Headlight and 60+ mph questions

[Tristik]

~~
So, now that I've been getting more time and distance on my Blur, I have 2 questions/comments/or somethings:

1. I got caught out a ways from my house and the hour grew late. On the way home, I got to experience the headlight for the first time. Er, LoL Headlight? WTF is this thing? What can I do about it? I should have known when I saw a giant slab of the frame going down the middle of the headlight, but this thing is flat out dangerous. It looks like someone is trying to do a shadow puppet show through the lens and hardly shines further than 15 feet out from the bike. I definitely need to do something about this before I get my motorcycle endorsement 'cause there is no way I can drive this to work at night with that headlight. When I tried the brights they seemed to illuminate better, but why is there so much distortion in the beam?

2. Now that I'm past first service, I've gotten my bike up to speed a few times. I've gone on quite a few 55 mph roads and I can't go past 60 (indicated). I've gotten it up to 63 max on either declines or favorable winds. This speed is what I get at just under 7500 rpm's. If i try to push the bike past that, it shakes and vibrates so bad it feels like it's going to blow up. Is this a normal experience for Blur riders? Is there anything that can be done about it or should I just grin and bear it if I want to push past 60?

For reference, the bike is stock and I'm about 170 pounds.
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[kenbike]

I have only 400 miles on my Blur and agree the headlights are junk stock. Have not looked into options but will look into swapping bulbs for a bright white type of bulb of the same wattage.
If you get the bike up to max speed and back off the engine does the vibration reduce so it is from the motor or drive train? If you have a very out of balance tire it will cause very bad vibration. I don't think the wheels on a Blur are balanced. I would push the dealer to resolve or call Genuine and complain.

[Tristik]

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I've pushed it a little bit into that heavy vibration range and you can feel the power of the bike pushing more, but I haven't held it there for more than a second or two. Once you back off of that spot, it just slows back down to what it was at, but that seems pretty normal compared to other speed ranges.

The vibration doesn't feel like an unbalanced wheel. It doesn't have that kind of hopping feeling a bad tires gives you. It's just you can feel the bike vibrating like crazy in the seat like it's some kind of nitrous powered adult sex toy.

I don't know if it's because of the way CVT's work but this thing engine brakes likes crazy too. I don't usually need to use my brakes when I come to stop until the last 15 feet or so because closing the throttle slows down the bike so fast.
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[illnoise]

Headlight adjustment instructions (a few posts down)

topic5892.html

I've tried a SilverStar and another theoretically 'brighter' bulb and haven't noticed any big difference, but getting it adjusted right helps.

I tried some bigger/brighter LEDs to replace the marker lights and they look neat but don't help noticeably. But I know Ryan, who used to be an engineer at Genuine, found some sort of LEDs that were brighter than the original headlights.

In the city they still do seem a little useless, but I've also ridden at night in REAL darkness (middle of a forest with no moon) and they're brighter than I expected when they're not competing with other lights, you can see great, ha.

Bb

[chickdr]

~~
So, now that I've been getting more time and distance on my Blur, I have 2 questions/comments/or somethings:

1. I got caught out a ways from my house and the hour grew late. On the way home, I got to experience the headlight for the first time. Er, LoL Headlight? WTF is this thing? What can I do about it? I should have known when I saw a giant slab of the frame going down the middle of the headlight, but this thing is flat out dangerous. It looks like someone is trying to do a shadow puppet show through the lens and hardly shines further than 15 feet out from the bike. I definitely need to do something about this before I get my motorcycle endorsement 'cause there is no way I can drive this to work at night with that headlight. When I tried the brights they seemed to illuminate better, but why is there so much distortion in the beam?

2. Now that I'm past first service, I've gotten my bike up to speed a few times. I've gone on quite a few 55 mph roads and I can't go past 60 (indicated). I've gotten it up to 63 max on either declines or favorable winds. This speed is what I get at just under 7500 rpm's. If i try to push the bike past that, it shakes and vibrates so bad it feels like it's going to blow up. Is this a normal experience for Blur riders? Is there anything that can be done about it or should I just grin and bear it if I want to push past 60?

For reference, the bike is stock and I'm about 170 pounds.
~~

The top speed is underwhelming for sure. I have seen 67 on mine but if you push this speed for any length of time(10 miles) you will get the red engine overheating light and the scooter runs like crap until you turn it off to reset it(now I am trying to get the ECU reflash done to help with this). The "75 mph top speed" seems very optimistic to me. I am not very happy as it really isn't much faster than the 10hp TGB 150 I had been driving for 7 years before it. I am wishing I had bought a Honda CBR 250 or Ninja 250 at this point and may likely make the switch to one soon. Anyone want to buy a barely used Blur SS220i?

[Edwub]

Indicated top speed differs from actual top speed. People report that their indicated top speed is anywhere from 5 to 15% optimistic on Blur's. Seems to vary by unit.

You need to get a GPS unit or some other method to find out what your actual speed is.

