Topic: Pod filter alternative

[Hutch]

Based on everything I've read, I'm convinced the air box is a necessity unless you are a carb whisperer. That said, has anyone tried mounting a pod or oval shaped filter to the air box and eliminating the air cleaner housing? I think this would be a happy medium between pods and all stock for those who are concerned with aesthetics, as well as freeing up some additional real estate. I want to explore this route but have to sort out which filter to use (still may adapt the stock air filter), and also determine how best to mount the filter only to the air box.

[Camrector]

It has been done with success by a few members. If you are trying to tune pods for your bike, I'd recommend different carbs. Cb750 carbs fit your cb650 and offer plenty of advantages. It's really not as hard as some make it out to be.

[scunny]

have been thinking about the same mod. At the moment I have pods on my 650, runs fantastic thru all the rev ranges, and then, in some conditions it falls flat on it's face when cruising, I mitigate this by applying some choke, but still not happy. I nominate you to be the tester of this.

[slikwilli420]

I'm running velocity stacks with a ram air sock filter on my racer. I need to get it running to tune it but it should work far better than pods.

[Lostboy Steve]

Isn't this basically what the k&n setups were back when they made them?


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[Scott S]

 K&N used to make an adapter. They show up on eBay from time to time. A friend 3D printed his own version and you could probably fab one up out of some aluminum plate and tubing.

 I had one on the STF2 bike and it worked great.

[CBGhia]

K&N used to make an adapter. They show up on eBay from time to time. A friend 3D printed his own version and you could probably fab one up out of some aluminum plate and tubing.

 I had one on the STF2 bike and it worked great.

I had one on my 550.  It was really awesome and easy to tune.  I could not see a good way to put it on the bike with the 650 engine in it.  Now it's sitting on the shelf. 

[Hutch]

I'm running velocity stacks with a ram air sock filter on my racer. I need to get it running to tune it but it should work far better than pods.

Don't velocity stacks cause the same problems as pods when mounted directly to CV carbs?

[Hutch]

K&N used to make an adapter. They show up on eBay from time to time. A friend 3D printed his own version and you could probably fab one up out of some aluminum plate and tubing.

 I had one on the STF2 bike and it worked great.

I had one on my 550.  It was really awesome and easy to tune.  I could not see a good way to put it on the bike with the 650 engine in it.  Now it's sitting on the shelf.

I plan on making an adapter, but I'm intrigued by the idea of velocity stacks with ram air sock filter provided this option doesn't require re-jetting.

[slikwilli420]

I'm running velocity stacks with a ram air sock filter on my racer. I need to get it running to tune it but it should work far better than pods.

Don't velocity stacks cause the same problems as pods when mounted directly to CV carbs?

No clue. Not running cv carbs.

[Hutch]

I finally was able to get an adapter made for the airbox to accept a large pod filter. The filter is a bit smaller than stock, I used a K&N RC-8100 Universal Clamp-On Air Filter (https://www.knfilters.com/search/product.aspx?prod=rc-8100). Since i don't have a TIG for welding stainless, a friend of a friend made it for me. It's not the neatest work, but it will do. I filed down the welds a bit for now, there is still more work to do.

[calj737]

Since i don't have a TIG for welding stainless, a friend of a friend made it for me.

grab a small spool of 308 wire for your MIG if that’s what you have. Works exactly the same and perfectly well when welding stainless.

[Hutch]

At the moment I have a modified HF 90 flux core welder, and its not working correctly.  To quote someone from another forum "I am a beginner/hobbyist welder. I bought the Harbor Freight 90A Flux Core welder  because I am cheap. I like to tinker with stuff. I was inspired by several posts related to upgrading this welder."

Mods / improvements include:

0.030" tip and Lincoln NR-211-Mp 0.030" flux wire
Better HF work lead clamp
Fan for cooling
DCEN
MALLORY HC5040 CAPACITOR 50VDC
3-Phase Diode Bridge Rectifier 150A Amp 1600V
Dedicated 220 circuit

It was welding fine for a bit, but now just leaves splatter.  It strikes and arc just fine, at least to my untrained eye.  I was practicing on some scrap and it went from laying an acceptable weld to not sticking at all!  I have to check the ground and the connection for the gun, beyond that I'm stumped.  I'm desperate to get it working again, I have a few tabs and brackets I need to add to the frame for various mounts (seat pan, battery box, etc.) and its holding back progress. 

[calj737]

Okay, let’s hijack your own thread from bikes to welding...

You listed DCEN as a modification? Flux core (self shielded) wants DCEN. Were you using DCEP before with the wire? That usually produces a ton of spatter.

Spatter is normally associated with:
Too high amps
Poor ground
Wrong polarity
Very dirty material

Does the weld look burned in?

[Hutch]

I'll do my best to answer...

You listed DCEN as a modification? Flux core (self shielded) wants DCEN. Were you using DCEP before with the wire? That usually produces a ton of spatter. Per the manual, the HF flux core welder is A/C ouput. In stock configuration the gun is always hot and the trigger only starts the wire feed.  I wont pretend to know what I'm talking about beyond that, I only attempted to follow the directions I found online to make the unit perform better. 

Spatter is normally associated with:
Too high amps There are only 2 settings, the max output is 120 amps, the minimum is 60 amps.
Poor ground I'll check the clamp again.  I did not clean the area where I attached the clamp.  I also welded (or attempted to) on a wooden table
Wrong polarity (see my rudimentary schematic below)
Very dirty material I cleaned the scale/rust from the area where I attempted to weld
Does the weld look burned in? I couldn't lay a weld, its spatter only at this point.

