My RD Story

[Speedz]

OK here goes the historical story part…

Fell in love with the RD, I just don’t know when.  The itch was always there but could never afford to buy one and was also daunted by the “spares” scare that the mechanics usually put into people. So started buying spares for the bike. LOL I had bought more spares than the worth of the bike itself within a span of two years.  I would hang around the mech’s place and would try to buy one of his customer’s RD. That never happened although the mech became a ‘friend’. Almost turned into a chokra boy sitting there in his workshop day in and day out. Dedicated almost a year to that place and all the time under the illusion that the mech was my best friend. Yeah, I was naive and stupid…maybe my small town upbringing made me trust him blindly. I was the guy who would lend him money even though I myself would hardly have enough to buy my dinner. I was thinking that he would one day repay all that by selling and/or building me a real firecracker. Well, no prizes for guessing that none of those aspirations came true. This didn’t douse the fire within in any way. Started saving up whatever I could out of my meager earnings. Literally lived on a idly diet for a year. 

Determined to find an ‘original’ RD, I went on wild goose chases to remote corners of Karnataka, and one occasion, to Tamilnadu as well. Well, that a story for another day. I, finally, bought an RD after a 2 year long search. By then I was also a member on RDD and knew many of its members off the forum.

Needless to say, it was all OE looking, CB points ignition and was performing satisfactorily. I was in that OE crazy phase where only the most OE parts would satisfy the hunger and I spent countless Ks on original indicators, original this and original that.
The mech who helped me buy the bike pilfered most of the OE spares that the seller gave to me. Hmm…and then wanted to use a set of ART pistons and rings (which I had bought a year back) on his drag setup. And then, to add insult to injury, refused to give my bike back. He had by then rebuilt my engine and mysteriously his bike got a fresh looking crank. Hmm…no prizes for guessing what sort of crank went into mine.  With great difficulty got my bike out almost pleading with him.

Got into an ugly, painful phase of my life where in I was, among hundred odd employees, got laid off. Decided to stick with the RD no matter what happened. I rode it to my home town and laid it to rest (so to speak) with a great deal of oil and wax and whatnot. Came back to Bangalore and somehow things changed for the better. Got a good job and decided to get my RD to Bangalore. I resolved to myself that I would rebuild my RD and would do it on my own without any mech’s ‘help’. Also decided that for the next tree years I would not think of any savings and would pour all my earnings on the RD….crazy, you bet. The bike stayed in my house for a long time and I was all the time just starting it up and doing some small rides. Started buying tools and slowly built up a good tools collection spanner by spanner.  No regrets in doing any of this in installments as I was never ever loaded with money and somehow gave greater satisfaction.

Fast forward two years. Decided to go on with the build and approached Ron with great trepidation. I asked him what should be my route map as I couldn’t afford to pick up all the goodies in one shot and told him that it would take me a year to actually afford all the stuff. Ron drew me a route map and the first thing on the list was the CDI. Paid up, got in line and got the unit after a few months. Also picked up a Chinoy Filter filter set from Ron.

Decided to test the CDI before tearing the bike down. Well, life has never been so good is all I can say. 

Finally got down to doing up the bike totally and when the bike was in pieces, I just went upto Ron and asked him if he would do a little amount of work on the barrels. I remember the exact words I spoke, “Ron, I don’t think I can ever get my barrels ported by you as I know you are completely overloaded with work. Let’s assume you just pout in two hours on my barrels, and I would be willing to pay you for the same, will you do it?

Ron said, “What can be done in 2 hours man? And what would you pay?” ( I think he wasn’t serious about the payment part ad was just pulling my leg”

I said, “ Whatever you can do in two hours, I will take it, no questions or further demands”

Ron, said, “OK bring the barrels and I will see” (very cryptic and no explanations)

I said, “ Ok Ron, are you sure you aren’t pulling my leg, please don’t change your mind”

Next day, I landed up at his house with my barrels and heads. He pointed out the mismatching port and sleeve etc and told me why it would be futile to try to do anything in two hours. I think he regretted taking up the job. To this day, I don’t know why he even took up my barrels especially when he didn’t have enough time to even scratch his *&^%. I don’t know why but am happy that he did. We discussed the sort of setup that I wanted and he told me he would do a HT-LT combo job. He said it may not pull all that well in the top end (this statement is in bold for a reason, will be explained later).

Started off with the rebuild of the cosmetics of the bike with a dear friend of mine, Sandeep. Got involved in the build and got a custom paint job done. Spent a bomb on the paint job and almost took two months for the job to be completed. Started assembling the bike and completed it after almost a year from the day of stripping the bike to its bare essentials/subassemblies/components. Documented the entire process with lots of photographs and have saved them. Learnt a lot along the way and I owe a big thank you to Sandeep for helping me day and night in the build.

Got the bike completed but with another set of barrels (belonging to Sandeep). Even before I buttoned thing up, I got a call from the big man that the barrels and heads and the reed cages were done. I decided to go ahead with Sandeep’s barrels as they were already on the bike. Did some rides on the set and then pulled them off and out in the RDD magic barrels.

Started the running in on night rides to Mysore road. Got the bike dialed in on absurdly big jets. Had some heating issues with the setup only due to the barrels being rebored by me. I have to clarify that the barrels were already rebored when I took them to Ron. This happened because I had not expected him to take up the work and not because I was trying to save some moolah. The fact that Ron did the porting on a set of barrels that had already been rebored is testimonial to his skills. I didn’t find a single scratch on the bored surface. God knows how much skill, patience and steady hands are needed to do that.

Meanwhile I managed to do a disc setup on the bike. Thanks to so many people who contributed and lugged parts for me. Satya, Mohit, Ron, Milan, Anand, and countless others (friends of friends of friends) who so readily helped me get all the parts together.

