hey Brian just wanted to know where you got your vapor? and how much? I went to the website and tried to email them about the mounting kit but my email bounced. Any info appreciated

cheers

Garry

 

Hey Mav - I got mine from http://www.trailtech.net . It was $100.

http://www.trailtech.net/vapor.htm

For the bike-specific kits you want this link:

http://www.trailtech.net/motorcycle_...puter_kits.htm

A little over halfway down you find part number 75-501 for the KLX300. It comes with a handlebar mount but I didn't use it. I tucked it down in where my stock intruments were for protection. But it could be easily mounted on the handlebars I think.

 

Hey Mav we must have been looking at the same time cuz you posted this yesterday about 5 minutes before I was gonna. Anyhow I emailed Trail Tech too but mine didn't bounce, Nobrakes already answered your question but thought this additional info I recieved might be good to post. I like it when companies respond quickly, gives me that warm fuzzy that they care about the customer.... anyway here is what I got:

"Brian,
we do not have much experience with the 250s, however I did some looking into it and it looks to be similar to the klx 300 as far as the brake routing. We can't promise that it will work but I would recommend the klx300 kit and the 022-tm protector. As a side note if it does not work out we will refund your money.
Thanks,
Trail"

Thanks NOBRAKES for putting the info out there on your overheating bushwacking thread, I had never seen the system untill then and am very interested in it now. I am sure my wife cursing you right now for giving me ideas on how to spend more $$$.

 

Dazjr asked about a review and I'm just going to use Mav's thread for it here, seems better than starting a new thread.

Like I mentioned before, they actually sent me the wrong kit - I ordered the one for the KLX300 75-501, but they sent me the kit for the XR650. I phoned them up and talked to a nice fella who seemed familar with all the kit parts and said the only difference between the XR650 kit and the KLX300 kit was the size of the speedometer sensor. That is basically a sensor encased in hard black plastic at the end of a sturdy, well protected wire about 1/4" in diameter. He said the KLX300 sensor at the end was smaller and said I could try and make the XR650 one work, otherwise they would be happy to send me the correct one. I didn't really see the point in making them ship another one so I just used the XR650 sensor. After mounting the one for the XR650, I can't see how a smaller one would have been better anyway.

Here's the sensor mounted behind my fork protector (can't really see it here since it is behind the left protector) - I drilled three holes through the protector and the sensor mounting tab and fastened it on with a few bolts and split ring washers. Just to the left, tucked inside the hole in the rotor is the magnet that passes by and actuates the sensor. The magnet is in the head of a bolt and there's a nut on the other side. I ground the perimeter of the bolt head just a speck so that it would inset just a little inside the rotor hole. Otherwise it seemed to want to sit out a little bit and rub on the brake caliper mount.

...

Back side - I used a bit of red locktite on the nut.

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Here you can see a bit of the sensor head peeking out from behind the rotor and the wire running up along the fork protector beside the brake line. I drilled a couple of pair of holes along the protector leading up and used small zip ties of the same color as the protector to secure the wire in place. From the front, you can't tell they are even there unless you know where to look. Once past the protector, I switched to black zip ties and again, you have to look close to see there's another wire running up the fork. I used the exact same routing as the stock brake line.

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This is how the temperature sensor mounts - you cut about a 1 inch section out of one of the coolant lines and splice it back together using their provided coupling. The coupling has the sensor embedded in and it inserts down into the coolant path. It goes without saying that you need to drain the coolant to do this! The sensor wire was a little short (my only complaint). I cut the wire, and soldered and shrink wrapped in about a six inch section so the wire would have a little slack.

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I chose the hot side flow from engine to radiator so my unit measures closer to actual engine temperature. You could put in in the cool side flow from radiator to engine. Doesn't really matter, though. Either side will work, the fans will just appear to kick on at different temps is all.

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The RPM sensor is just a wire that you wrap 10 times round your spark plug wire. I used a few zip ties to hold it in place. The ground connects to the ground shared with the ignition coil.

