Honda Shadow 400

[Garang]

Why buy new one when u can get a 2nd hand one at a lot lower cost. 2 of our fellow riders are selling their Shadows due to upgrading. Namely me and Adriel la. hahahaha...But good lick for you quest anyway Garang. I was like that when first starting to look for a Shadow. Hunt everywhere man. From east to north to west I travelled. Crazy. But it was worth it.

 

Just wandering, how much difference is it to maintain a Shadow 400cc versus a 750/1100/1300/1800cc, essentially 2A vs 2.

 

As in what are the usual maintainance, Engine Oil (3 liter?, Spark Plug x02?, and such)

 

Cheers

Garang

[gohjohan]

Which language did you translate this from nights?

 

Johan, can u confirm this; your's shaft driven 750 is a single carburator right?

The chain driven Shadow 750 is dual-carb. Not sure much about the difference in these but i know one thing's for sure, you can't ride a shaft the way u ride a chain/belt.

 

I think nights is really riding the ride and talking the talk to be able to explain something like that

 

Yes, my Shadow Aero is single carb. No need to go and retune the carburettor's master and slave carbs to be in tune with each other I dunno how to ride a shaft drive and a chain/belt drive differently, but apparently, my pillions have commented that the Shadow Aero is a smoother ride than my other bike

[Ah Fai]

I think nights is really riding the ride and talking the talk to be able to explain something like that

 

Yes, my Shadow Aero is single carb. No need to go and retune the carburettor's master and slave carbs to be in tune with each other I dunno how to ride a shaft drive and a chain/belt drive differently, but apparently, my pillions have commented that the Shadow Aero is a smoother ride than my other bike

 

even on your Fatboy? haha~ Seems like the Honda 750 is also a great crusier, which shop can I have a look~?

[Ah Fai]

even on your Fatboy? haha~ Seems like the Honda 750 is also a great crusier, which shop can I have a look~?

 

Thanks gohjohan for your call, will check it out

[plasticblackspecs]

yea. I'm curious too. How would u ride a shaft differently from a chain/belt?

[adriel]

Correct me if i'm wrong..... Dun wack first two lower gears... the rest is the same i think.......

[gohjohan]

yea. I'm curious too. How would u ride a shaft differently from a chain/belt?

 

Correct me if i'm wrong..... Dun wack first two lower gears... the rest is the same i think.......

 

I dunno. I ride it as normal, as in I listen to the engine and change gear accordingly. But I think I rode the shaft driven bike the wrong way. I do have trouble changing the lower gears, sometimes.

[nights]

hi bros...

nights mentioned abt gear ration..

 

Gear ratio

1st 2.400

2nd 1.550

3rd 1.173

4th 0.960

5th 0.851

 

care to explain more? thanks

 

Here you go:

 

Reading Gear Ratios

Determining speed potential

 

By: James R. Davis

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

While reading my owner's manual a few days ago I came across a chart that listed my gear ratios in a section entitled: Power Transmission. It showed:

 

Primary reduction 1.708

Secondary reduction 0.973

Gear ratio, 1st 2.571

2nd 1.667

3rd 1.250

4th 1.000

OD 0.800

Final reduction 2.833

 

I also found that the engine in my bike redlines at 7,500 RPM and that my rear tire is a '150/90-15 74H'

 

From that information I was able to construct a pretty healthy understanding of shift points, speed ranges and maximum theoretical speed of the motorcycle. This article is designed to help you do the same with your own bike.

 

First, let's look at the power transmission. The primary and secondary reduction ratios mean that the revolutions made by your engine have been reduced by two sets of gears BEFORE it gets to your transmission. You must divide the engine's RPM by the product of these two ratios in order to determine how fast the input shaft to your transmission is turning.

 

For example, since the product you get by multiplying 1.708 and .973 is approximately 1.662, if the engine is making 2,000 RPM, then the input to your transmission is turning at the rate of 1,203 RPM (2,000/1.662).

