There are a few basic tweaks that are both cheap and easy and can give you some lost horsepower. Much of this stuff is pretty basic maintenance, and if your motorcycle is nearly new, or immaculately-maintained, then they might not make much difference. But, if you're like a few guys we know and ride a motorcycle that's a few years old and a little worn at the edges, there's every chance it has lost horsepower and fuel efficiency due to the lack of maintenance.

For just a few hundred Baht you can spend a relaxing weekend day in your garage with some friends and you'll end up with a smoother, cleaner running motorcycle that gets more power and more kilometers out of your fuel.

The first problem we see often is the chain and sprockets. Don't laugh, but we had chains which looked like they had never seen lubrication. In fact, after examining your own motorcycle check out some of your friends also – you are likely the one hurt the most if you ride behind him. A worn, dried out and badly-adjusted final drive chain will soak up a heap of engine power. Often lubricate the chain, and a regular, deep-clean with kerosene or chain cleaner will get all that lost engine power back.

I decided to look into the problem of the BMW G 650 Xmoto front suspension. The issue is that the front suspension on the BMW G650 Xmoto is setup to soft, this happened after some major repairs on the front forks, that it dives to fast under braking, then bounces back up when accelerating. Making riding the BMW G 650 Xmoto unpredictable and sometimes even dangerous.

Tweaking the suspension is a bit of a dark art, and whenever I try to tweak my suspension settings, I usually reverting back to standard, as I've managed to mess it up. So I invited some motorcycle mechanics for a BBQ party and they where helpful to assist me with my suspension setup.

We did tweaked the compression on max. The rebound, which is on the right fork leg only, we set at four clicks out and the front was marginally firmer and less sloppy as a result. Apparently, thicker fork oil is probably the way forward here, as the springs themselves seem to be doing a decent enough job. That may be something I'll look into next time.

Dyno rooms are not only filled with the sound of screaming engines, but they're also rammed to the rafters with bullshit. Every dyno gives a different reading and there are a series of 'correction' factors that can be applied to alter the results.

These are EC standard, DIN and SAE, which all give slightly different results and are there because temperature and humidity alter dyno results.

These corrections are applied to the result in an attempt to standardize dynos all over the world and take into account the climatic conditions. The problem is that they give slightly different end figures. If you're getting your motorcycle dynoed, make sure the figures before and after the test uses the same correction factors so you know where you stand.

Let's say you are stuck in traffic and have been putting along in fourth gear at 2,000 rpm or so. You finally get an opening and want to get up to 100 km/h quickly, so you can be on your way and dry some of the sweat you've been collecting under your arms. At 2,000 rpm your engine might be able to make, say, depending on you motorcycle 15 horsepower. If you downshift twice and raise its rpm, you'll have at least twice as much power and will get up to 100 km/h much more quickly. That is easy...

This is what most motorcycle manufacturers tells us to do. It is what we know works. It is obvious, But few of us, including myself, do this simple thing. Instead we strain our poor engines at a too-low rpm and rail at the manufacturers gods: We want more torque!

Well, the first step to correct the lean air/fuel mixture in the 15 to 40-percent throttle range. Enriching the mixture by 10 percent greatly improves throttle response and acceleration, and the simple needle change along with some idle mixture adjusting can accomplish this. In the case of fuel-injection, only a slight recalibration is necessary.

While most Kawasaki KSR 110 motorcycles bear mostly a vestigial resemblance to their mini-motocross ancestors, you'd hardly guess there's an unaltered Kawasaki KSR frame and engine lurking under this MotoGP style roadracer's aerodynamic skin. Even more unexpected is how well these radically reconfigured machine navigate a road course. A few laps on a properly fettled Kawasaki KSR GP bike might convince you that roadracing is the most inspired mutation to the Kawasaki KSR 110 yet.

Surprisingly few changes are required to complete an Kawasaki KSR GP conversion. You'll need front and rear suspension modifications, clip-on handlebars, rearset footpegs are a must to create a roadrace-appropriate riding position, and bodywork is a no-brainer now that there are several manufacturers who have several kits in the collection to fit the little KSR 110. Rolling your own Kawasaki KSR GP style is essentially a bolt-on endeavor.

While lots of people know the term 'blueprint', few fully understand exactly what it is. The name originally comes from the type of paper that technical drawings come on, which is generally blue in color.

What does this have to do with my motorcycle engine power? Well, a blueprint of an engine shows its design in very high detail, down to the last nut, bolt and measurement, so you need to make reference to the blueprint drawing to take an engine completely apart and reassemble it.

Blueprinting an engine is the process where you strip it down and refine every component to its optimum level of performance. Modern engines are mass-produced and so aren't built to precision.

I've done about 5980 kilometers on my Honda CBR1000RR. I've moaned about the Honda Fireblade's under-damped suspension, low-down fueling glitches and weak back brake, but as yet done absolutely nothing about them – so they're hardly spoiling the motorcycle.

Last year I ran an Yamaha YZF-R6 and spent a lot of time fiddling with the fueling. A Power Commander went on and I spent a lot of time trying to fine tune the Yamaha. It was very on/off low down and lacked midrange, but then it was a peaky 600cc engine.

As for the low-down power delivery on the Honda CBR1000RR Fireblade, that's more down to worldwide stronger emissions restrictions than Honda and it's easy to get around this restrictions. Suspension wise, all I've done so far is add a bit more rebound damping front and back. Next, I'm going to whack up the rebound to max, up the preload and perhaps add a touch more compression.

If you can ride a motorcycle, the chances are you're a fairly useful human and can perform relatively basic tasks without having a nervous breakdown.

Which begs the question, 'Why are we so quick to pay money to a mechanic when the majority of all servicing and maintenance can easily be undertaken in the garage at home?'

The biggest obstacle in our was is knowledge or lack of. If we knew exactly which bolt to undo at what point and everything was completely mapped out for use a full service should be a lot less taxing than putting together an moderated jig-zag puzzle, which are designed for 9 to 12 year olds.

450 horsepower, from an almost stock-looking Suzuki GSX-R1000. Welcome to the crazy world of forced induction.

For the uninitiated, this is where compressed air is fed into the engine to create astronomical power. Rather than simply relying on the pistons' downstrokes to draw air-fuel mix into the combustion chamber, a forced induction system actively pushes it in.

In this Suzuki GSX-R1000's case, it's achieved with a turbocharger. This uses a turbine, located just after the shortened downpipes and spun by exhaust gases firing out of the engine, to drive a compressor. Compressed air is then fed into the plenum chamber, a sealed box which distributes it between the throttle bodies. Combining this extra air with modifications, like second rail of injectors, to flow extra fuel allows the engine to make more power. Lots of power.

Do you have the feeling that your motorcycle is holding back on power, the source may be easier than you think.

Is your throttle cable adjusted properly? If the throttle valves aren't completely open when the twist-grip is fully turned you'll never get max power out of your engine.

Get access to the engine end of your throttle cables where they operate the pulley that turns the butterfly valves inside the throttle bodies or, on older motorcycles, the carburettors. Make sure that when you turn the twist-grip fully back the pulley is turned completely so that the butterfly valves inside are perfectly parallel to the airflow inside.

There are normally cable adjusters near the twist-grip and the pulley, and if you need to take up and slack or free play simply make minor adjustments at both ends of the cable.