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reliability and spark plug advice

1K views 5 replies 2 participants last post by  Mvp_Me 
#1 ·
hay everyone! i have a few questions to ask. i just received my pc5, bmc race filter, and spark plugs. my questions is what should the plugs(NGK IMR9C-9H) be gapped at? also on thursday i took the bike in for suspension tuning and one of the guys told me that he loves the 954 but his buddy had a 929 and it blew, now i know the engine can blow due to many reasons but the mechanic was saying that 929s were basically grenades. He wasn't sure how reliable the 954 was but i ride hard and i want to know from you guys how solid are these motors if treated right.
 
#2 · (Edited)
the gap is .036" (0.9mm) they are pre gapped so you shouldnt hafta do a thing unless you pull the cardboard tube off n drop it or something. if you do go poking a gap feeler in there use a round one because the iridium chips very easy and the flat feelers with their sharp edges are an easy way to do just that.

oem honda air filters will make more power with or without any mods including slip-ons, full systems, pc with tune, velocity stacks. in every dyno run between oem, bmc, and k&n filters the oem out performs. just a heads up. sounds like your trying to squeeze some extra ponies out of it so thought you might like the info. i had the dyno charts showing the data but im not sure exactly what the eff i did with them. ill see if i can find them.

i dont really like to speculate on a bikes tendency to grenade as a whole because my personal experience wouldnt suggest that but my experience is pretty limited when pertaining to that particular bike. it sounds like your mechanic had "a" buddy that had one blow n i mean sure it possible but who knows based on one friend of a friends bad experience. hard saying what happened or how he treated the bike or what the situation was ya know. imo its a honda. nuff said. build quality is one of their strong points really. no bike is perfect n they all have good n bad points but in my experience honda engines are as bullet proof as they come. the 954 is n 929 block is the same the 954 is just bored over n has a different stroke n fi system. the 954 is an improvement over the 929, but still very similar. take care of it n keep up on the scheduled maintenance n itll do you right. if you ride all that hard id obviously keep a good semi synthetic oil changed ever few thousand miles n id bump the valve check up to 10-12 thousand miles instead of 16 just to keep it in spec.

the htev n flapper mod are worth while for a couple reason, one you have a pc n can tune it for wide open htev and just dump the servo. its one of a few small things that are a common fail point on the 929 n 954. another would be the fpr. another would be charging system components like the r/r and might buy a couple extra relays for the fuel pump n headlights. a few have had second gear problems but thats most likely to young newbs jumping on what is essentially a liter bike n learning how to shift gears on a bike for the first time.

treat it right n there is nothing wrong with riding it hard. its ment for that but keep in mind there is a right way to put your bike in kill mode and a wrong way which would be bad for any bike. when your pushing a bike hard there is a lot less room for error and requires much more finesse to keep from tearing it up. miss shifting n bouncing off the rev limiter or downshifting from 4th to second n hitting the rev limiter are bad but not many bikes will take that kinda work for long. im not saying thats you just illustrating the point that yes they are made to be rode hard but the design just doesnt leave a huge gray area for mistakes without damage.
 
#3 ·
wow! thanks for all the info, i really appreciate it. i have grown to love my 954 and it is a bigger project than i thought but with all the work im putting into her its like my child now. i will send back the bmc air filter this week, i have heard others say that the oem filter works best but when it comes to shopping i go a little overboard at times. when he told me that the 929 has a tendency to blow i was a little confused because for one, sport bikes are made to run hard and second honda is known for making good long lasting motors.
 
#4 ·
also i just remembered that i have a problem i cant solve. the rpm gauge is reading a little off. at idle it will read 2-2.5k rpm and if im running hard it will go to redline and pass that point. i tried adjusting the idle but that doesn't do the trick. any idea on what to do? i bought the bike from some kid that neglected it so i don't know the history on the bike.
 
#5 ·
well i mean sometimes that happens for who knows what but you do what you can. let it warm up before you go out cracking it full tilt, change the oil EVERY 3,000 miles or once a year at least if you dont ride much, n keep the coolant flushed every couple a years n its important to keep your valves in spec. stuff can still happen but i know several guys that use the 929 and 954 as an effective track weapon. a couple guys that race hard core on them. its not as fast as todays bikes but the 954 was the culmination of 10 years of tadao baba's fireblade geneous. its a bad ass bike. i like the 954 better than all but the newest 1000rr's.
 
#6 ·
I did the spark plugs and pc5 install and man she feels more responsive! when changing the old plugs they were loose and badly burnt so im glad i took the time to do this. as for the power commander i just installed it at my friends house without a map on there, while i was riding home it felt smoother but it is a lot slower than before, this is most likely due to not putting a map on the unit at the time of install, it probably had the zero map on there which would explain it being slower. when i got home i put a map on there but i didn't test it out yet because it started to rain. hopefully when i ride later today ill feel a difference. I didn't put on the BMC filter because the stock one does just fine so ill be sending that back monday.
 
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