 

The output of your transmission is then determined by what gear you are in. For example, if you are in 3rd gear, the output from your transmission is approximately 963 RPM (1,203/1.25).

 

And that output is reduced one more time by a set of gears in your rear-end so that the rear wheel will be spinning at the rate of approximately 340 RPM (963/2.833).

 

So? How fast your bike is moving at any particular engine RPM, I imagine, is what you are really interested in. That, of course, is a function of the radius of the rear wheel.

 

You could, if your bags were not in the way, simply measure from the center of your rear hub HORIZONTALLY to the tread to find the radius of the tire. (Note, this gets you a number close to the radius you would obtain from the information printed on the tire - and is accurate enough so long as you run with normal air pressure. If you run with low tire pressure then your tire will actually not be riding on the tread center-line at all but somewhere farther out. In other words, because of cambered design, the tread center-line will be sloughing against the pavement while the tire along the outside edges of the contact patch (which are closer to the hub of the wheel) will determine distance traveled.)

 

But from the information in your owner's manual you already have most of the information you need and, given normal air pressure in your tires, will be accurate enough to calculate speed from. The '-15' means that the rim the tire fits on has a diameter of 15 inches. The '150' means that the tire is 150 mm wide and the '90' means that its height is 90% of its width, giving a height from tread to bead of 135 mm. 135 mm is 5.31 inches. Thus, the radius of the rear tire is 5.31 inches plus 1/2 the wheel diameter of 15 inches, for a total of 12.81 inches.

 

From high school you remember a formula that determines circumference based on radius. You decide that you would rather ride a motorcycle instead of multiplying PI times twice the radius and converting the results from minutes and inches to miles and hours at this point in your life. So, I present you with a straight forward formula for converting engine RPM, final gear ratio and tire radius into MPH:

 

 

 

MPH = (Engine RPM * Radius) / (Final Gear Ratio * 168)

 

The 'Final Gear Ratio' is merely the product of all gear ratios involved. Thus, in our example it is 5.885 (1.708 * .973 * 1.25 * 2.833).

 

We can now use the formula:

 

MPH = (2,000 * 12.81) / (5.885 * 168)

MPH = 25,620 / 988.68

MPH = 25.91

 

At 2,000 RPM, in 3rd gear, your bike is moving at almost 26 MPH. It is just as easy to determine that if the engine were redlined (7,500 RPM) in 3rd gear your speed would be slightly more than 91 MPH.

 

The reason a tachometer is marked with a red band near its top end is that running your engine at those speeds yields a power falloff and may do damage to it! Further, your power curve tends to fall off as the engine RPM approaches redline. [You can damage your engine running it at lower than its redline - the redline is NOT a damage/no-damage point.] So, you are well advised to keep your engine RPM at less than about 80% of redline. In the case of my bike, that means at less than about 6,000 RPM.

 

Similarly, running an engine too slowly lugs it down because the power curve is not adequate there. Since most motorcycles idle at about 1,000 RPM, which is just barely sufficient to keep it from stalling, you know that you want to keep your motor running faster than that in order to accelerate. My preference follows the 80/20 rule. That is, just as I want to keep my engine running less than 80% of redline, I want to keep it running faster than 20% of redline while moving. That means that I want my engine running between 1,500 and 6,000 RPM except when out of gear.

 

Furthermore, it is my preference to try to keep the engine at 50% of my conservative redline. That is, at 50% of 6,000 RPM. At 3,000 RPM my engine should last forever. And, in the case of running in Overdrive, it is a high enough RPM that the power curve is sufficient to accelerate.

 

I leave it to the reader to take the formula I provided in order to determine the highest speed their bikes are theoretically capable of attaining. I might add, however, that the higher the gear, the less likely you are able to reach redline with your engine. But you should be able to reach my conservative redline (80%).

