Vulcan500.com

I am currently lookin at quite a few bikes at the moment and just wanted some feedback from everyone. heres the list
2000 kawasaki vulcan 500 30,000miles---$1600--pic below
1996 kawi vulcan 500 LTD 5000miles---$1800
2002 kawi vulcan 750 19,000 miles-----$2200
???? Honda CBR600 joe camel edition---$2200
2004 honda shadow aero 750 8,000miles--$2800
???? Yamaha Virago 1100 ????miles---$2400 obo
???? suzuki gsxr 600 16,000 miles-----$2800
2001 honda cbr929RR fireblade 16,000 miles---$2700
1999 yamaha v-star 650 11,500 miles-----$2800---pic below
2000 yamaha v-star 1100 29,000miles--- $2500
2002 kawasaki vulcan 750 14,000miles--- $1200
1999 kawasaki vulcan 1500 nomad 41,000 miles---$2500--pic below
1998 kawasaki ninja 600 miles??--------$1500

Those are just a few of them i liked on craigslist. i posted a few of there pics. theres way too many to choose from down here in s.FL lol. so If you could pick one cruiser and one sport bike which one of each would you pick and why? Thanks for your help im just tryin to narrow it down cuz i like them all haha.

Sheesh that's quite a wide variety you got there. I'd say get one of each! It's probably best to sit on them all and pick the one you feel most comfortable on. I don't know much about the sport bikes, but the Vulcan 500 is one of the more fuel efficient cruisers if that's important to you. Kawasaki's positive neutral finder is one of the things that sealed the deal for me. I always had problems finding neutral on my Suzuki. With the Kawasaki you can't go past neutral while stopped.

I'd go for one or the other of the 500s, whichever had the rubber parts in better shape.

But this /is/ a Vulcan 500 forum, so we may be biased. XD

Oh man I would love to have one of each. Haha a diff one for each day of the week. I wish I had a pick of whay year vulcan id want but the ones listed are the only nice ones in my laughable budget. The 500 sticks out to me for the sport engine and amazing fuel mileage. But even thr 750's & 1500 vulcans are nice too. My father has a 1992 kawi vulcan 88 1500 cc bike with jardines and k&n filters. Its nice but I like ni.ja engine anyways. Thats why the 500 sticks out to me it has sport ninja engine in a comfy cruiser frame. Just hope I can upgrade it to get maximum prformance

sikatrix500cc wrote:... but I like ni.ja engine anyways. Thats why the 500 sticks out to me it has sport ninja engine in a comfy cruiser frame. Just hope I can upgrade it to get maximum prformance

The engine is was one of the major factors for me too. I don't mean to burst your bubble, but there isn't much you can do to get more out of the engine. But if you insist on messing with it. Be prepared for endless hours of carb tuning and spending a wad of cash for a barely noticeable bump in power. One thing to consider is opening up the air intake will hurt your low end torque. I believe it moves the power band up.

Anyway here is what you can do and where you will probably see the most performance gain. Swap in pistons from the Ninja 500 or an EN500A They have higher compression 10.8 vs 10.2 if I remember correctly. Also while at it swap in the Ninja's cams. I'm not well versed in engine tech enough to explain how they are different I just know they produce more high end power. The vulcan's cams were tuned for more low end torque at the expense of high end power. Also get the carbs from an EN500A or ninja 500 they are 34mm where the EN500C has 32mm carbs. Hell it might be easier to just swap in an engine from a ninja 500 assuming the mounting bolts are all in the same positions. I know you'd have to swap your stator cover to the ninja engine as that is what you shift lever mounts to.

I'm bringing my EN500A into the 21st century by implementing both spark control and fuel injection. It will be interesting to see what gains there are on HP and fuel economy. It will be a while before this is done. I have very little time to work on it and really haven't since last spring. I'll also probably end up spending more than I paid for the bike doing this, but I'm doing this because I want to see if it can be done. Not really doing this for any performance gains.

So your swapping in the fuel injection system and ecu from a ninja 500? Thatd be cool. Yeah most of my ridin will be on roads at 45-55mph and highway use at 70+ mph. So torque isnt as important as highend power bands for highway running and passing. Im probaly going to just get pipes and air filters cuz I don't have the time too tune the carbs. Thats the only thing that shys me away from the 500 and puts sport bikes or newer cruisers in my view. Unless I can find somebody to install stage 3 jets and then tune them in for me for cheap. Im too impatient to tune tbem myself even if my dad is a mechanic llol

no Ninja 500 ever had FI either. I'm starting from scratch with a DIY engine management controller called the Microsquirt. Having control over ignition timing is about as important as the fuel injection part.

If you're talking free flowing exhaust, and ditching the air intake box for pod filters you MUST retune the carbs. It is not fun and very time consuming. You could probably do the pipes without touching the carbs. You could replace the stock air filter with K&N designed for the stock air box but you won't see any difference. Just my 2¢