The story of Tenzing the Super Tenere

[cooneyr]

Mine handled fabbo on the black stuff then again it was only 2 years old,in mint nick and only 5000 miles on it when i bought it. Doe's yours only run on one cylinder for about 10 seconds when started for the first time each morning? Mine did like clockwork and no one ever managed to sort it.

It fires up like clockwork on both cylinders. Can hiss a couple of times like gas is flowing he wrong way or something (wondering if valve clearances need checking) but only does this on start up and it runs like a dream for the short round town runs.

El's bike has started on one a couple of times but he defiantly has fuel consumption issues and the plugs were fouling to the point of the bike not starting till we replaced them. Seems that the needle jets are a week point of the bikes which defiantly affects fuel consumption and then fouls plugs which in turn muck up starting.

Did you ever replace the needle jets T?

Cheers R

[jezzaNZ]

Ryan/El I was going to put a Dynojet jet kit and add some K&N filters to the XTZ before El persauded me I should sell it. It would do the exhaust system justice and give you a 5 - 8% power increase, but not only that probably better fuel consumption and smoother acceleration.

Just a thought the TDM engine fits like a glove and would love to see someone do it in this part of the world!!!!!

PS. I put new plugs in her about 5K ago so definatly think there are fuel issues. My guess is the jets themselves, hence why I wanted to go down the Dynojet path.

[cooneyr]

Ryan/El I was going to put a Dynojet jet kit and add some K&N filters to the XTZ before El persauded me I should sell it. It would do the exhaust system justice and give you a 5 - 8% power increase, but not only that probably better fuel consumption and smoother acceleration.

Just a thought the TDM engine fits like a glove and would love to see someone do it in this part of the world!!!!!

PS. I put new plugs in her about 5K ago so definatly think there are fuel issues. My guess is the jets themselves, hence why I wanted to go down the Dynojet path.

I've supposedly already got Dyno jets kit, new needle jets (not the same as the main/primary jets) K&N filers and the Zorsts can. Not had a chance to do a side by side roll on against El yet though.

A TRX850 motor is suppose to be pretty nice. The ultimate is the TDM900 by the sounds of it - 105 hp (if I read right) and fuel injection with miserly fuel consumption. A TDM900 engine and some serious suspension work might = a KTM 9x0 adventure challenger. One day.......

Cheers R

[warewolf]

I would seriously recommend a FactoryPro jet kit over DynoJet any day, both from personal experience and hearsay. The DJ kits are really designed for heavily worked motors than need lotsa fuel. If you haven't gone ported head and/or bigger valves and/or big bore kit and/or wild cams, avoid DJ there are better choices. FP just seem to be that bit better and easier to tune on a standard (or nearly so) engine. For the money you also get a lot more bits and info.

There's no way I'd put K&N cotton filters on a dirt bike. I reckon I'm pushing things having one on my Triumph Trophy, given how many dirt roads it gets taken on.

The best thing on the TDM was that stonking engine, didn't realise they were an easy swap. Hmmm, DIY KTM-950 wannabe?

[cooneyr]

I would seriously recommend a FactoryPro jet kit over DynoJet any day, both from personal experience and hearsay. The DJ kits are really designed for heavily worked motors than need lotsa fuel. If you haven't gone ported head and/or bigger valves and/or big bore kit and/or wild cams, avoid DJ there are better choices. FP just seem to be that bit better and easier to tune on a standard (or nearly so) engine. For the money you also get a lot more bits and info.

There's no way I'd put K&N cotton filters on a dirt bike. I reckon I'm pushing things having one on my Triumph Trophy, given how many dirt roads it gets taken on.

The best thing on the TDM was that stonking engine, didn't realise they were an easy swap. Hmmm, DIY KTM-950 wannabe?

When I finally get time to check it out completely (strip of body work etc) the air filter will be one of the first things I have a look at. Unfortunately to get at the air filter requires tank removal, which requires side fairing panel and seat removal which requires rear side panel removal. Air filer is not easy to get at!

Unless the bike is ridiculously thirsty in that the range sucks (going to be hard with a 26l tank) I'm gonna leave the DJ kit there. It is a cheep bike compared to the KTM 9x0 and hence I've got lots of fuel money :-)

Cheers R

[warewolf]

(Our previous posts crossed over, I think.)

Not suggesting you go out and replace your DJ kit with FP, work with what you have. But I have actually done that which is one reason I recommend FP gets your hard-earned fun-vouchers over DJ.

Get Linton to re-work that suspension and you'd have something that would keep you happy for a long, long time, particularly with the TDM engine upgrade, which you could do later. I wasn't taking the piss, that was a serious suggestion!

I seem to remember stripping my TDM on the side of the road one dark wet night. Just had a service, and they'd not tightened the battery terminals enough, so one came loose. The battery sits up 'inside' the tank, next to the airbox.

[cooneyr]

(Our previous posts crossed over, I think.)

Not suggesting you go out and replace your DJ kit with FP, work with what you have. But I have actually done that which is one reason I recommend FP gets your hard-earned fun-vouchers over DJ.

