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Another Inverted Fork Conversion (6th Gen)


VFR800R

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Guest Pete McCrary

-chain guard 9 oz

Kevin:

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but I think if you include the mounting hardware you're actually looking at closer to 10 oz according to my postal scales.

Pete

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http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250471542055&viewitem=

Something like that, yeah. I'm a little surprised more people on here haven't gone after a set for a Civic or similar and divided them up into 4 sets to split the cost. I don't know this specific brand or anything, it's just an example. I think RAYS sells them as well.

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-chain guard 9 oz

Kevin:

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but I think if you include the mounting hardware you're actually looking at closer to 10 oz according to my postal scales.

Pete

Yeah, my weight doesn't include the mounting hardware! :rolleyes:

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Unscientific guestimate of delinking work - ditch the stock calipers and replace with RC51 calipers, then junking lines and proportioning valve, and going single line to rear caliper;

- 4 1/2 pounds unsprung off the front forks/wheel...

- 2 pounds -lines and prop valve...

Rough stand on scale, with gear without gear etc...

MD

Edited by mello dude
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This is Interesting, Wanna make several adapters ?

I also have a set of '04-'07 CBR1000RR Vortex rearsets sitting in my closet, with a 600RR rear master cylinder. I need to have new mounting plates machined to slap them on, which is also on the "to do" list...

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I guess I should have started this with what I have already done.

post-10025-125955421566_thumb.jpg

Edit: this is an older picture, but it shows the exhaust change.

- Rear fender removed, replaced by a fender eliminator

- PAIR system removed and replaced by blocking plates

- Rear wheel lugs replaced with 7075 aluminum lugs

- Passenger pegs and grab handles removed

- Slip-on exhaust removed and replaced with a single TiForce canister (for an '06-'07 GSX-R600/750) and mid-pipe

- Ohlins 46DRS rear shock

- Custom ground away clutch cover - oops, that was from a lowside on Palomar, and needs to be replaced with the eBay special in my closet

- Bridgestone BT021 tires replaced with BT016's

For some of the ideas posted above:

- Radiator: I've already been looking at that one; I would like to change to a single front-mounted radiator, and have some ideas

- Lugs: already changed 'em

- Swingarm: this would be one of the last things I would fiddle with

- Rear wheel: it would be nice to score one of those Carrozzeria wheels or switch the rear carrier to something that would accept a Ducati wheel

- Headlight: I like the headlights, but it would be fun to take my thrashed front upper cowl and fill in the headlight holes for trackday use

- Subframe: if I only had a TIG welder... I would like to reproduce the subframe in aluminum, maybe in two pieces (a la the current ZX-10R, with a removable portion under the passenger seat)

- Carbon bodywork: Maybe when I buy my own house, and can cordon off a corner of the garage for a composites shop

Thanks for the ideas and feedback. I've been on VFRD since I bought the bike in spring 2006, and while I have a low post count I have been all over the site (I know, I'm a troll). I've been following BLS's RC45, vfroem's VFR750, Fotomoto's RCBVFR, Baileyrock's track whore VTEC, veefercanuck's GL800RR-SP2, ZRoyz's VTEC with RC51 then R1 front end, and most other crazy and/or daring builds to pop up here. So I have a fair idea what's been done, what's been proposed, and what's been ruled out. I'm open to any ideas or criticisms out there, so keep it coming.

Thanks!

Lacy

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Re-make all your fairing brackets in aluminum. If you're going to lighten the bike for track use, get a spare wiring harness & strip it down to track-only essentials. No lights, minimal fuses, etc. Get or make your own Speedcell battery(google it). Lose the plastic undertray and use thin aluminum sheet to cover the area back up.

Just a couple things that haven't been mentioned so far.

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- Subframe: if I only had a TIG welder... I would like to reproduce the subframe in aluminum, maybe in two pieces (a la the current ZX-10R, with a removable portion under the passenger seat)

Lacy

Have TIG welder, probably going to fabricate an aluminum subframe this winter... I'll let you know how it goes. Also planning on version 2.0 of my exhaust :fing02:

I've been trying to sell my bike, but since that's been unsuccessful and I'm not riding it... I will tinker with it!

