I'm going to the IMS this Sunday. Any questions about the RC390?

[B7ACKTHORN]

Great to see some snaps! Darn KTM, why don't they just keep us posted of the improvements made, should help prospective chaps to tune in easily rather than speculative, boring stuff. Talking about photos, I don't see anything significantly different, BUT, recent news in India (apart from the slipper clutch) and a test mule spotted to have a new improved shocker with a plastic shroud to protect the piston from crud, same as the one that's adorned in the newer naked D390 models.

Have a look at the attachments, though it wasn't clicked by me. Still, plagiarizing for "educational" purposes.

Look closely and you'll see the shocker adorned with a plastic shroud, very welcome add-on for the RC though present in the naked sibling for newer models.

And who knows what's more...

But for now...






Cheers!
V

 

[Texas250]

I wouldn't worry too much about the tank, I usually fill up at about 200km and it usually takes about 7.5 litres, I think I could comfortably do 230km-240km on a tank without worrying about running out, and still probably have about a litre left, and most of that riding's been around the hills, so usually around 6000-7000 RPM and above, with some open road riding thrown in,
I may not sound like much range if you've been used to a sporty commuter type bike, but that's about the norm for a proper sports bike, all my previous bikes have had about the same fuel range.
I wouldn't bother with the fuel gauge though, it's not very accurate, the trusty old trip meter is much better.

The spring looks like its on position #3, which is how mine came, and it did fell quite soft on that setting, I'm about 160 pounds and position #7 is about right for me, I've got 10mm of static sag, and about 30mm of rider sag.
Interestingly I'm the same height as you, but I can comfortably touch both feet flat on the ground, with a bend in my knees with the spring on position #7, so maybe I have long legs? my inseam is about 33"

guzz46: Yes you have a coupe of inches of inseam on me, so for my height my legs are a touch shortish. It wasn't bad but I couldn't flat foot it unless my junk was up to the tank. I could still get enough down to feel fine with it.
BTW what RPMs are you at in 6th at 62mph (100kph) and at 68.5mph (110kph)? How would rate the vibration and pickup at 110kph? I used to have a 91 Suzuki GS500E back in the 90's, it was 50hp or so and just over 400lbs dry, and I remember it being pretty fast and thinking I don't need more power. The RC is almost the same P/W ratio.

 

[motoarch]

I had a fully prepped GS500E race bike and it dyno'ed at about 35hp and had a chassis made out of spaghetti. Thing was a piece of junk but fun anyways. The RC has a much better p/w ratio
and should have a far superior chassis. Its no contest between the two.

 

[Texas250]

I had a fully prepped GS500E race bike and it dyno'ed at about 35hp and had a chassis made out of spaghetti. Thing was a piece of junk but fun anyways. The RC has a much better p/w ratio
and should have a far superior chassis. Its no contest between the two.

I had the rigatoni framed one so it wasn't too bad. Wiki said they dynoed in the low to mid 40s with a claimed 52 crank hp on the early models. Mine seemed like all I could ever want. It would easily get to 100mph, but with no wind protection I only did that like twice.

 

[guzz46]

guzz46: Yes you have a coupe of inches of inseam on me, so for my height my legs are a touch shortish. It wasn't bad but I couldn't flat foot it unless my junk was up to the tank. I could still get enough down to feel fine with it.
BTW what RPMs are you at in 6th at 62mph (100kph) and at 68.5mph (110kph)? How would rate the vibration and pickup at 110kph? I used to have a 91 Suzuki GS500E back in the 90's, it was 50hp or so and just over 400lbs dry, and I remember it being pretty fast and thinking I don't need more power. The RC is almost the same P/W ratio.

It's a bit tricky to be exact in regards to RPM because the tachometer is quite small, hence why I set the shift light to come on at 9k, max power is at 9.5k so I figured that's probably the best time to change gear, but the RPM is around about 6.5k at 71mph, I haven't gone over 135kph yet, but it's surprisingly quick for a small single, on my "new bike" thread I posted a video of me on the RC390 vs me on a RVF400, and the RC390 was actually ahead of the RVF400 until I made a few small mistakes, and the RVF400 had 60hp and weighed 165kg dry, so I imagine the RC390 would be faster than a GS500E.
The vibration's fine, in my opinion there's hardly any at all.

