Hot-rod R65s....

[dewjantim]

Before buying my R65LS I did a lot of research. It seems , according to what I dug up, that the 650 cc engine doesn't take well to hot-rodding. If they are pumped up very much it seems as though they only last about 30,000 miles. Have any of you performed hop-up tricks on your R65s. If so, what are they and how are they working out......Dew.

[Jon_P]

i have heard the same things, and to be honest i like mine the way it is. if i want something that has some real grunt and go i would go get a older jap 4 cylinder. these have what a total for 50 ponies? not much for playing around.

[Ed Miller]

If I would quit lifting weights and drinking beer I could probably drop 20 pounds.

[Lowen]

The big bore kit for the R65 is the thing to stay away from. Aftermarket exaust and air filters to let the bike breathe easier are fine so is having the heads polished. You can also change out the final drive to give the bike more top/bottom end as desired.

[steve hawkins]

I have heard and written about this at length, various tuners local to me - who will quite happily tune up an R65 to a larger capacity (eg up 800cc), higher compression ratio, differnet cam, twin plugs, gas flowing, mikunis etc.  All of them are respected tuners (Jim Cray in Kent, Defazio in Frome and Andrew Sexton in Warwickshire)  None of these tuners have any issue with tuning R65's and they all do it slightly differently.  They all guarrantee their work, to a point.  The crank is as strong in an R65 as any other boxer.

However, best results are attained with a post 81 engines with all alloy barrels.  And there is talk of the post 81 engines having better oilways in the crank area.  How true this is, I do no know having never pulled mine out to compare.

However, somebody, somewhere, has had a bad experience and has been heavily quoted on the interweb.  So much so that it is now written in 'folklore' and every knows that you should never tune an R65 - but nobody can tell you why.

I have had a long conversation with a chap in Ireland (who I bought my wire wheels off) who had a souped up R65, and he said he had loads of fun with it, and no real issues.  But if you are riding them hard and tuning them for more performance, you are going to affect your reliability/longevity.  You never get something for nothing

But it is also done at a significant cost.  And you will have to have very deep pockets.  I made some serious enquiries and left it at that, £1000 for a 10-15% power hike, is serious bit of cash and all to but the bhp I should have at the crank, at the rear wheel.  Too rich for me, especially when you take the 'law of diminishing returns' into account.  I.e the next £1000 will only get me 5 bhp.

You will never make it as fast as a 1050 RS.

If you need to blow away R80's and R100's then creep up behind them and catch em whilst they are sleeping!

Cheers

Steve Hawkins

[thrang]

Why bother blowing an R65 mill? When you take cost in relation to performance increase its easier and cheeper to just shove an R80 motor in the chassis. Yes you have to mess about getting the exhausts to fit, but its not a difficult job.

If you want to hop up an R65 and keep the reliablity then go for a head polish and a little flow work on the inlet and exhausts, (what I did on the bimbo) but again the cost of getting that done was still more than buying a second hand R80 motor and fitting that!

[Ed Miller]

I don't think most R80s have any more power than R65s.  Now an R100S motor in an R65 frame might be a blast.

I agree with your main point, which is that a swap would be easier than souping up the little motor.  

[thrang]

You are right Ed, power wise the 80 isn't much more than a 65, but they do have more of a kick in the 60-80 mph range when you want to roll the power on when overtaking.

[Ed Miller]

You are right Ed, power wise the 80 isn't much more than a 65, but they do have more of a kick in the 60-80 mph range when you want to roll the power on when overtaking.

That would be nice.  That's where my Triumph can take the R65, it's like hang on for dear life.  I wonder if the difference isn't the gearing, rather than power.

[Bob_Roller]

If you want a faster bike than your stock R65, go out and buy one ! You can make an R65 look fast, and sound fast, but unless you install a larger engine, and want to deal with the problems that arise out of the transplant, you really can't make an R65 a fast bike. The R65 was designed as an entry level bike, capable of one up touring, good handling in the twisties, great around town commuter, and that's really about all it's ever going to be. I personally wouldn't put any money into an R65 to try to make it faster, pounding money down a bottomless hole in my opinion !

[Baffo]

Before buying my R65LS I did a lot of research. It seems , according to what I dug up, that the 650 cc engine doesn't take well to hot-rodding. If they are pumped up very much it seems as though they only last about 30,000 miles. Have any of you performed hop-up tricks on your R65s. If so, what are they and how are they working out......Dew.

I'm doing some on mine (R65GS see here http://suraklyn.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1164012590;start=all) and for reference I used http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/~jroche/road_rod.html and offcourse http://home.jps.net/~snowbum/techindex.htm. Having some experience in tickling bikes (see http://baffo.home.dyndns.org/) and seeing loads of others, I only go as far as getting factory specs for/at the crank to the rear wheel. So just a little bit here and there. After regular things as checking if all parts are in good working order (engine overhaul), mostly another exhaust, airfilter and sometimes a different ratio for the rear wheel. So, less top speed but getting there a lot quicker. And then there comes the (for me) almost obligatory upgrade to 17 inch rims... Mostly also with spring/shock upgrades.
In the end I get a bike which is LOADS of fun in the city, very aggressive in twisties, and can get you to the Northern Light and back because I didn't tune it too much and doesn't drink more than me or use too much oil. And yes I should let someone flow the heads. I'm still contemplating another camshaft and non CV carbs. But for now I'm still working on the 17 inches.