[Rippinyarn]

It's too bad that we couldn't have switched Blurs during Amerivespa, as I'd like to experience this shaking that you have going on.

Mine does an indicated 83 all the time, and that's close enough to the advertised 75 that I'm really happy with the speed. Mine has almost 7000 miles on it.

I run Dynabeads in mine to cure all tire balancing and weird wear patterns. I've also switched to Michelin Pilot Sports and they are an improvement in grip if not wear so far.

I just switched to a Philips bulb that is apparently brighter, but yeah, during the daylight I can't tell much of a difference. I also replaced the little pilot bulbs in the cluster with some ebay ones and they look cool, but don't give off any additional illumination. They are much more blue than yellow tint, and that helps match the white of my scooter.

I also have a brake light flasher module and it works great. Highly recommended to improved reward visibility.

[Tristik]

It's too bad that we couldn't have switched Blurs during Amerivespa, as I'd like to experience this shaking that you have going on.

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Well, if you're like some others I've talked to here, you might have a specific spot in your RPM range where the bike gets heavy vibration. Mine does it at about 6900 rpms or so, but others say it's lower on theirs. Just above and below that spot is fine.

The vibration I'm getting after 7500 rpms (60 mph) is pretty much just like that vibration, just worse.

I'll be stopping in at my local shop today or this weekend to talk to the service guys and see what we can do about it.
~~

[kenbike]

Please let us know what the shop finds.

[Tristik]

Please let us know what the shop finds.

Will do. The shop is always super busy so I'm going in next friday morning to have the tires fully examined for balance or oddities. If those check out the shop is just going to go from there to figure it out

[Rush]

I also have a brake light flasher module and it works great. Highly recommended to improved reward visibility.

Can you tell us more about the module Rip? How do I get me one?

[Rippinyarn]

Here's my little write-up. The Back Off is great but I noticed that the unit's adhesive pad had failed, so a little gaffer tape did the trick.

http://www.examiner.com/article/backoff ... ing-module

[Rippinyarn]

Here's my little write-up. It's great but I noticed that the unit's adhesive pad had failed, so a little gaffer tape did the trick.

http://www.examiner.com/article/backoff ... ing-module

[Tristik]

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So just got back from the shop. Apparently, what I'm feeling is perfectly normal. The shop guy took the bike out, got it up to 66 mph indicated, and said he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary for a smaller scooter like the Blur. The front tire was slightly out of balance so he fixed that up so it was perfect and adjusted tire pressure (was a little low last time I checked them at about 28-29 psi).

I'm gonna quote myself here:

"Well, if you're like some others I've talked to here, you might have a specific spot in your RPM range where the bike gets heavy vibration. Mine does it at about 6900 rpms or so... "

It's basically that only a little worse.

After I got out of the shop, I took the bike out and maxed it. After I hit 60 I went WOT and hit 69 mph indicated at 8100 RPM's. It's a bit windy out (I also have no windshield) and this is as far as the bike would go. This time, it didn't feel as bad. It still felt like the engine was working overtime (and at those RPM's it basically is), but it didn't feel as bad as I first believed.

This speed could be maintained for a few miles, but anymore than that would make me feel like I was beating on the bike too much. 60 mph feels like the highest spot I would ride the bike at longer distances. This is somewhat disappointing as I was under the impression the bike would be able to handle the speed limit on the freeway (65 mph here) for a commute to work. Seems I'll be taking the back roads or just going granny in the slow lane.

For reference, the bike turned 1,000 miles on the way home and I weighed 171 pounds when I was at the doctor yesterday.
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[kenbike]

I would do some testing, replace the spark plug and inspect the old. It should be light brown. With the center stand down get the back or front tire off the ground and spin the tire checking for brake drag or a bad wheel bearing. I would unhook the battery for 30 minutes, then reconnect to see if the ECU will rejust and improve fueling. Does your exhaust sound ok or does it seem choked off?
Make sure you have the proper type and level of oil in the engine and gear box.

You may just have a scooter that is in spec but just not going to perform that well and the dealer will not be able to help. I currently testing a slip on and will try to modify the intake air pressue sensor to fool the ecu into adding fuel across the rpm range. The shop manual says the ECU is set at 14.7 to 1 air fuel ratio and that is very lean and leads to over heating and poor performance. My target is to get my range 13.2 to 13.5. Still should gave good mileage but much better performance.
Let us know if you get any improvment.

[Rippinyarn]

If you do unhook the battery, but sure to do the IAC reset - hold the throttle fully open then turn the key on (but not to start), you'll hear a little whir-whir sound from under the seat. Let the throttle return and turn the key off. This is a standard procedure anytime the scoot has the battery removed (or dead).

It took until about 1400 mile until my 220 really broke in, so hang in there. Again, I wish that you could ride mine. It does an indicated 83 pretty consistently, but you have to run it up to about 9k to do it. I'm far from the slowest thing on the highway.