And now the bike is completely run in and man what a bundle of joy she is. I am yet to show the bike to Ron.

The bike pulls all the way from 1500 rpm to 6500 plus. The ferocious pull has to be experienced to be believed. It keeps on pulling like a train and doesn’t seem to want to stop. Its almost like a pitbull coming out of the water and shaking itself and then taking off in hot pursuit of its prey. There is something very wild and yet, controlled in the way she takes off. And the best part is that she will cruise effortlessly at 100-110 with minimum throttle inputs. Recently went on a ride to Wayanad ad Ooty and I could see that the other two RDs were pulling equally well but with full throttle and I was able to do the same with throttle travel yet to be explored. The bike now sounds like a healthy young pup and growls to life and I don’t know why, but the throttle response is very sharp and crisp inspite of running big jets. I haven’t jetted it completely yet as I need to go down smaller on the mains and go up slightly on the pilots. Ah another thing to add is that the bike is able to pull a 120 kg rider with full luggage and lots of tools strapped to the carrier at 130 kph (on the Sigma) and with timing at just 21 degrees and rich jetting. I am not able to go WOT because of the flutter and drop in rpm the moment I do so. So, effectively, with bumping up of the timing and/or reducing main jet size, I should be able to do some more. After all the Swift bashing on Mysore road, I am happy as can be with one side effect that I am more of a hooligan on the road now.  People have followed me in their cars and have requested me for snaps and my tour mates have seen this in person. What matters most is that the engine feels so smooth and so unstressed even with all the wolf-in-hot-pursuit-of-rabbit riding. 

And, no, before anyone suggests that I put a smaller, lighter rider on the bike to see higher speeds, NO WAY. Its my blood, my sweat, my time and my money that has gone into this bike and literally three years of my life into it. She will do whatever she can do with me on it and not with someone else. And now for the statement… He said it may not pull all that well in the top end…You lied Ron. You are a blatant liar.  She pulls crazily even at the top end and puts a smile on my mug every time I just blip her throttle. I now realize you were just underplaying the top end pull part.  She is a real beaut now.


There is so much bullshit about Ron taking his sweet time and his bad attitude etc, but at the end of the day, each and every one of his customer has got a super fast and super reliable bike. If anyone doubts this, I can show my bike to him/her. I do not promise a ride/spin on my bike but can prove the build’s quality in other ways. Reliability and longevity of the engine is what matters in the long run and that is what actually is a measure of a healthy bike build. And this is one factor that will always make RDD build stand out form the crowd. And I am sure there are plenty of RDD builds out there which are still kicking arse and screaming to the redline without any problems with the engine. I do not want to take names here without taking the permission from the guys. But I am sure they will all chime in with their inputs. I guess most of the bullshit is spoken by those who haven’t got a RDD build for whatever reason….either because they were turned away for schedule/time constraints or because they had a personal axe to grind. I am one of those who will not accept anything without testing and verifying it, be it timing jetting or whatever, and I am extremely satisfied with my RDD build. And I did not want to post upa review until I had run it in real well and proven its running on along hard tour. I got exactly what I had asked for. A vey strong bottom and explosive midrange and got the bonus of a very very wide powerband. It took me a lot of effort to jet it and dial in the bike but at the end of it, I am left with a really strong bike. I wonder who else would have even taken up the job of doing a port job and doing the porting suited for my 120 kilo frame.  LOL, you got the whole thing perfectly down for my build, Ron. I do weekly runs to Mysore road and clocking up a lot of kms on it every weekend.

But all of this wouldn’t have happened but for so many people contributing to it. I feel so glad that I have so many friends who wished me well and helped me though. I may not take all your names here, but you know who you are and I thank you all for everything. Mom, Brother, sis-in-law, my wife, my 2 year old nephew(who helped me once in a while by handing em a screwdriver and putting up with all the revving), Sandeep, Satya, Ron, Mohit, Milan, Wraith, Anand….the people are too many but all these deserve a standing ovation for having stood by me and helping me through so many lean phases and when I would be down in the dumps. My nephew loves my RD and has already gotten a spin on it..quite a rider already on his cycle.

I haven’t shown the bike yet to Ron and many others. But, will remedy it soon. I wanted the bike to be as complete as possible before I show it to them.

[torqu3e]

Can totally understand the part about putting your life's savings into your bike, I did that with my RX, and I know how proud of it am I when it sputters to life.

And ron being a liar is soooo true, he would always say it wont do this, and it would even better the customer's expectations forget what ron said.

[chinoy]

Thanks for the kind words speedz.
Im glad you story had a happy ending. To be honest I had my reservations about the re-bore since it wasnt done by RDD. And very few guys get it right.

I always take worst case scenario. i.e. the owner is a retard and cant change his his plugs or change a few jets.

If they can they are rewarded to the full extent of what the porting and engine build is designed to achieve. I normally jet it rich during run in. So that even if they are retarded and dont run in right. The over rich jeting offers some level of protection. Once the run in is over they can re-jet and tap into the real magic.

As always full credit to you for all the hard work and wrenching. What you have done is much more than change a few jets. You have rebuilt your complete engine your self.
Once again thanks for the kind words.

My only objective as an engine builder is to help owners enjoy their tuned motors with an emphasis on reliability with unmatched power.

I thank you and all my customers for the faith and trust they put in me and endeavor not to let them down.


Ps:Im closing this post. Before it gets a whole lot of mindless responses and gets diluted.

[crazydiablo]

Before Rons locks the topic, awesome man...you posts sums up everyting....lets ride together sometime.

[SunMysore]

Nice story

Congrats [:D] finally you got anal stock looks and *beep* performance

Next time I see an RD with a lardarse moving, I know its you