[Maiku]

Talking to a guy from pimpgauges about making some indiglo gauges for a 500. He wants to know the difference between the 250 and 500... I have a 500, so I know what that's like... Anyone that knows or has a pic of the 250 gauges, please let me know. Thanks.

 

[rlovrin1]

Just looked at the parts diagram on www.buykawasaki.com for the Ninja 250R and the Ninja 500R. All of the gauges have different part numbers between the two bikes. I think the gauges have different max speeds and def different redlines.

 

[Curt]

Here's a pic of my Ninja 250 gauges. Sorry for the dust, but the bike's been in the garage all winter (will that snow EVER melt?)
Curt

 

[Maiku]

250 gauges

Thanks for the pic!

 

[KUNG FUsion]

Curt, you've got to get that thing on the road and blow some of that dust off. How long until riding weather in your area? It's suppose to get in the low 60's here in southern Ohio this weekend, guess you know what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon!

 

[Curt]

Curt, you've got to get that thing on the road and blow some of that dust off. How long until riding weather in your area? It's suppose to get in the low 60's here in southern Ohio this weekend, guess you know what I'll be doing tomorrow afternoon!

I know, I know. We've had some nice days already, but when melting snow runs into the street, it has a bad habit of re-freezing. A lot of the streets are dry now (but still sandy). Some are wet with streaks of ice. We'll get some good days between now and April, and plenty more after that. The piled up snow at intersections is melting nicely, so we can see oncoming traffic now. Two years ago we got dumped on pretty good in late April. It was over a foot of snow as I recall.

We're supposed to get a high of 43 on Monday. That will help a lot. But there's more snow coming Tuesday and Wednesday. Dang. Well, May is on the way, and we rarely get snow in May. Like you've heard me say before, summers here are drop dead gorgeous, especially when they fall on a weekend.

Maybe I'll run a rag over the bike and do some more projects on it. I love your stainless mufflers, by the way. Did you do both sides? I've been thinking about doing that, too, perhaps with polished aluminum. I'm planning to paint the exhaust pipes first. I hope to do that part this week. And I'm working on that helmet intercom. I have some parts for a prototype. And I need to get going on that body/engine lighting, too. So much to do!

I think my car is getting jealous. I'm afraid she might start misbehaving just to get my attention. I'll do a little on her this week, too.
Curt

 

[KUNG FUsion]

It hit 65 degrees here today, perfect riding weather! I logged about 120 miles this afternoon. Man I love my Ninja, the perfect size for riding those curvey country highways.

Curt, those stainless steel exhaust covers aren't finnished yet. I just tried one to see how it would look. My plan is to perfect it and do them this spring. It looks great by the way.

So what have you got up your sleeve for your intercom setup?

Hope you have an early spring! You're going to have a blast!

 

[Curt]

Intercom ideas

There's no intercom up my sleeve, but there is one in my head.

I'm planning to use an LM358 (a single op amp) to drive each half of the intercom. I'll install mics and speakers in the helmets. I'm planning to set it up as a full-duplex always on system. I hate voice activation because it's always so slow to respond. The helmets will have a DIN or RJ11 jack, and the cable will be coiled with a right angle connector at the helmet. The other end will connect to a jack mounted in the fairings (one front, one rear), and the LM358's will be hidden under the fairings. The system will run off filtered Ninja power, so I won't need batteries.

If you understand everything in the last paragraph, you are an electronics nerd. Let me get you an honorary pocket protector.

I now have enough parts to build a prototype, but I haven't yet ordered the DIN jacks and plugs and coiled cable. It may be a while before I'm finished with this.

I decided to try to build a system rather than use Chatterbox or something similar. That way I could get exactly what I want. One important feature for me will be "no batteries." I'd hate to lose power on the Chatterbox half way through a ride.
Curt

 

[KUNG FUsion]

Curt, I am VERY interested in your intercom plans. Please keep me posted on your progress. My e-mail address is [email protected]

 

[Curt]

I'll keep you posted.

That 43 degrees that I mentioned earlier never showed up. But at least we've had some days above freezing. Before that we had 31 straight days with a high of less than 32. And we're supposed to get another 6 to 8 inches of snow tonight.

But I did put 0.3 miles on the bike running laps in the garage. And we'll get some nice days soon.
Curt