To increase the power of your motorcycle's engine generally requires some part of mechanical knowledge or deep pockets filled with money, on the other-side is relative easy to fake a engine power increase. The easiest, and probably the cheapest, and most effective way, is to change the final reduction ratio of your final drive. This can be done by changing your gear to race gear or simply by increasing the size of the rear sprocket, or reducing the size of the front sprocket. With changing your final drive reduction ratio you can give the impression that you motorcycle has more horsepower.

The downside of changing the final drive reduction ratio is that your motorcycle will not hit that previous top speed, and depending on how much you changed to the final drive reduction ratio your motorcycle can be much slower, but it will get there very damn fast.

The other option is to lose weight. This is trickier and often more expensive. The cheapest way is to lose a few kilo yourself, but that is most of the time easier said than done, the other way buying aftermarket motorcycle products. A motorcycle's performance relies on its weight, so the more kilo's you lose, the faster your motorcycle will perform. Remove you tool kit, take unnecessary stuff from your motorcycle. Buy an aftermarket exhaust system, this often safes you kilos in weight.. Chang your ABS plastic fairing for carbon fiber fairing... this all will help to reduce the weight of the motorcycle.

When your brake pads start to lose a little bite, or make some noise, it's often time for brake servicing, we will tell a trick to breathe new life into your brake pads.

Check that the brake pads are still within serviceable limits and the brake fluid levels are okay. Check disc rotors for abnormal wear and grooving. If any is evident, the rotor can often be machined rather than replaced.

Remove the disc caliper from the motorcycle, if necessary, and remove the brake pads from the caliper. Check the surface of the pad for any abnormal wear or glazing and run your finger around the edge to identify ridges that can often build up over time.

Put a piece of light wet-and-dry paper on a hard surface and move the pad evenly back and forth to remove glazing. Be careful to hold the brake pad very flat so as not to create an uneven finish. Run the wet-and-dry paper softly around the edge of the brake pad material to remove any high points and rough sections. Make sure that you don't create a taper that will reduce your pad contact area.

Installing a replacement battery in a motorcycle isn't surgery, but you must be extremely careful to avoid any chance of short circuits and big sparks. Start by locating the old battery. Which is not always easy to do due to advances in technology and fairing (some motorcycles have the battery under the airbox). The increasing complexity of motorcycle electrical systems has made battery replacement more difficult than it looks. Circuitry for electronic fuel injection and engine management systems, anti-lock brakes, security system, and all the other gadgetry found on modern motorcycles are often sensitive like your home computer to the smallest short-circuit, also modern motorcycle designs displace the motorcycle battery to a less accessible location.

In many cases, battery terminals are perilously close to other parts of the motorcycle. If you work on motorcycle batteries on a regular basis, an insulated battery terminal wrench is a good investment. The ratcheting head on a battery terminal wrench makes disconnecting the reconnecting battery cables a bit easier, and the insulated handle reduces the possibility of accidental short-circuiting any sensitive electronics on your motorcycle.

Recently a friend left me a Triumph Bonneville T100, he asked me to strip the engine. It had seized its big end and I promised that I would look at it when I had the time. I know we had still some Triumph engine parts on stock, including a crankshaft, among the boxes. At the time I couldn't imagine needing it for my friend's engine but it spurred me on to pull the engine down and check before selling it on.

I took off the top end to find it was the left hand big end that had seized. It's usually the first to fail as it's furthest from the oil supply. Oil feed is via the left-hand main bearing, a plain bush. If this bush wears badly, oil finds it easier to leak out of it than flow through to the big end.

I removed the timing gear cover to examine the bush. With the gears removed I found a strange thing: a gear tooth imprint in the end of the crank, indicating it had been shifting sideways enough to strike the camshaft idler gear. I never see this before and after a few telephone calls to some other mechanics it was time to split the cases and see what was happening...

Cleaning our motorcycle is often not one of our favorite activates, with exception if the in laws are visiting. Anyway to make the cleaning of the motorcycle easier a electric pressure washer is the perfect tool. But choosing the right pressure washer is like buying a scooter. There are many choices, and at the first look they all look the same. A few friends prefer gasoline powered pressure washers because they are powerful, loud and don't need electricity and are mobile. Myself I believe that a electric pressure washer is better because they are equally powerful, quiet and don't need to be filled with gasoline.

After looking at several pressure washers my favorite electric pressure washer became the Karcher K2.900M Deluxe. The the Karcher K2.900M Deluxe is a compact pressure washer ideal for car/motorcycle washing that comes with an array of outstanding accessories including a Dirtblaster for more cleaning power.

The Karcher K2.900M 1450psi (100 bar) is overkill, but sometimes it takes too much pressure to get too much mud of your motorcycle, especially when the dirt has mixed with some grease. It's better to have more pressure than you need than not enough. You can always back up a few meters to lessen the power. And the extra power is great to clean the concrete garage floor.