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The unit itself can mount on the handlebar and it comes with a small plastic handlebar mount. But I never did particularly care for the stock gages, especially since my speedo was off by over 10%, so I just dispatched with the stock gages and made a custom mount for it to mount where the stock gages used to be. It nestles down in behind the front number plate pretty good and is well protected there.

...
...

You calibrate the speed by inputing your front tire size in millimeters. It wants the perimeter of your tire, i.e., how far it travels each revolution. I calibrated mine by watching the speed reported by my GPS and the speed reported by the Vapor, then based on the current tire size setting, use a little algebra to compute the new, correct, setting to make the speed match the GPS speed. The hardest part of this is going a constant speed. It's a lot harder than it sounds. The second hardest part is watching the GPS speed with one eye while watching the Vapor speed with the other eye, and using your remaining eye to watch the road.

For example, if your current tire size is set to 2110 mm, the GPS reads 43.5 MPH and the Vapor reads 44.8 MPG, the new correct tire size should be:

2110 / 44.8 = x / 43.5

x = 2110 * 43.5 / 44.8 = 2049 mm

Key that in and repeat until you are satisfied.

Mine now matches my GPS speed to 1/10th of an MPH. So if speed is correct, travel must be right, too. Also, if you change tires, this can affect the travel. You can now adjust for that where you can't with the stock gages. This might be especially handy for you folks doing a Supermoto conversion with much smaller front tires.

It's got two LEDs, yellow and red, that you can program to turn on when the coolant reaches a certain temp. I have the yellow come on at around 208 F which is about when the fan turns on, and the red turn on at around 230 which seems to be about when the stock overtemp indicator comes on. BTW, I preserved the stock indicators and remounted those beside the Vapor. I'll get some colored caps for them at some point.

RPM's are always displayed in a bar graph arc going from left to right similar to an analog meter. Use the front panel mode button to select between three main display screens and one of those modes the RPMs are displayed digitally. Speed is always displayed digitally in large numerals. Also, it has a built-in clock to display the time. It also keeps track of total run time like an hour meter that is not resettable which is useful for maintenance schedules. Similarly it has a permanent odometer function that also is not resettable. It does have a resettable and adjustable trip distance. It also has trip time that starts or stops automatically depending on whether the bike is moving or not. It displays ambient air temperature as well as maximums (max RPM, speed, coolant temp, etc).

One thing that I wish it had that it does not, is a second trip distance counter, i.e., Trip A and Trip B. I'd like to use one when I fill up, and the other for each ride. But there is only one.

Aside from the minor problems - too short wire for temp sensor, and no "Trip B," I like it a lot. It has some nice features, not too hard to install, very accurate speed and distance as opposed to the stock gauges, can be wired into your bike's power (required for the LED's to light) though it does have a replaceable coin cell that lasts for about a year otherwise, and has a backlight for night time use. The backlight stays on continuous if it is powered from your bike's battery. If powered only from the coin cell, I think the back light only comes on briefly when you press a button and then turns off to preserve power.

That's about it. I give it 4 out of 5 knobbies.

Cheers,



EDIT: pics are gone, bummer

 

Thanks again for your review. A+ as always. [sm=smiley20.gif]

 

It's too bad you can't program the odometer so you could match your stock gauges. Should you ever want to trade it in or sell it you might get some flack for not having the true mileage but from the sounds of things everyone here won't be parting with their rides anytime soon so....just a thought.

 

Heh Maverick,

Try these Aus sites.

http://www.ballards.cc/index.php?mod...ls&content=292

http://www.bikebiz.com.au/shop/enter...tml&lang=en-us

They might do the job. Not sure about temperature though.

 

Agreed. I did jot down my stock odometer mileage so I could know how many miles it really has. Another idea I've had is to put a small magnet on a motor shaft and just set it next to the odometer sensor until the odometer reads the correct mileage. I'll save that for a rainy weekend.

 

Brian thanks a million for that report, very comprehensive just like the 300 kit report [sm=groupwave.gif]

What tyre do you have on the front of your bike these days and if its the 603 what size did you use to calibrate the Vapor?

neilaction thanks for those sites, however they are the older Endurance speedo, I am after the Vapor

 

Yep the vapour is the one.

I like it so much it's going on the list.