A few weekends ago I tackled some projects on the V-Star. It all started with wanting to get new hardbags. Since I wanted the hardbags low I needed new exhaust. Since I was going to put on a new exhaust I needed to re-jet the carb. You see how this goes. More details for you gearheads after the jump>

Apart from the normal maintenance items like changing all the oil and checking valve clearance, I installed an Oil Relocation Kit. One of the drawbacks to the design of this model and year V-Star is that you have to take the exhaust off every time you change the oil filter; a real PITA. There are many opinions about these oil relocation kits and the main criticism stems around the diameter of the oil hoses. In some cases people were saying that not enough oil moves through the filter. I haven’t had any problems with it and am satisfied so far. No leaks or performance problems of any kind.

After the oil relocation kit was put in place I tackled the exhaust. Here I decided to go with the Cobra Powerpro HP two-into-one pipes for a few reasons. 1: they sit very low on the bike; 2: these pipes put out some of the highest horsepower increases; 3: they sound bad ass! I did run into one problem though after I had the pipes installed. The rear brake fluid reservoir tank wouldn’t fit back in it’s original place due to pipe clearance. So, I reran new cable and relocated the reservoir the the rear of the bike right behind the battery. Problem solved!

The next challenge was properly jetting the carbs. The bike has a hypercharger on it which makes tuning very difficult. The amount of air the engine gets changes at different speeds so having a constant air/fuel mixture to measure against isn’t possible. After having to jet twice here are my final setting (I won’t go into the details on how I arrived at these):

• Stock needle
• 127.5-front cylinder/125-rear cylinder main jets (Mikuni)
• 117.5 pilot jets
• 2 shims on needle
• 3.25 turns out on PMS screw

My next mods are to add a batwing fairing and modify the airbox to make it a POD kit (aka give the engine as much air as it needs!). I’ll have to rejet again after the POD mod but I’m becoming a pro at getting the carbs off so don’t think it will present more than a few hours on the lift.

1. The speakers were installed internally behind the dash vent screens so it was hard to get good sound out of them
2. There was no easy way to control the volume (I got a little tired of rolling up to stop signs with the music BLASTING from having to turn it up so loud when riding, especially since right at that time some moody sad acoustic song would come on)

So with those things in mind I set out to install a new stereo system. Here’s what I did and how I did it.

My requirements were simple:

• Do it cheap
• Get the best sound as possible
• Keep it esthetically pleasing
• Install an knob style easy-to-use volume control
• Install a kill-switch for easy on-off operation

First on my list was to plan it out. You can buy motorcycle stereo kits these days that have remote volume controls on them, but I wanted one that was easier to operate, faster, and could be done while wearing thick gloves. The volume controls that come with these kits didn’t meet these requirements so I started doing some research. I really wanted to install a knob style volume control similar to a car stereo volume control for it’s speed and convenience.

My first though was to wire in a 10k dual-ganged potentiometer into the mix somewhere. My concerns with doing this were how well it would hold up over time. The soldered connections would be vulnerable to shaking, weather, and time. So I scrapped that idea and continued on.

Then, lo and behold, I found the perfect solution. The PAC LC-1 line controller. This little device is basically a potentiometer wired into RCA cables, but prefabricated in a little housing. These are normally used in car stereos to control the subwoofer. Perfect!

So with my plan now in place I ordered the parts. I already had a 50W amp installed in the travel compartment which was working fine so no need to order a new one. If you do need to order a complete kit, Shark makes some good ones and they sell kits like this, but don’t get suckered into buying the 250W package. The speakers are only 50W speakers so the 100W kit is all you need (50W x 50W = 100W). Since I had the amp I ordered 2 new Shark 50W speakers and the LC-1.

For the input cable I decided to scrap the headphone-out 3.5mm-to-RCA connector which the previous owner was using and instead use the line-out connector on the iPod. The line-out connector is considered a better source to use for preamp sound since it is constant and not sent through the iPod’s internal preamp volume controls. So, I ordered a new line-out-to-RCA cable adapter.

For the kill switch I bought a simple switch from Radio Shack and wired it into the power supply of the amp. I then mounted it up by the starter switch.

Installing the kill switch

Once I had all the parts installation began. The 1989 Elite 250 model came equipped with a parking brake which I never used. However, this little space in the fairing would fit the LC-1 volume control perfectly so I removed the parking brake. After fashioning a little housing I mounted the LC-1 into the fairing. Fit perfectly!

Installing the LC-1 into the 1989 Honda Elite 250

Next steps were to run the wires and dress them. After I had that completed it was time to test the system. I hooked it all up and voila! It worked perfectly as I had envisioned! The LC-1 easily controlled the volume and the speakers sounded great. With the test complete it was time to reassemble the fairing pieces and mount the speakers.

Dressing the cables

Testing the new setup

After some minor adjustments for sound and some adjustments to brace the speakers a little more, I had the system dialed. It has greatly improved the joy of riding. I can control the volume quickly as needed, turn the amp on and off with ease, and the sound is great. I’m starting to run out of things to do to make this scooter even better than before. I think at this point I am getting close to near perfection!

Stereo completed!

     This past weekend Alex, Page, and I drove out to my favorite camping spot in the Mojave Desert (and no, I cannot divulge it’s secret location). Before we left we stocked up on an interesting assortment of camp food: kippered herring, Spam with bacon, water, beans, chips, jerky, hot dogs, etc. We forgot some of the more important items: hot chocolate, cigars, Levi Garrett, marshmallows. As a side note: Spam with bacon may just be the ultimate camp food. If you’re going camping, buy a lot! The weather was great although it got a little cold at night. No beasts of nature attacked us and we didn’t suffer any injuries from plants or insects. Page was having a blast being a desert camp dog. She would follow us around and chase lizards. She also was enjoying digging in the dirt and getting nice and dusty. Ahh, the life of a dog! During the day we took some hiking treks around and also did some stone balancing (note: here is where the Levi or cigars would have come in handy). Another good trip on the books!

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.