FS 550e (2007) – By OldMan from Portugal

I've had this bike for a year now and there is still plenty of room for me to learn from it.

Will try not to overload this thread with pics so I'll have to sum things up a bit.



On March 2013 I went down the road, 250km away from home, along with my father to get this Berg. We rent a van, put it in and bring it home under heavy rain.



As soon as we got home I took a few pictures of it for posterity. It had 2500km on the clock at this point.








First impressions were: lots of power, handles amazingly well, feels a bit lighter than it really is, the brakes!! Outstanding brakes!

Here's the first video I've done with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQqVxzFbejM

You can see I'm clearly not used to this power. Previous bike was 1/3 of this power for the same weight.



Soon after, there were a few "must have" mods for me to being able to use it on the road: axle slider and ignition key.













A few months after (May 2013) and after roughly 500km (now with 3000km) bad things happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xzuEBZA0vg

Turned out to be a crank bearing failure which ruined piston and cylinder.
All in all, the bike was back on the road after taking 900€ out of my pocket.

A month later and I was already being pulled over by police officers that were just really curious about a dirt bike with street tires. No issues what so ever!





Did some cosmetic changes on the wheels replacing the solid blue rim tape for a striped yellow rim tape





I then changed the already dying grips for some Husaberg themed grips. And... handguards! A supermoto deserves a good pair of these.





Reduced the size on the plate not to get burned by the exhaust as the older bigger one was.





Protect your eyes!



During the winter I decided to get a bit of color on the front of the bike and designed a sticker for the front fender.

Also ended up with a rear fender sticker from printed experiments.



Still in the winter decided to get rid of the 7 year old tires and get brand new stickier ones. Went with the Bridgestone S 20, not a single complain until now.









Police officers keep inciting me to do bad things

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1QNVJkubyM



And then, most recently, bad things happened again.



Turns out the previous guy that rebuilt the engine when the crank bearing failed didn't read the F*ING manual and mounted this cap the other way around. Tiny oil leak was enough for me to notice it.

A few weeks ago it went in for a service again.

This time I went with a trusty friend to replace a few things on the bike and deal with this cap. Here's a list of what was done:

> Underbar mirrors
> ZETA clutch lever
> Headlight from a KTM 530 EXC
> LED blinkers
> Renthal R3 chain
> Renthal 40T rear chainwheel
> HEL brake lines
> Brake fluid
> Denso IXU 24 iridium spark plug
> TWIN AIR filter
> Oil filter
> Engine oil Motorex Power Synt 4T 10W/50
> Engine cap mounted the right way (thanks Taff for the 0770291016 o-rings )
> Suspension adjusted
> A well deserved bath!


Fresh pics as it is at the moment.

















At this moment I'm just finishing the designs for some new stickers. Let's see if all this goes well. Here's what I've got until now:



Headlight


Fork guards


Forks


Hubs


Swingarm caps


One last note about the overall transmission. Originally it was with 16-38 which, as some users said around here, was ridiculously long. At this point it is with 16-40 since the front sprocket was wrongly listed. And I'm now waiting for a 14T to arrive.

Maybe in the future it will be 14-40

That's it for now!

she's a looker!!

i loooooove the 550 motor character

Lovely FS you have there! What exhaust are you running? Doesn't look like an Akra.

well done on ya purchase Old...
Spending alittle time on her & sharing ur ideas... very smart little gear thats for sure

Goose916 said:

Lovely FS you have there! What exhaust are you running? Doesn't look like an Akra.

Click to expand...

(Let's pretend there was no talk via PM so other people with the same question might get some help as well)

It's a Doma slip on.
Here's their website: Doma Racing Shop

If anyone can get a response from them, I'd say to consider yourself lucky!

Looking mint OldMan! Nice work and cool story! I'm enjoying all your posts.

I recently sold my 650 :cry: Very sexy beasts. I loved all the metal and steel on them, so left mine pretty nude. Here's some pics of it before I sold it attached.