The Karcher K2.900M pressure washer uses clean detergent tablets which produce about 2.5 liters of detergent when diluted. The detergent is perfect if you plan on using it to wash your boat, trailer, barbecue, or siding on your house, but doesn't make much headway on a motorcycle.

I always knew buying my own motorcycle would be an interesting experiment for me. When I initially handed over the cash I was certain there would be times when it seemed like a good idea and others when I might regret it completely.

The latter was more the case recently when I unhappily needed to shell out more money, and then get personally involved with some quite serious maintenance to keep my Honda VFR800 in good trim. Philosophical reflection was my mindset when I began the work. I'd accepted jobs like replacing the Honda's rotten header pipes would be a natural consequence of buying a ten-year-old motorcycle. After all, only brand new motorcycles are likely to need nothing more than consumables.

As the matter progressed through, my optimism began to wane more and more. Handing over the money to pay for the stainless steel downpipes seemed fair enough. The exhaust system looked very sturdy and well made, and though it was not cheap, especially by the cost for all the necessary gaskets and clamps, it was significantly cheaper than the official Honda option. My issue started when I wanted to fit it.

I knew all along that getting my hands dirty was going to be all part of the 'fun' of motorcycle ownership in Thailand. And I was also well aware that this particular job might present some extra challenges. But with a cool head, the right tools and enough time to get it done, I started the ball rolling.

The idea mixture of fuel to air in a motorcycle engine is around 13.2:1, so one part fuel to 13.2 parts air. In each cylinder when the fuel/air mixture goes bang at high revs the resulting pressure release around 90 to 95 Bar, or 1305 to 1377psi. This is why it's so important to do up cylinder head studs well.

Also in your modern motorcycle engine the spark plug is right in the tick of it all. The spark plug makes the fuel/air combination in the combustion chamber go bang. With todays 600cc sportsbike running at 13,500rpm the plug sparks 6,750 times a minute (half the number of revs as the engine only fires every other revolution), or about 113 times a second. Each spark is 3kV, which is enough to ignite the fuel vapor. Now here is the impressive park, at high revs the plug is constantly running at around 800 degrees centigrade due to the constant explosions, which is very hot. Tin melts at 231, lead at 327, aluminum at 660 and iron at 1538 centigrade.

Why doesn't this melt the aluminum cylinder or piston? Although the temperature reaches 800 the engine's cooling keeps temperatures down. If this cooling fails or the engine runs too hot, bits will burn and melt.

Okay we have Conventional motorcycle batteries, but how do they work? Conventional batteries have a removable filler cap for each cell: 6-volt batteries have three cells and three filler caps; 12-volt batteries have six cells and six filler caps. Years ago, they were called vent caps because each cap has a tiny hole that vents gases into the atmosphere. Newer conventional batteries have a different internal structure that eliminates the vent in each cap and uses a single vent hose.

These caps have several functions. They can be removed so water can be added to replenish what was lost due to charging or evaporation. They also allow you to use a hydrometer to check the condition of the electrolyte in each cell. You probably don't need a lengthy discourse about electrochemical reactions in lead acid batteries. However, a synopsis of what goes on in a battery may help you understand how to maintain a battery when it comes time to buy a replacement.

Batteries produce electricity by means of chemical reactions. The amazing thing about lead acid batteries is that these chemical reactions are reversible. Rather than bore you with chemical equations involving lines, arrows, numbers, and Latin-based symbols, I'll just tell you the basics of where the atoms and molecules are going.

Is a wheel bearing jam? If you can't get into the wheel bearings to punch them out and change them, there's an easy way to winkle them out.

The central bearing spacer is such a close fit there's no space to get a drift behind the bearing. Attempts just result in the punch slipping off the inner race's radiused edge.

The best way to avoid further damage is to weld something across the hole on the middle. An old nut will do, it needs to be strong enough to take hammer and punch blows.

The phrase 'blown out muffler' accurately describes the type of mechanical failure that occurs with muffler packing. Exhaust muffler packing material have a limit to the amount of heat they can withstand before becoming brittle. Fiberglass, one of the more common fiber materials used to make exhaust muffler packing, begins to lose much of its strength once it is cycled past 620 degree Celsius. Up to this temperature, the glass fibers are soft and flexible. Once pushed past this temperature limit, fiberglass becomes weak and brittle, even 'crunchy' to the touch. Exhaust pulses eventually pulverize the glass fiber into particles small enough to go though the core where they are blown out the muffler.

Heat and vibration work together to destroy the glass fiber in muffler packing. A modern four-stroke engine is capable of hurling you from corner to corner and generates heat in the process. Even in the hand of a novice rider, the gas temperature in the muffler exceeds 530 degree Celsius. Opening the throttle with high load and relatively low ground speed produces more impressive heat. Twist the throttle long enough on a hot track-day and temperatures can approach 1000 degree Celsius.