Get Linton to re-work that suspension and you'd have something that would keep you happy for a long, long time, particularly with the TDM engine upgrade, which you could do later. I wasn't taking the piss, that was a serious suggestion!

I seem to remember stripping my TDM on the side of the road one dark wet night. Just had a service, and they'd not tightened the battery terminals enough, so one came loose. The battery sits up 'inside' the tank, next to the airbox.

You realise your talking to two people at once - El about the carbie and me about the rest of it? Or is it that I have a split personality? Who me yes me ????

We have the battery under the seat but the air box sounds like the same place.

Suspension work will be done. I've just ordered a Wilbers Shock. From all I've read the Ohlins are defiantly better but they require more maintenance (not saying the Wilbers shouldn't be serviced) and the Wilbers is still a huge leap forward from the stock shock. Obviously price is a factor. Got Wilbers fork springs coming as well so suspension will be set up for my weight and riding style by the end of all of this hopefully.

All I/we need to find now is a TDM or TRX 850 motor for cheep. I think I'll give this a couple of years though.

Cheers R

[cooneyr]

Decided to take a half day of sanity leave yesterday. The fact that it took an evening to change the tyres doesnt count

Threw on the Pirelli Scorpion MX 486 front and a well worn D606 on the rear on Sat night in the hope that El Scooto would be back from Dunners by lunchtime yesterday. We managed to meet up with Transalper at 2pm in halswell and took the back roads out to Birdlings Flat then around the highway to Little River. Plan was to go up Reynolds Road and along the tops on the Bossu Road then back to Chch via the highway. We weren't sure how much snow there would be along the Bossu Road but by the time we were 3/4 of the way up Reynolds Road we already had a 25mm of snow on the road.

Most of the Bossu Road was covered in a 50mm but there was drifts in places. Most were no deeper that about a 400mm. The Tenzing and "Ed' (El's) the tenere's blew through the drifts no worries but TA had an E07's on the rear and needed a hand with a couple. I think the weight and torque made a difference as well.

The steepest uphill section had about 50mm of snow and no vehicle tracks. Was heaps of fun holding the throttle at about 3000 rpm and almost constantly spining up the rear at between walking pace and 10 or so kph. The tenere's are really stable at slow speeds and the tail waggling around was really easy to control. The torque of the twin is awesome - going from spinning at walking speeds to traction on the gravel and the engine doesn't labour or complain one bit.

We came to one area where the snow was around 500mm deep for about 10m along the road. El' got stuck right near the beginning of it, TA made it through to near the end where the drift was about 1m deep as did I. TA stamped a track through the 1m deep drift while I helped El extract Ed then with a bit of pushing all the bikes were though.

After this is was a crusy ride down to Waunui (some serious water damage to the seal in places), then back up over the hill (lots of grit), down Harmans track to little river and back to Chch via the highway. It was about 5.30 by the time we got back so we were all rather chilly. This is El's and my first decent rides on the twins were rapt - the bikes are awesome.

Tally for the day 0 offs, 1 broken speedo on Tenzing (not sure if it is cable or drives).

Pics

1. Bikes at top of Reynolds Road. Twin twins and a funny yellow thing
2. Bikes again
3. Looking west towards Little River
4. Pushing pushing
5. Beginning of the steep section
6. Last part of the steep section (with a couple of play moments )

Cheers R

[cooneyr]

More pics

1. But wait theres more snow to come
2. Drifts - even Tenzing couldn't bust this one
3. Where're through!

Cheers R

[warewolf]

We have the battery under the seat but the air box sounds like the same place.

That might explain why Tenzing has 24L fuel and the TDM only 16L or some such.

[NordieBoy]

Decided to take a half day of sanity leave yesterday. The fact that it took an evening to change the tyres doesnt count

You got snow

We got a light coating of white and some re-frozen 4wd slush tracks to slide around on

[Transalper]

I prefer snow to refrozen 4x4 slush as i'm sure do we all.
My E07 rear was quite well worn too. It did better than I thought it might.
It's also easy to say if I had a better tyre on that I would have needed less help, but honesty I can't say that for certain.

[Transalper]

It was one of those shit it's cold on the open roads, shit it's hot, remove all extra layers while up the hill creeping about and pushing, then put all your layers back on for the home run days.
More photos............

[thepom]

Good to TA forking out for fuel instead of more expensive toy,seek::

[cooneyr]

Good to TA forking out for fuel instead of more expensive toy,seek::

If your referring to the cost of the XTZ750 vs the DR650 here's the great supprise - the XTZ can often be found for cheaper. El and I both picked up or XTZ's for individually less than the cost of my old DR. Admittedly both have 60k+ kms on the clock as opposed to 15k kms and mine needs some work but for the same price as the DR I could have a reasonably sorted XTZ. I'm chucking a bit more money than that at it cause I want to have nice rather than just sorted suspension as I plan on carrying the pillion in a million a bit.

Only catch is you need to be a bigger person or have some pretty decent skills to be able to ride one. I'm 6'2" and 110 and El is not much smaller so we sneak though on the big side of things - were still working on the skills

Cheers R