Also, if you want to try a free mod that goes a LONG way, try dropping your front shocks by 10MM to 15MM (start out at 10MM and be sure to set the 'Ride Sag' correctly, too). It changes the way the bike handles significantly and doesn't cost a cent

P.S. I know you're a camera guy, too; these were short on my 5D3 with the 24/1.4 - my fav lens by far!

Oh wow! I'm jealous now

That is actually the version I like the most. All black with golden forks. You did a great job there mate!

f/1.4 lens... oh well! I love my 50mm f/1.8, the camera is an old 350D. I don't use it all that much now, I guess I can't justify getting a 60D or 70D just to shoot the Berg from time to time. I would love to, but money doesn't stretch

Looking forward to see the progress on your 570!

Nifty Fifty is a cool lens too! I have that

I was lucky to work at Canon and get a bunch of cheap lenses!

Can't wait to start a 570 thread. Seems like a bunch of dudes have already done it a few times before, (with money cash and skills than I'll ever have!) but for most of us, it never gets boring just to check out what our fellow Berg-lovers are up to!

Enjoy the FS & Ride Safe!

Nice documentation! I wish I can do the same soon, when I am less busy.

Keep the updates coming!

Here are 2 videos of my friend giving it a little spin

Husaberg FS550 Supermoto - Long highway WHEELIES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyscbL0Y7pw

Husaberg FS550e Supermoto - FUN! Wheelies & Twisties
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCNKH8Db7M4


Subscribe to him if you like what you see: https://www.youtube.com/mfpmatias

Wow, this is awesome! I really like!

Where in Portugal are you?

Last year, I spent time in Faro, Porto, and Lisbon.

I'm from Porto

As expected, today I received the 14T front sprocket I had ordered back when I figured out (with your precious help) what should be the sprocket for these bikes.

The good thing about it is that the Renthal supplier where I ordered it from was gentle enough to understand it was not my mistake and since the shipping costs to send it back would probably be higher than the price of the actual sprocket, he sent me a new one at no additional cost.

Happy customer here!

Here's a pic of the actual sprocket with their banner in case you need it.






Today was also a good day to clean the exhaust headers.

Here's a 1 year old pic where you can see how dark it was.


And here's a pic during the process (didn't remember to take photos before, my bad...):


With front faced flash:




In the end (at least the end of the day) with flash:


Without flash:







I honestly wasn't expecting such a difference, it turned way lighter. This was all done without taking off the headers but tried to get to every corner. It's not as even as I would like though, I should do a second try but am still to figure out if all this work is still worth it after I turn it on again.

Anyone wants to suggest a product to avoid it from getting dark again? I'm not sure but it could be due to the previous owner living very close to the sea.

Hey,

I'm not sure if there is a way to stop them discolouring over time. Once they are cleaned up, running them hot and often seems to be the best way to keep the rust off!

To clean mine, I took my pipes off completely, then used an angle-grinder with a steel brush attachement to polish them. I then used a wet and dry (light sand paper) to get into tricky parts. Finally, I put a steel brush back on them, and brushed them all the same direction (around the pipe) to give them a tidy look. At the end of the process they were super clean, and had a great brushed steel look.

Use VHT gasket sealer when you put them back on the head. Well worth it.

I'm not planning to take them out just yet.
Might use some more sand paper on that, especially on the front!

Will make sure to give it some scalding as well

Take 2:


Brush


Sandpaper


In the middle of the process, can you see the difference from the top to the bottom one?


Still in the process


End of the proccess


With flash


Way better than it was in the last week


With flash

And here's another take at kick-starting the beast. I'm getting better
The new iridium spark plug may also be helping.

YouTube

I've tried with boots by the way, as someone suggested, and it sure felt easier, but for the sake of comfort while dealing with the exhaust headers I was wearing some running shoes.




Here's PT.2 (https://youtu.be/cbz4LJ5xbRQ) and PT.1 (https://youtu.be/bKE0yEFadZc) in case you're curious to see how badly I was doing it at first.

Your bike looks so much better then mine! Keep it clean!

How come you don't hear the wind in your videos?