009 
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.
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.
Continue reading V Star 650 AIS Removal
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By Lynx, on October 10th, 2009 
I mentioned earlier that Vaughn and Encino were pretty cool towns to photograph. I snapped a few photos out the window of the car on my way through to visit my bud Lalo who’s recovering from a bad motorcycle wreck. Again in a hurry I didn’t get to stop for long, maybe in the future when I’m not in a rush I can look around off the main streets for some other cool shots.
Continue reading Vaughn, NM
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By Lynx, on October 4th, 2009 
Was an absolutely beautiful day today. I spent the morning putting the bike back together and headed up the mountain to check out the fall colors and de-stress. The weather was perfect! Not too cold, not too hot. The sun was out with outstanding lighting.
I guess many others had the same idea as the roads were packed with cars and a fair number of bikes too. All were enjoying themselves. Got a few thumbs up from a few of the other motorists too, it felt good to be out.
Continue reading Fall Colors
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By Lynx, on October 3rd, 2009 
Oh No! Another bike tear down. My landlords must just love me.
Task at hand today is just to clean everything off somewhat, check the wiring and cables and inspect for any other unknown issues to get a better idea of what work lies ahead and what I’ve gotten myself into.
Continue reading Airhead Cleanup
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By Lynx, on September 21st, 2009 
Slinging mud, rocks, bikes, knobby tires and the smell of two strokes, I’ve never been to a hill climb competition before but it sounds like fun to watch. I was disappointed during the spring rally when there was a hill climb event scheduled at the Travel Center and it was canceled due to weather and that the course was never built. There was some issue with getting permission to cut down a tree.
This time had similar controversy. The tribe had agreed to the event long in advance and they were going to build the course. Then they backed out then agreed to do it again then backed out again. The course wasn’t actually built until Friday afternoon, the day before the event was scheduled. Up to a half hour before things got started a half dozen guys were still throwing the largest of the rocks off to the side.
Continue reading Ruidoso Hill Climb
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By Lynx, on September 20th, 2009 These are some of the pics of one of the groups of Mexican police at the Ruidoso Golden Aspen Rally over the weekend, I think there was about 25-30 of them. Former president Fox was also in the state, so they may have come up to the rally first and then went further north to escort him.
They were mostly all on very old Harleys, a few with some cool mods, with a few Goldwings, and Yamahas thrown in. It was a real hodgepodge of a fleet, it wouldn’t surprise me if these are the actual ones used in regular duty.
Continue reading Mexican Federale Police Bikes
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By Lynx, on September 19th, 2009 
Its that time again, another Ruidoso Rally. Just random pics I took over the weekend that I liked.
Continue reading Ruidoso Golden Aspen Rally 2009
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By Lynx, on September 12th, 2009 
Heres the reason for ditching the V Star at my parents house on the way back home last weekend. I needed something to tow a trailer so I could pick up a new bike!
Here she is a 1976 BMW R90/6. I found the owner on ADVrider.com from a thread where I only half jokingly said I was looking for an airhead to work on and he said he had one. He was in Kansas and I’m in New Mexico, so a month later and we met up in Walsenburg, CO to do the deal. I would have liked to have found an R90S model with the dual disks better carbs and lots of stock performance mods. But for me intending on eventually converting this to a cafe style bike down the road I think its better to start from a plain R90 so the BMW purists dont scream as yet another collectible S model disappears.
The bike came as you see it, in what appears to be good condition with mostly some cosmetic flaws and mostly sound mechanicals. There are a few issues here and there, and more that I’ll find as I go through a rebuild like any bike of this age is sure to have. It came with both fairings, the hard bags, passenger back rest and a big box of parts. I think I got a good deal.
Continue reading 1976 BMW R90/6
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