Upgrades & Customisation

Off late I have realised that you might need some customisations to make your Bull more yours. I believe that two guys with different heights & build will not be comfortable to a full extent driving the same bike until it is customised to their riding necessities.  Be it cosmetic or comfort or even based on necessities. 

So, here I will allign my knowledge & learning on customising the Bull based on upgrading or adding  parts and  accessories and strictly with no Model bias.

To begin with, these are the areas on upgrade I'll mainly be concentrating on :

• Handlebars
• Headlights
• Seats
• Tyres
• Cosmetics - Just by adding accessories

Handlebar Upgrades

Being a six footer, a low snug seat with a short handle bar will make me lean forward and drive . This is not my preference even though a shorthandle bar would be more comfortable to drive in city. So with a Low Snug seat, I would prefer a high rise handlebar.  Now a question - how much of high rise?  This being a very broad question, lets narrow it to three sizes sampling on

Bullet Electra Handle Bar

RD 350 Handlebar

Thunderbird Handle bar

Bullet Electra - Handlebar

Electra's handlebar has a decent rise level and with a combo of low sung seat it would give a good cruiser feel. On a long cruise it might not be as comfortable as Thunderbird's but I feel it does a decent job. Moreover in the city, Electra's Handle bar is surely a step ahead than any a high rise handlebar. For a person with daily drive in city and weekend long drives Electra's Handlebar makes good sense

RD 350 - Handlebar

RD 350's handlebar is pretty famous among bikers. This will have a bit more rise and will be slightly wider than Electra's handlebar. So it will be more closer to you compared to the short handlebar due to which one doesnt doesn't have to stretch to reach it. This should ease the wrist & elbow and will improve the driving position.  This could be a good choice of replacement for Thunderbird's handlebar in case you are not comfortable with the stock handlebar. For that matter you can use it on any Bull with a low snug seat if you are not comfortable with short handlebar. To me RD 350, is a all road bike, so the handlebar's performace would be good both in city & highways.

Enfield Thunderbird - Handlebar

Thunderbird's Handlebar is a true cruiser handle bar, its rise and bends makes its a great performer on Highways, well in city you have to get used to it. The handlebar adds a disctinctive style to the Bull it stands on.

If you are changing your handlebar, don't forget the Handlebar weigths, its definetly more than cosmetic, will help you reduce the vibrations on the handlebar.

 

Headlight Upgrades

When I'm talking about headlights, I don't want to bring in HID, Angel eyes and similar stuff in to the picture. I'm talking on a decent vision, nothing more and nothing less. My experience says like 35W/35W power on a headlight is not enough and a 60W/55W gives pretty decent vision in simple terms I like the headlight of RE Classic and feel RE Electra Twinspark's headlight output is no way enough.

So Now Let me share my knowledge on upgrading Electra's Headlight from 35W/35W to 55W/60W. The Electrical system is 12V DC and the battery output is 12V, 14Ah, this is same both in Electra and Classic 350, so an upgrade should not be an extraload and a cross check on the electrical diagram would also reflect this.

The Electra's headlight is fixed in the 'Casquette' and has very limited space that will limit or may be complicate your upgrades a bit and if you remove it you will be changing the total outlook of the bull, so we better enjoy the complications.

On the first phase you could upgrade a better dome like Autopal's with a H4 holder of type P43t.  When you do this, you might forego the Electra's headlight rings as well and buy the Bullet Standard's rings to give a completion. Take my word, it will look excellent on your Electra. The more fuzzier part here is that  the holder cannot be accomodated in the 'Casquette' due to space constraints.  So you should break the holder and use the pins directly to connect. Get a good 60W/55W halogen bulb and you will see a different night.

Autopal is something I know for a longtime and you can look for any 7" dome for that matter and should be a four wheeler's dome since H4-P43t type holder is basically a fourwheeler's holder. Mail me if you try something different and I would like to learn them.