the DR650 thread

You can get a tongue weight measurement on it before modding & just make sure you compensate with weight, an equal amount forward being or moved from rear to front somehow, ie; if you put your 300 pounder on there the back bumper, you need something up front to keep the tongue heavy enough to be safe. Your manual should be a good start, but mods made before you got it will likely show a different value. Water tends to be stored midships as much as possible for this balancing reason.

Or, tow with a pickup, bike in the box. More storage for beer & fuel too.

I bought my DR new in January 2008 (AU$8500 ride away)
My original tank was the same as yours but in metallic blue, based on no factory updates since then with that new tank it will look like a 2021.

They were around $9500 new last year, maybe even to early this year but have noticed since the postings of the DR being not imported to Australia after 2021 (No ABS (The stock front brake is a almost anti lock) the price has risen to $10390.

I still wonder when all the parts were there from the DRZ400SM why Suzuki did not release the DR as a factory SM model along side the SE.

I'd go 20w 50 as long as it meets the other spec, S? I expect.

I have a DR650 and a T7 , as good as the Yamaha is if it came down to just one bike it would always be the DR650 (a new one if I could find one).

#1...I'd go with a good 100% synthetic but "synthetic" can have different meanings depending on which lawyer you ask...seriously. There are a number of good oils available...I happen to like Mobil 1 and generally use 20w50 V-Twin for my air cooled motorcycles and generally use 10w40 Racing 4T for my water cooled motorcycles. I consider the DR air cooled so 20w50...and I don't ride if it is below about 50F .

#2...if it is a motorcycle, get an oil designed for a motorcycle and if it has a wet clutch (clutch plates are bathed in oil like the DR) then get one designed for a motorcycle with a wet clutch.

If in doubt follow your owners manual.

Just remember this...using enough of the "cheapest out on special" oil is a LOT better for your engine than not enough of the really good stuff .

Thanks so much!

While it’s been a long time, I have worked on a number of those. Most I recall had the spring assembly to really shock the crap out of you no mater how slowly you turn it. That would make the DR easy to start without a battery

Is it diesel or gas?

Here is my take on oil, a lot has to do with the clearances in the engine along with temps. You have an engine with .003" bearing clearance, it has no trouble circulating heavier oils in colder conditions. Same engine with only .001" clearance is going to require a lighter weight oil in the same conditions. Lubrication on startup is an important wear factor (I've notices some of the Fords that shut off when you stop run very light weight oil) So where does this leave you? I have only had a couple Toyota engines apart, but they along with other Japanese vehicle engine builders, tend to error on the tight side of clearances. So I would assume your Japanese made vehicle with low hours is still pretty close on specs. Now you just have to decide the temps you are going to run. This thing going to live in the desert areas where temps don't drop below 27C and high as 50C? Then I would use a 15w-40 (and give plenty of engine warm up time before hard labor). If this is going to be more temperate climates, I would stick with 10w-30 or 10w-40. Add temperate climate with close tolerances and I would say 10w-30. On modern vehicles, heavy weight oils are a thing of the past. The only time I could see running 20-50 is if it had 6000 hours on it and bearing clearances have opened up considerably.

If diesel, chances are clearances are a little looser and you can go up in weight.

*side note: oils that are 10w-40 and heavier are often times not "emissions capatible" on gasoline engines, meaning they have additives in them that don't play well with o2 sensors and/or catalytic converters. If using a heavier oil on an emissions vehicle make sure it is compatible. In the US it has a symbol on the bottle, like a 12 point star with some words in it (real descriptive I know, I don't have to worry about it on marine so I don't look that close).

Edit: found the emissions compliant symbol:



@Redfish Hunter take note, this also means death to flat tappet camshaft due to the lack of zinc/phos.

It is possible to get on the wrong side of that equation:

15 years ago I had an "incident" with a two stroke powered bar stool... This appears to be an upgrade of considerable proportions. Please tell me you know who owns this.

I don’t know. It makes me think… torque converter to sprocket and chain to connect to the differential? Wheelie bar controlling an ignition cutout? AVE sticker to warn potential operators (“not to be operated by fuckwitts”)? Sticker basically disqualifies any one sitting on it. Nice party favor…

I'm not trying to be a safety Karen here...but I think a kill-switch lanyard may not be a bad idea. Maybe a 3 step startup process to weed out alcohol content over .20.

The lanyard kill switch is important since if the driver is hurt, the projectile is less likely to hurt others. Instead of kill switch maybe the same kind of “termination device” used on rockets? The center of gravity looks suboptimal to my eye.

DR650 Ignition Pulse Coil Replacement (jimrandall.net)

This seems like it will work. Waiting on parts.....

@boboneleg interested to hear if the operation will improve the phantom pains. I work with an amputee who comments often on the discomfort of them.

Checked out for a few days to catch up on mostly non-DR related activities. Before doing a deep dive into the new bike I figured I should probably finish doing the carbs on the toy I purchased last spring. I got tired of staring at it in the corner of the garage and took a day off.



I did manage to begin a wheel swap w/ the second set of wheels I bought for the DR. With shinko 705s I assumed this would be plug and play until I noticed how out of balance the rear was ... because it has a rim lock ?! Ugh ... Tally that onto the list of things I should have noticed while I waited months for the bike to ship



I suppose I could have tried to balance it with a bazillion spoke weights, but that seemed kind of silly in light of the fact this will be primarily a street wheel set, so I figured I would just get the right of passage over with and spoon my first wheel. They're a little bit tougher than mountain bike tires. I was about to put the old one back on, but after talking myself back from the ledge, decided putting a 4 year old tire back on was stupid. Ordered a new one, should be here in a couple days.

Congrats. We enjoy ours. The only thing I'll say it's that the DR guess in the truck bed, not on the back of a small travel trailer. I've haired my bike and trailer before this way and it works fine, though your bed has to be long enough to close the tailgate.

Yeah... Not really a good idea. Too much to go wrong. I wouldn't risk it. If it fails going down the highway you just lost your camper and bike.

I rode w

I rode with a friend last week, he had a T 7, it looks great. I prefer the DR. It's about 100lbs lighter.

Rode the dr over 340 miles while in NC for a 3 days trip. We did Tail of the Dragon, rode Cherohala Skyway and we rode some trails which were sections of the SM500. The same dr that couldn't run more than 20 mins before the valve check now doing all kinds of roads and trails. Crazy how a simple valve out of specs issue could have caused so many issues.
The TM40 was a nice upgrade and i thought it was going to kill my wrists but it didnt
I rerouted the cables so there was less binding and it worked flawlessly.
NC is so pretty i really hated the trip back home FL.

Ah yes the Impulse coupling, nice quick snap and a good spark. In school one of the tests was installing and timing magnetos, when you were ready for the instructor to check your work you had to get the engine ready for # 1 Cylinder to fire while holding all the other spark plug leads in your hands while he pulled it through. Kind of gave you incentive to get it right!