Here is my 2008 AVL Machismo which I've been working on little by little by little over the years. Used to be regular here until I got banned for no reason. I think it had to do something with our Indian servers. Anyway, I found out I can login again so here is an update. So far these are the mods done:
535cc JE forged piston running at 9.1:1 compression ratio
Mikuni TM36 carburetor
Bullet Whisperer's "S" cams
Anthony's dry clutch plates running in our own belt drive primary
Upgraded TCI ignition box with more retard and advance (BW)
Battery eliminator from Hitchcock's
Electronic Tachometer
Head ported to match the 36 carb
Combustion chamber reshaped
Crank lightened
Rockers lightened
Chassis reinforced here and there
CNC Triple tree and fork brace out billet 6061 T6 aluminum made by your truly
Tapered roller bearings in the head and swing arm pivot.
Tuned inlet velocity stack made by yours truly out of billet aluminum
Tuned header with megaphone exhaust
Steel braided front brake line with EBC HH brake pads
35mm Tommaselli adjustable clip-ons and quick throttle
18" alloy rims
T19 front sprocket
Oil cooler from Pulsar 220
And way too much time researching, fabricating and getting the work done!!!!
The bike is a pussycat in traffic (yes I do ride it to work in Mumbai traffic also) with full on torque right off idle and pulling hard all the way to 6700 rpm. It is proper scary doing second gear power wheelies without me trying to. Super fun to ride!!! I've taken it to the track in Chennai twice and although the engine was proper fun, need to work on handling/suspension.
You want some info on modding the AVL? Here is some of my experience:
I've tried the 30mm, 32mm, 34mm and 36mm flatslides on my bike. IMHO, for a stock head, the Mikuni TM32 was much stronger every where than the 30mm PKW slide I got from CMW. The TM36 was super strong in the mid to higher rpms but below 2200 rpm it was a little bit weaker than the 32, but still very ridable in traffic). That was before I ported the head to match the 36mm cab and modded the combustion chamber. Then the 36 was super strong right off idle all the way till the engine exploded
heh heh heh, just kidding. Here is the article I came across on the head job which I carried out and can post pics if anyone is interested. Everything else being equal, This made a huge difference in torque.
victorylibrary.com/mopar/chamber-tech-c.htm
I've tried a bunch of cams and BW's "S" cams made all the difference in the world. They make the engine run smooth and full on torque all the way from idle till the 6700rpm (in 4th gear) I've dared to pulled the engine to. Stock cast iron cams perform way better than the AVL cams. Hitchcock's Performance cams for the AVL were a waste of money. After I get the engine back together again, I'm gonna borrow a friend's Magnum cams and see what the difference is. The Magnum cams have 0.5mm higher lift than the "S" cams, apart from a few degrees difference in timing figures.
To answer your question if the engine is reliable for all this modification? The answer is no. I've had to rebuild the big end at 12k km then again at 22k km and then again at 24k km. Of course riding the bike hard to see its performance and being a work in progress with sometimes too much advance or sometimes too lean carburation etc could also have contributed to an already very iffy situation. The last time was totally my fault cuz I asked my mechanic to make an outer race for the big end roller bearing (like what H sells and claims is the problem with AVL big end failures). He obviously didn't do a decent job and after 2k kms its failed again. Another issue with revving the AVL so high is the front and rear of the piston gets scored a lot. I'm guessing its because of the shorter con rod this engine comes with? So I'm going to rebuild the engine with the big end roller bearing and forged con rod for the cast iron engine in my AVL. The con rod is 14.5mm longer, so we're going to have to deal with that. But the bottom line is the material from the factory is utter sh*t and needs to be replaced. Lesson learnt: you want a quality machine, you have to get the quality parts.
Then you have issues with the clutch.... Dear God, I'm going to stop now.