[gohjohan]

For cruisers without tachometers, it's going to be all feel for the engine and guess work? :confuse:

[nights]

That's what happen when reading too much of motorcycle magazines

 

 

 

oic, so they have a mix of single and 2 tone colours. I hope there's no price differences due to the extra layer of priming, lacquering and paint.

 

 

 

aiyo, nights, simple layman's English please

 

Well, the post was sort of a mixed translation and experiences I got it off from the official Honda Japan website which, I posted it in a rush without getting them organized. Now that I have the time, it should be much better to read them now.

[nights]

Which language did you translate this from nights?

 

I don’t lie brother. Part of the post was a direct translation I pull it off from the official Honda Japan website and now it has been re-organized and re-phase. Do give it another read.

[nights]

I think nights is really riding the ride and talking the talk to be able to explain something like that

 

I don’t deny the facts that I had test rode the 750 model before. Thus, the circumstantial lengthy translation paragraph does include an intimate blow-by-blow experience.

[nights]

yea. I'm curious too. How would u ride a shaft differently from a chain/belt?

 

Well, shaft-driven motorcycle is a lot less efficient. By pure observation, how much power can be put in with little results at the end exampling the extra grunting one need to do to get the motorcycle up a hill. Shaft-driven motorcycle at swing-arm length will influences the degree to which the rear suspension is loaded and unloaded during acceleration and deceleration. Thus, in reality, there aren’t any much differences in riding a shaft-driven from your chain/belt-driven motorcycle.

[Ah Fai]

Here is hot~ haha. hijack here a bit, even on Harley I think I lugs most of the time~ but because I don' have the technometer, I really is just guess by the sound of the engine~

[nights]

Here is hot~ haha. hijack here a bit, even on Harley I think I lugs most of the time~ but because I don' have the technometer, I really is just guess by the sound of the engine~

 

Of course! You don't need a tachometer to tell you when your V-Twin engine is making massive foot-pound of torque! This is just a simple notion of roll it on, the engine gets up and chugs.

[doyle_wolf]

me just came back from yishun dam.. juz saw a beige/green shadow with sidebox .. wonder if his from this forum , FP plate but cannot remenber number..haha juz waana say hi

[adriel]

is the rider a small chap...wif funky fading blue hair....if so...its blackplasticspec.

[plasticblackspecs]

OH it was you are doyle_wolf. Yea it was me. Was thinking who was that cos I member someone had a new white shadow but couldn't member who. Nice to see you there even though I was leaving.

[dreamwalk]

you all always hang out at the dam huh? even on a tuesday ?

[adriel]

alamak.... i got no bike!!!!!!

[gohjohan]

alamak.... i got no bike!!!!!!

 

You sold your bike already? Hope you got a good price for it.

[adriel]

ya i did....last friday before leaving for my trip to bali......

sold to a nice canadian gentleman..... i'm sure we'll see more of him.....

[plasticblackspecs]

you all always hang out at the dam huh? even on a tuesday ?

 

no la. Just happened to be with some friends in teh ara and we had no where to go so tapao food go there eat. But I dunno wat so fun about hanging out there. No toilet. Got so much flies. So far. So much "racing" and noises. Maybe go there make out only la. hahaha..

 

ya i did....last friday before leaving for my trip to bali......sold to a nice canadian gentleman..... i'm sure we'll see more of him.....

congrats on your new ride dude. You're now the proud owner of a Black Royal. Now you're forced to come for trips with us. hahaha..

[shadowclassic97]

ya i did....last friday before leaving for my trip to bali......

sold to a nice canadian gentleman..... i'm sure we'll see more of him.....

 

Congrats bro adriel on ur sales if not always upzz & upzzz. Hope to hear from u on ur new ride. :thumb:

 

Cheers bro.Ride Safe Be Safe Always. :angel:

[plasticblackspecs]

Congrats bro adriel on ur sales if not always upzz & upzzz. Hope to hear from u on ur new ride. :thumb:

 

Cheers bro.Ride Safe Be Safe Always. :angel:

 

Literally.