Renewed my bike insurance here in India recently and was surprised to find that any bike over 350cc's has now had the third-party insurance rates tripled. Leading me to get thinking:
I've already got the AVL500 (Machismo), but in researching rebuild options for its crankshaft was reminded that the connecting rod / crankpin are same on the UCE350's as on the 500's / 535's - which suggests that the bottom end is pretty much overkill for a 350, and that it could probably easily handle some significant power enhancements with great reliability / longevity.
For local use here in the hills (at 7,000ft), 350's have seemed a little too tame for me, but with just a few more hp one could probably be nearly as useful as the stock 500, with lower purchase/ running / insurance costs, etc...
So suppose I buy one worn-out and dirt-cheap (running ones can sometimes be had as low as $400 here now), lighten the bike as much as possible, and rebuild the engine to where I might lose a few kmpl in fuel efficiency (45-50 down to 40ish maybe, which is still a fair bit better than the 500, and about as good as my 150cc Honda commuter), and maybe pump up the power from 20hp to perhaps 24ish (20%)... Vs. the AVL, I'd now have quieter hydraulic lifters (much better for my tinnitus), the auto cam backlash / primary chain adjusters, etc... A good daily rider in other words.
Any thoughts on how to achieve this?
(I seem to be hungry for a new project already)
-Eric