RD400E project bike lives!!!

[msr]

I picked up this bike in the summer of 2020, taking a road trip with my brother from NC to eastern PA to get it. The price was right, but man was there a ton it needed.

After 2+ years and lots of work and dollars later, it fired off and ran in Mark's garage last night.   

There have been a LOT of people involved providing help, guidance, and patience. I really have these people to thank:

Eric Heyman: source for the bike itself and the Factory Pipe chambers
John Ritter: porting and polishing work on the cylinders and heads (along with generous amounts of time on the phone with me about the project)
Lyn Garland: crankshaft and the work to rebuild it
Cabin Craft Cycle in Ft. Lawn, SC: cylinder boring
Tim Steele: bead blasting the engine cases
Abrasive Blasting of the Carolinas: sandblasting and powder coating various frame components and wheels
Best Damn Powder Coating in Indian Trail, NC: stripping and cerakote applied to chambers
John @ Economy Cycle: just a TON of various parts
Mark Atkinson (Speed of Cheese): amazing rear sets

... and especially Mark Haase for walking me through all of this, providing the garage, expertise, and the spare hardware when needed (which was really very often) and for being the kind of friend who says, 'Oh yeah, we can make that work. I can make a bracket for it."

Man this has been fun. It's not all that close to *finished* but just seeing and hearing it run was pretty damn amazing. Check out some highlight pics below

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vRDtsyhoKyAkRXDbA

- msr

[m in sc]

I'll leave the time lapse vid here from sat and sunday then.



what a fun weekend wrenching, and glad to help and be able to watch Matt put this together, its really, really nice quality, better than most of my stuff. Started 4? 5 kicks and yes, the running at the end is off the original fire off.  Good work Matt.

[Kawtriplefreak]

Congratulations Matt! Sounds sweet

[kpke]

Great job guys!

[SoCal250]

woo-hoo! Congrats! Looks and sounds great. Nice work

[m in sc]

as a side note, there was -zero- packing in the cans. hell, the cans were just pushed on with no retaining clips 

[kramdua]

Wow that's a man on a mission. like i said many times no matter what you start with it takes a lot of hard work to get what you want.
great job.