Let me correct the prior info I provided, its a 120V/20 amp dedicated circuit not 220.

Testing on 14 ga steel just practice laying a bead, although the welder is recommended for up to 18ga - does this matter?

Should the ground and gun be connected to the rectifier instead of the capacitor?  The capacitor is not actually marked with a + and -, what I have labeled as the plus had a red paint mark next to it from the manufacturer.

[calj737]

DCEN means Direct Current, Electrode Negative. In that configuration, the gun/torch/stinger is connected to the NEGATIVE port on your welder. Your diagram does show an intention to be DCEN. TIG and Flux Core are welded DCEN. MIG and Stick are DCEP (guess what the “P” is for  ).

Welding with thinner material than it’s limits should actually help, not hurt. The spatter is telling me either you have an absolute crap ground, or you have a circuitry problem. If there’s nothing but a boiling mess of spatter, you’ve got issues beyond simple wire connections.

Using a wooden table is fine, as long as the ground is connected to the work piece. You could try to clean the area where you clamp your ground to see if it improves your results.

You should be able to weld your sample metal on 60amps. 14ga and above (the higher the gauge the thinner the material) would definitely be used with 60 amps. Below 14, switch to 120.

“Gun angle”, CWD (Contact Work Distance, or the amount of wire sticking out and your distance to the work piece) and direction of travel all influence wire feed welders. Flux Core prefers a “push” direction, and it doesn’t tolerate your gun being too far from the work. I try to hold an angle of nearly 90* to the work, run about a 1/4” of wire from the gun, then weld forward and away from yourself (push). This produces the best results with Flux Core.

If you lay the gun more flat, have an inch of wire hanging out, and draw the gun to you, the weld will look like your grandma’s dog’s butt. You can weld “pull”with Flux Core, but it prefers a push angle.

MIG and Dual Shield are different.

So check a few of things above, and if you don’t get a different result, time to take the machine to a service store. Also, just curious, you are welding on steel and not aluminum, right? Flux Core will only work on carbon steel.

[Hutch]

I checked all the connections and the ground.  I noticed that the arc seems very week, here's what an attempt at a weld looks like:

[Jore]

Hey hutch I have a hf flux core welder that I modified about a year or two ago, change the ground clamp on it to something hefty, same deal if you add a cap to it, it has to be the biggest one you can get, I also added a choke coil on mine, but the biggest improvement besides those to my machine was modifying the pinch roller that feeds the wire to the machine, it's pretty simple actually, it's just a clamp with a skateboard wheel bearing on it from the looks of it, I went down to the local bearing distributor and asked for one that had the same inner diameter but 2-3 mm bigger on the outer, just changing that makes the wire feed speed more constant and you shouldn't be getting as bad welds, also clean you material before welding, take a wire brush to it and leave the metal shinny that improves on your final welds also.

[calj737]

It looks to me like your machine is running with the polarity reversed. You want DCEN and those welds, barring anything else being wrong, appear to be DCEP. But without watching you weld, and seeing your machine, no way to be sure 

[Hutch]

It looks to me like your machine is running with the polarity reversed. You want DCEN and those welds, barring anything else being wrong, appear to be DCEP. But without watching you weld, and seeing your machine, no way to be sure 

I'll bet that's it!  From my post with the diagram "The capacitor is not actually marked with a + and -, what I have labeled as the plus had a red paint mark next to it from the manufacturer".  I assumed the mark indicated a positive lead, after quick google search I found electrolytic capacitors are often marked with a stripe. That stripe indicates the NEGATIVE lead.

Hey hutch I have a hf flux core welder that I modified about a year or two ago, change the ground clamp on it to something hefty, same deal if you add a cap to it, it has to be the biggest one you can get, I also added a choke coil on mine, but the biggest improvement besides those to my machine was modifying the pinch roller that feeds the wire to the machine, it's pretty simple actually, it's just a clamp with a skateboard wheel bearing on it from the looks of it, I went down to the local bearing distributor and asked for one that had the same inner diameter but 2-3 mm bigger on the outer, just changing that makes the wire feed speed more constant and you shouldn't be getting as bad welds, also clean you material before welding, take a wire brush to it and leave the metal shinny that improves on your final welds also.

This is something I'd be interested in, can you post a pic?

[Jore]

I made my own rectifier after with 4 50 amp rectifiers ganged up after the one I got from ebay fried, it looks like this but with  4 modules instead of 6


Wiring is like this one, the only difference is that I have a choke coil on the positive output and then cap connected to the positive and negative leads, and i also didn't bother adding the 100 ohm resistor and the caps that go along with it:


I also added some bigger fans for better cooling

[calj737]

I hope you sort out your issues so you can get your machine to be usable. But I’d caution this; Flux Core as a process is not very well suited to working on your motorcycle. The material is very thin, and round in lots of places. Unless you downsize your wire to 0.024 and have some decent skills, you’ll blow right through anything on the bike you’re trying to weld. And the residual clean up from the slag/flux in certain areas will be a major pain in the arc!

If you can, at least grab a hard wire MIG box. The process is similar, you’ll run 75/25 gas, and you can use a variety of wire type, Er70, Silicon Bronze, Flux Core (dual shield) and you’ll net much better welds aesthetically. Flux Core is a very basic, industrial oriented process because it’s strong, fast, and can be used in aging position, any condition (indoor or outside).

Just my advice-