bought an RD 350!

[sinikl]

i picked up a 73 rd350 last week and have been playing with it since. got some clubman bars on it now... next is DG pipes, rearsets, and a fabbed cafe seat.  i promise not to blow too much VW money on it (that last bit was for the car's benefit).

anyone else into these, or other 70s two stroke bikes?

[Keith S]

Oh man, you're going to have fun. I used to own an RD400E – the air-cooled two-stroke twin. Fitted a set of Boysen reeds, expansion chambers, rear sets, clip-ons and a pair of three-spoke Dymags. That bike was fun! The first time I cranked the trottle wide open at 5000rpm.... nothing. Watched the tach climb to 6000rpm and then WHAM! off she'd go. What a blast! The sound, the handling (strokers are soooo light!). Must get another some time. You're a lucky man! And you can p*** off the environmentalists as you leave the trail of blue smoke, too!

[James2]

Had one in highschool, well I had a 400 and my friend had 350.

It ran mid 13's if i remember right. best memory is totaly smoking a HD at a redlight.

[Tom Simon]

My street bike days started out when I was 15yrs old with a Kawasaki 2-stroke triple... most guys don't know they made one but it was a 1972 250cc. I even drag raced the thing a few times but it needed, yep, MORE POWER!  I bought a 400cc triple engine from a bike my friend had wrecked, the post crash fire fire didn't damage the engine... much. I added a set of Denco expansion chambers, did some port matching and re jetted the thing and built a set of rear struts and wheelie bars for it. I eventually got it to run low 14 second quarter mile times at Fremont Raceway.

I worked for Concord Kawasaki and later Dick Brant at Concord Yamaha, where I worked on several R series and RD series bikes, everyone one in the shop knew I loved the ring-a-dings. I got my 6th moving violation for doing a wheelie on a customer's ported and piped RD350! The judge was not pleased over that one... I even once got to ride (read: tried to ride) an RD with the engine from the air-cooled version of the famous TZ shoved between the frame tube. Talk about a toggle switch, that engine was either off and wouldn't run below 4k-5k rpm, or was on and stood up on the rear wheel. It took a real knack to ride and you had to slip the clutch a bunch, not practicle for riding down the street.

I loved those light little bikes, you could toss them around in the twistys, stand it up on the back wheel at will. I love the smell of Blendzall castor bean oil.