Unofficial Honda FIT Forums - Got to play with another Honda today

A buddy of mine stopped by unannounced with a case of beer and his bike, a 2007 Honda Shadow 600cc. Apparently some maintainence needed to be done and the beer was a bribe but to sweeten the deal he would let me borrow it to ride to work for the week since he would be out of town.

A couple conditions were put on this: "it has to sound meaner, run better and go faster, just bring me receipts.. no boost."

First thing I did was take a hole saw to the baffles, removed the stock airbox and crank case breather and the PAIR emissions canister.

Then ran to a buddys shop and picked up some new much bigger jets, float and an adjustable collar main jet needle.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/3896/shadow6.png

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/4421/shadow4.png

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9950/shadow5.png

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/4817/shadow7.png

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/9489/shadow8.png

For reference the stock needle for low altitude post-1998 Shadow 600 single carbs is somewhere in the range of ~DJ118. "Stage 1" kits from groups like Cobra come with ~DJ122 main jet.

http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/9184/shadow1v.png

I used the 3rd ring one the new needle collar and a DJ130 "Stage 3+" size main jet :D

About an hour of putting around and tuning the accelerator pump, mixture screws, pilot and jets for low, mid range and top end.. part throttle and low speed were smoothed out, mid-range and even free-rev throttle response much sharper and the top end pulls like we picked up 20% more power and the g-meter confirms this.

Stock they put down 30whp @ 7100rpm, I'd like to put it on a dynoe, but it performs as though it picked up 5-7whp based on the change in acceleration when calculated against the gross weight of the bike and myself. All up top of course because we opened up the super restrictive exhaust and factory airbox. Power curve seems identical under 3k rpm...

Needless to say, this made for a great St. Patricks day. Never wouldve thought I'd be riding a motorcycle in Chicago in mid-March. Hopefully the 80*F weather keeps up for the rest of the week shes in my possession!