The Ascot 500 Forum > Welcome

New guy from Canada

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Jake2345:
Howdy folks
My name Jacob, I recently bought myself a 1982 Honda FT500, so far I'm in love with this bike! I haven't been able to take it out on a full drive, but I did take it too a local high school parking lot and rode with my dad, while he was on his bike! Loved every second of it…however I'm having to put the bike away because of weather and because I don't have my motorcycle license….

SO what I done to the bike so far?
Repainted it, guy I bought it off of had painted it flat black….I'm keeping it original and flat black…
 Tune up, new spark plug, tune the carb
 In the next couple of months I'm gonna do a new chain and sprockets (Don't know what size to go with but help would be great!)
 I have to put a new muffler on….. I've been looking around, can't find anything I really like, however I've seen a few videos of guys with aftermarket mufflers, like  Jemco mufflers and some custom made ones, which sound really nice, but again I need a hand finding a decent sounding one
 Last but not least……tires….. Before I start riding I'm gonna go out, get a decent pair of tires, nothing crazy, but nothing cheap either, right in the middle

Anyways if any of you guys can give me a hand, that would be fantastic!
Anywho Cheers!
Jacob

J6G1Z:
Welcome to the board Jacob & congratulations on becomming an Ascot owner. They are great bikes. What a shame that someone had painted it flat black. They originally came in either red or black & both colors really looked good. Oh well, it gave you the freedom to paint your own bike as you see fit. Make sure you look through the "Tech Section" on this forum for lots of information on what to do with your bike. Here is one link that every FT500 Ascot owner should read & follow to one degree or another. http://ascot500.com/index.php?topic=10.0

As far as a new chain & sprockets... The FT500 has a 530 pitch chain & sprockets. Most folks perform the Jetting changes described in that link that I posted for you & then increase the size of the countershaft (front) sprocket by one or two teeth. I'm running a 16 tooth on my stock Ascot. Another real Trick modification is to swap to a 520 pitch chain & sprockets like the XL & XR 500/600 bikes have. The 520 chain is a bit smaller profile than the 530 & saves a bunch of weight. I'm in the process of doing a 520 swap on my modified FT500, but my new chain & sprockets have not arrived yet.

As far as mufflers... There are a few options. The EMGO reverse megaphone mufflers are about the easiest to find & install. Do yourself a favor & buy the two-piece reverse megaphone so you can take it apart & add more packing or silencing material. Another option is to pick up a universal Super-Trapp if you can find one that is priced in your range. Of course you can adapt a modern Sport-Bike cannister type of muffler, but often times they don't look quite right. There use to be a slip on muffler by Cobra available for the FT500, but they have been discontinued for a long time. I found one on eBay once, but haven't seen any other ones since then. I've been working on trying to get one of the after-market manufacturers to finish up a batch of performance headers for our FT's, but you will still need to source a muffler.

When it comes to tires... There are a lot to choose from! I don't know much about all the various tires available or which one may be better than the others. I have been using Avon Road Riders on my stock FT500 & have been pleased with them in dry conditions. I ride hard & push both the bike & the tires to the best of my abilities. So far the Road Riders have never slipped on me. I usually don't ride if the asphalt is wet though so cannot report on wet weather handling. I just ordered a new set of Avon Road Riders for my modified FT500 from Amazon.com of all places. They were just a few cents shy of $200 to my door & arrived in about 3 days. You definately want to spend wisely on tires & stay away from the cheaper tires. Both the FT & the VT Ascots are capable of excellent handling in the turns, so you need a sticky tire.

Well hope that helps a bit. Read up on some of the forum posts & please feel free to post away, everyone is welcome to participate.

Good luck
J.

Jake2345:
That helps a ton! Thank you very much! I'll look into both those sprockets and mufflers, as for the muffler, would that give it a slight tone? I want the bike to have a decent tone, and be slightly loud, just so people know I'm there, this is what I'd like to have on my bike:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUeFoFcCHRI

J6G1Z:
The EMGO muffler won't bark quite as much as the Super-Trapp muffler in that video. Depending upon how much stainless steel wool or fiberglass muffler packing that you wrap the internal perforated pipe with, will allow you to tune the noise somewhat. Check out this PDF: http://www.emgo.com/images/pdf/2013_Muffler.pdf  and look for Part #80-84030B towards the end of Page #3.

I went with the one piece reverse megaphone that they call their "CAFE' Muffler". Here's a couple of pictures: http://ascot500.com/index.php?topic=79.msg217#msg217
It fit up real easy & looks Bitchin' but it's too loud for responsible & reasonable sound levels. I will most likely replace it with the one mentioned above.

There are a lot of sellers on eBay that sell the EMGO parts, so it may pay you a few bucks to shop around some. I believe that you could also order the muffler from: http://www.speedmotoco.com  I have used them in the past & they offer reasonable pricing, plus fast (usually same day) shipping.

Good luck
J.

Jake2345:
Hmm ok thank you, I really appreciate all the help!
One question, for the rear sprocket, what would you say to go with? Stock size on the rear? Also I'm having some issues with my speedometer, when I originally picked the pick up, my buddy test drove it for me, went through all the gears, felt the brakes....etc....basic stuff, now he said it was working when I got it, now when I last took the bike out (its been getting repainted, and fixed up since then and hasn't moved) it didn't work, nor did the tach, I've since replaced the tach cable(old was seized right up)...my question is, what should I look at? Could it be the cable itself? Could it be actually inside the case?
Also I've seen some people take the old style speedo/tach off and replace it with a new fancy style one, what do you think is better?

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