There's a website called gearing commander where it shows you what RPM you'll be at a specific speed, you can even see what effect changing your sprocket has.

Gearing Commander: Motorcycle Speed, RPM, Chain & Sprockets Calculator

 

[motoarch]

I had the rigatoni framed one so it wasn't too bad. Wiki said they dynoed in the low to mid 40s with a claimed 52 crank hp on the early models. Mine seemed like all I could ever want. It would easily get to 100mph, but with no wind protection I only did that like twice.

Im not sure where you're getting that info but I don't think its true. I spent time with 3 different motors with various combinations of air boxes, filters, carb set ups and exhaust and never hit more then 37hp on my best day. There are different types of dyno's and some are much more optimistic then others but I don't believe 40+ at all.

As for the chassis I'm not just talking frame. I'm talking fork and swing arm. No matter how stiff the frame is it wont matter if the fork and swing arm are twisting on you and both are serious issues with that bike. I had an over sized brace at the front and emulators in the forks which helped but it was still bad. Out back there really isnt much you can do on that bike to stiffen it and be race legal so it stayed stock (and horrible).

I swapped out the front rotor and put SV calipers on it, I swapped out the rear wheel for a Katana one so I could fit 140 race rubber and that required a Bandit rear brake arm. Beyond that I hacked of the sub-frame and removed any unnecessary wiring to get wait down where ever I could. Made all of the obvious bolt on mods.

After all that it was still couldn't touch a ninja 500.

Face it the bike was never designed with track or racing in mind. The KTM is and I willing to best of the show room floor it'll destroy a modded full race prep'ed GS500.

 

[Texas250]

motoarch: that would be from Wikipedia.

 

[DaveI]

But race track/series aside...The real competiton will be between the KTM and the R3...I suspect the twin cylinder R3 engine will greatly surpass the KTM single BUT the weight difference
will come in to play in favor of the KTM...The true story will be when they are released and see how much weight can be removed from the Yamaha..."IF" the Yamaha can be pared down
weight-wise then it will give the KTM a run for it's money....

 

[motoarch]

motoarch: that would be from Wikipedia.

So I read the page and it looks like they jumped from 46 to 52 then dropped down to 47 a few years later.

Look suspicious to me. Either they changed the way they measured it between 89 to 96 or they just plain lied. Which wouldn't suprise me.? It's not like the dry/wet weights arnt fudged all the time. Why shouldn't the hp be also.

All 3 my motors were from that time frame(89 and two 91s) and none broke 37 at the dyno.

 

[motoarch]

But race track/series aside...The real competiton will be between the KTM and the R3...I suspect the twin cylinder R3 engine will greatly surpass the KTM single BUT the weight difference
will come in to play in favor of the KTM...The true story will be when they are released and see how much weight can be removed from the Yamaha..."IF" the Yamaha can be pared down
weight-wise then it will give the KTM a run for it's money....

I think the r3s going to be a hair better top end and it'll be enough. I still want the ktm though.

 

[guzz46]

Personally I think the RC390 will comfortably best the R3, HP is about the same between the two, but torque on the RC is about 5nm more, the R3 will rev a bit higher, but I think the RC's engine will be at least as strong as the R3's overall, I think some people underestimate single's, the RC's engine is actually really strong, it likes revs, and if it wasn't for the exhaust note and the lower redline I could almost swear I was riding a ZXR400 or RVF400.
And on the chassis front the RC's got it hands down, roughly 15kg lighter, better suspension, USD forks, shorter wheelbase, steeper steering head angle, radial mounted front brake, and overall looks more track focused than the R3.

As far as I'm concerned the RC390 currently has no true competition, it's the only small capacity race replica bike available.

 

[kalleh]

Personally I think the RC390 will comfortably best the R3, HP is about the same between the two, but torque on the RC is about 5nm more, the R3 will rev a bit higher, but I think the RC's engine will be at least as strong as the R3's overall, I think some people underestimate single's, the RC's engine is actually really strong, it likes revs, and if it wasn't for the exhaust note and the lower redline I could almost swear I was riding a ZXR400 or RVF400.
And on the chassis front the RC's got it hands down, roughly 15kg lighter, better suspension, USD forks, shorter wheelbase, steeper steering head angle, radial mounted front brake, and overall looks more track focused than the R3.

