Setting up a SV650
By: Jim Connors

It's important to keep in mind a couple things when you're building or changing a bike for your own use. Do listen...and don't listen.

I rode my friend's 99' SV 650 back in 99, and immediately knew I was going to own one...someday. It was the first year for the model, so I figured I would wait a year or two for the factory to work out the bigger bugs, and let the racers work out the performance mods that would win races...I knew the bike was going to win races. I owned a Duke 996 at the time, and was amazed that Suzuki could hit so close to the sweetheart V twin bullseye on the first shot. The bike had good steam, sang the good 90 degree song, had a nice smooth gearbox, and had more torque than I would expect from forty cubic inches. The suspension was about what I would expect from a bike designed to hit a budget, but not scary in corners, and the brakes were okay too.

I got a pile of bikes, and have owned about eleventeen piles of bikes in my forty some years of riding and restoring and building and collecting, so I thought I would wait and put the model on my watch list, so to speak. When Sazook came out with the S model, I thought it was a good idea...but they weren't bringing it to us in the U.S.A.. Someone who bought a Canadian model drove it to Mid Ohio from New York, and he was delighted with it. He let me drive it, and my interest rose.......actually started to Plot a trip to Windsor or Vancouver or somewhere.....but other bikes came my way and I got too busy.

I started reading about the little fella some more, and kinda noticed the raves from the owners, and the big tall blue trophies being carted off the tracks by the truckload...and no big failures from the thrashers and the squids and the seriously focused racers....you can't hide defects over time, and these are the guys (generically speaking) who bring the problems to the surface...quickly.

So OK I sez to meself it's time to get one a these little cutie pies and see what I can do with it to make it sing my own personal song. I snipe one on ebay that already had a Leo Vince titanium system, a cleaned up rear undertray, flush mounted turn signals, and frame sliders...the kid had to go back to college and needed the bucks....Having been there...I understood....good reason to sell. Now it's time to listen to what works on this bike....so I ended up on this delightful website. Lebenty zillion people had things to say about the bike, so I tried to cull the good stuff from the unfocused droolings and smart aliky posers....always a lengthly process...no matter the subject...stop me before I pontificate...OK! I'll STOP!

So I went to a 17.5 pilot..which is the stock Euro jet...much better! Then I fitted an 04 GSXR750 rear shock...a tight fit...had to put a piece of old truck tire against the battery, swing the tray rearward, and saw the seat hinge/battery holder clean off with a hacksaw...about ninety seconds..no sweat. MAN O Man!!!! We're talking GIGANTIC improvement in handling. I lost my little black plastic sidecover...wouldn't fit now...but it looked much better, and gave me access to the various adjustments possible with a state of the art rear shock. All good , no bad. Let's keep going on this little jewel I sez to meself this is workin out pretty good...Next I rip into the front end a little.......drilled and tapped the fork caps so I could add a little air if I want or just change the fork oil if I wanta experiment with different weights...all the easier to service anyway without having to goof around with the fork caps and front end lifting and meeting up with my old Swedish enemy Bjorn all the time. Flying motorcycle parts in the shop aint a good thing and don't ask me how I know..fuggitaboutit. Added a gold valve cartridge emulator and lengthened the fork spacer one inch, changed to 15 weight fork oil. BULLSEYE!

You guys keep in mind I have a 996 to stack it up against back to back so to speak......so I gotta add some steam to the little guy to match the tremendous handling I've tuned unto it now.....So I bump the main jets up one notch...just to 140s....Way Better!

Now I think I'm fat enough (carburetorically speaking) to take advantage of the Leo Vince system...getting mobetta every time I add fuel....going good. So now it's time to add more air so I can add more fuel...to make more steam....you know how this stuff goes. So I add a K&N air filter.....BAD NEWS!!! Turns my little sweetie pie into a ring dinger two strike flatter than a pancake PUNK under 5 grand....FUGGITABOUTIT. I suppose I could keep getting fatter on the jets until I tune it out, but I begin to realize that since the little guy now jumps the front into the air pretty good just under it's own power with stock gearing, and I'm already going about as comfortably fast on my little Sazook as I do on the Duke, what's going on with wanting more than that? Back on goes the stock air filter. So then I go for SMOOTH power delivery, since I do love silken smooth torque delivery. I do an old trick on the intakes that never fails...taking a tip from the best engine builder and innovator in the world...Yamaha. Maybe you old farts like me remember the Yamaha YICS system" It stands for Yamaha Induction Control System...basically a loaded intake plenum....already charged with newly atomized fuel molecules...just waiting to be called upon to be sucked into the combustion chamber and banged off....good idea I sez to meself I'll just pirate this idea and see what cooks out...literally. Cheapskate me goes to the auto parts store and buys about three feet of intake/fuel line, and one brass T....I cut equal lengths of the line and hookemup to the intake manifolds, then Tee off to the petcock.....makes vacuum synching a snap....hook up the old mercury sticks...dial it in....hookerup......MY O MY!!!!

It's so smooth with this YICS system now I can turn down the idle to 800 SMOOTH rpm and the little fella can compete with the bigboy Harleys in the coolguy idle rumble acoustical music category!! Neato mosquito I'm thinkin' this scooter is about done! Yup........with no flat spots...light..... parts for the guy practically falling outa trees wherever you go... nice and quiet in my residential neighborhood... I don't ask it to bark when I'm around non biking types... goodguy citizen Jimbo I guess....... but when I take it into my Darling Southern Indiana Hardwood Forest two lane blacktop playground it barks like a big dog and eats Duke 900s for breakfast and is the cutest little sweetie pie sleeper I think I've ever built and this old fart has built a few.

So that's all for now...but I keep messing with stuff until it can't possibly be ANY better, so I might rant and rave about something else later...as an old friend of mine used to say..."we'll see"......My bank account just got a little better too ..I sold my 996 Duke. Didn't need it any more. The Sazook....I need it.

Later,
Engine Jim