As far as I'm concerned the RC390 currently has no true competition, it's the only small capacity race replica bike available.

I hope you're not right I've almost made up my mind to skip the RC390 and turn my Ninja 300 into a race bike. There are just so much knowledge from Ninja 250s on how to make them go fast, and it will probably take a few years for the 390s to be fully figured out. Hopefully with some weight shavings and a good tune the 390's won't pass me like freight trains on the straights.

 

[motoarch]

What they said ^

 

[guzz46]

I hope you're not right I've almost made up my mind to skip the RC390 and turn my Ninja 300 into a race bike. There are just so much knowledge from Ninja 250s on how to make them go fast, and it will probably take a few years for the 390s to be fully figured out. Hopefully with some weight shavings and a good tune the 390's won't pass me like freight trains on the straights.

I could be wrong, I've never ridden a Ninja 300, or a R3 (the R3 weighs about 5kg less than the Ninja 300) but I've owned a 1993 ZXR400R, which is about 5kg lighter than a Ninja 300, and roughly 5kg-10kg heavier when wet, but has about 20hp or so more, I've also owned a 1994 RVF400, which weighs the same as the Ninja 300, and roughly 10kg heavier when wet, but had 60hp at the rear wheel when dynoed, and according to Wikipedia Ninja 300's have about 35hp at the rear wheel, they were also both proper race replica's, smaller versions of the ZXR750R and RVF750, and on my "new bike" thread I posted a split video of myself on the RC vs myself on the RVF from about 7 years ago, and the RC was actually slightly ahead of the RVF, until I made a few errors (they finished roughly about the same) but when I post the next comparison video I can guarantee I'll be faster on the RC, I think that's quite impressive considering the RC is at least 15hp down on the RVF, and the RVF wasn't exactly a slouch in the handling department either, before I brought the bike I was thinking it would probably struggle to keep up with an RVF.

In this video they compare the RC390 cup bike to a Ninja 300 race bike, and the guy said the RC's chassis feels more taught, like a mini GP bike, and being the cup bike it would of been limited to 38hp.
[video=youtube;psRAq-AERLM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psRAq-AERLM[/video]
I'm not trying to put you off turning you Ninja into a race bike, it would probably be more cost effective considering you already own one, you can tune the engine a bit and there probably wouldn't be much difference in terms of straight line performance, but I think the chassis would be the weak link on the Ninja, but as long as you have fun on it right

 

[thisisbenji]

Well I sat on one today, I think I'm going to take the plunge back into a small displacement machine. I'm purchasing a home in june, so I'll be looking to get one after that.


I wasn't too sold on the triple setup (with it being part of the handlebar) and you can tell that it's a budget bike, but I'm really looking forward to having something lightweight again.


Here's a photo of myself on the cup bike.



Here's the cup bike by itself.



One more photo of the standard road going bike.



The rear seat is really cool on the road bike, it looks like it has a cowl but it's really a soft foam seat.

 

[Treachery]

Hey, Benji- refugee from ADVRider, are ya?

 

[thisisbenji]

Yeah. That's my favorite motorcycle forum, although I mostly just lurk over there. I mostly just read the ride reports and live vicariously through them. Except for the track, there's not much good riding in my part of the country. Anytime I want to hit some good roads it usually requires an entire day of riding. Being young, I also don't get much time off work.

 

[Treachery]

Busy, varied site over there. Most of the IMS pix that showed up were big ADV bikes.

 

[thisisbenji]

Busy, varied site over there. Most of the IMS pix that showed up were big ADV bikes.

Well... I think that's just the style of bike that's popular with that crowd. Let's be honest, the RC or any sport bike doesn't exactly make a good touring rig. That being said, I'm young and in great shape. So I can spend all day riding around on a sportbike. At any rate it's still fun to read the ride reports, my favorite ones are from the user Antihero and his Panigale.