As for your goals with this bike, I say go for it :wheel: Just because other people have tried and failed is absolutely no reason to stop, I am looking forward to seeing the results.

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This is Interesting, Wanna make several adapters ?

I also have a set of '04-'07 CBR1000RR Vortex rearsets sitting in my closet, with a 600RR rear master cylinder. I need to have new mounting plates machined to slap them on, which is also on the "to do" list...

Yeah, what he said! How much up and back will this move the pegs?

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I'm open to any ideas or criticisms out there, so keep it coming.

Maybe this link will give you some ideas on lightening a bike. Someone posted it on the local forum.

http://www.ducati.ms...ead.php?t=76500

How about a "PORN" warning before you post stuff like that?????

I'm just off to look for a towel...

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Hi Lacy,

You've got some great gear there for your front end conversion. I've wondered about the ZX-10R forks for a while now, the fork spacing was what I was trying to determine but I didn't want to just ask on a Kawasaki forum as it might have alerted the natives to a forthcoming drought of forks! smile.gif 210mm is the same as the R1 so it is a simple conversion - 2mm spacers on each side for axle and rotors.

Your Marvic Penta is damn sexy, I don't think the 5mm spacing that it requires is too big a deal - one-piece spacers will help maintain rigidity and you'll of course just need longer rotor bolts.

BTW am I the only person who read your initial post properly? I like that idea of doing what Honda singularly failed to do, in updating the VFR regularly to ditch weight and increase performance as the technology advanced. They weren't racing it of course so the return on investment could never match the GSX-R, but had they done it they'd never have lost their 'tech king' crown and bikes like the Sprint and ST4 would never have gotten close to the VFR - let alone beat it in comparisons.

On the rear wheel lug nuts - I have a couple of sets of tuner lug nuts (you can just contact ebay sellers to ask them to sell you four and they will do so) but my concern is that they use an 'acorn' seat and the OEM Honda lug nuts use a 'ball' seat. Honda is the only manufacturer to use ball seats AFAIK, and I'm yet to find an aftermarket manufacturer who does ball seats. Acorns seem to work ok for the tuner (rice) crowd and a member or two here have also had no problems, I'm just not 100% sold. I guess it's just a matter of regular checks on tightness I suppose, just as long as there's no sudden catastrophic failure caused by the different seating stresses over time.

Speaking of catastrophic failure, the words "Marvic Penta" gave me a bit of a shiver; Robert Dunlop had a hell of a crash on an RC45 at IoM in 1994 or so because his Penta rear wheel failed, and there were quite a few other examples. However I understand that Marvic learned from that lesson and increased the wall thickness of the spokes to a more rational measurement.

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I'm open to any ideas or criticisms out there, so keep it coming.

Maybe this link will give you some ideas on lightening a bike. Someone posted it on the local forum.

http://www.ducati.ms/forums/showthread.php?t=76500

:comp13:

Why show us that? What good could possibly come from me seeing that?! :fing02:

Now I have to go find $140k to buy a 1098R, throw away most of the parts, buy a bunch of titanium and carbon fiber parts, only to end up with a bike that I would have neither the skill nor the balls to ride. :angry:

That's an amazing bunch of hardware, and someone is going to cry for an entire month when they highside that thing :blink:

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Guest Smokey74

Lovin this thread.. Givin me lots of good ideas. My bike isn't even in my garage yet but I'm axious to get my hands on it. I think a serious diet will make the bike much better. How much is possible? Anyone ever do it all (anything steel converted to alum, gutted and all usless trinkets removed) and actually get acurate weight figures? Just from experience with fighters I would bet you could drop 40-50 lbs easy off these tanks. :musik20:

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Lovin this thread.. Givin me lots of good ideas. My bike isn't even in my garage yet but I'm axious to get my hands on it. I think a serious diet will make the bike much better. How much is possible? Anyone ever do it all (anything steel converted to alum, gutted and all usless trinkets removed) and actually get acurate weight figures? Just from experience with fighters I would bet you could drop 40-50 lbs easy off these tanks. :musik20:

I bet this one lost at least 40lbs. :fing02:

vfr8004.jpg

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Guest Smokey74

Lovin this thread.. Givin me lots of good ideas. My bike isn't even in my garage yet but I'm axious to get my hands on it. I think a serious diet will make the bike much better. How much is possible? Anyone ever do it all (anything steel converted to alum, gutted and all usless trinkets removed) and actually get acurate weight figures? Just from experience with fighters I would bet you could drop 40-50 lbs easy off these tanks. :musik20:

I bet this one lost at least 40lbs. :fing02:

vfr8004.jpg

OMG! I love it.. What year is it? Is that one of yours??

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OMG! I love it.. What year is it? Is that one of yours??

It's an 02 or 03, not mine. Someone in Colorado owns it, and I'm not sure if he's even a member here. I think HS took this pic at a lunch stop during a group ride in CO.

I believe that's a complete Kawi 636 front end, cruiser headlight, FMF shorty, and the tail is a modified stock subframe with modified stock seat.

If I remember correctly, this bike got painted like a cow( :blink: ) and sold on ebay about a year after this pic was taken.

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Lovin this thread.. Givin me lots of good ideas. My bike isn't even in my garage yet but I'm axious to get my hands on it. I think a serious diet will make the bike much better. How much is possible? Anyone ever do it all (anything steel converted to alum, gutted and all usless trinkets removed) and actually get acurate weight figures? Just from experience with fighters I would bet you could drop 40-50 lbs easy off these tanks. :fing02:

I bet this one lost at least 40lbs. :fing02:

vfr8004.jpg

OMG! I love it.. What year is it? Is that one of yours??

One of my favs, too. It's in CO and not a member here, if I recall. That's a Vtec with Kawi forks. Looks like '03-'04 636 to me. Still in the back of my mind as a possibility for my '99. I've got the forks and stem in the garage, but they are significantly bended... :blink:

Oh, Seb! Ya beat me!

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Oh, Seb! Ya beat me!

Sorry. But, please do try and fit your steering stem in your bike! If it fits yours, it will fit the VTECs and many other Hondas too! :blink:

What do you take me for?!? :fing02: Naw, I did try it with both models of 636 on my '99. One was a good length, and one too short. I forget now which was which. Both stems are far too thick. Both are press fit into the base, so possible to swap with a 51 or CBR? Haven't tried that. Since it wouldn't work so well as is, I never looked too far into clearance issues. Seems like I don't remember much difficulty with the lower triple...

As far as 636 forks go, the 05-06 model had bigger brakes in their "Petal" style, aka wave. Some slight difference with the internals, but not sure on details.

That new Kawi Big Piston Fork on the 600 sounds interesting...

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What do you take me for?!? :fing02: Naw, I did try it with both models of 636 on my '99. One was a good length, and one too short. I forget now which was which. Both stems are far too thick. Both are press fit into the base, so possible to swap with a 51 or CBR? Haven't tried that. Since it wouldn't work so well as is, I never looked too far into clearance issues. Seems like I don't remember much difficulty with the lower triple...

As far as 636 forks go, the 05-06 model had bigger brakes in their "Petal" style, aka wave. Some slight difference with the internals, but not sure on details.

That new Kawi Big Piston Fork on the 600 sounds interesting...

:blink:

If you can measure the section of the stem where the lower bearing race goes, I'll measure one of my scattered Honda parts and see if the stems can be swapped easily, although it doesn't sound like it...

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Wow, a lot happened here while I was out of town for work!

This is Interesting, Wanna make several adapters ?

I also have a set of '04-'07 CBR1000RR Vortex rearsets sitting in my closet, with a 600RR rear master cylinder. I need to have new mounting plates machined to slap them on, which is also on the "to do" list...

Yeah, what he said! How much up and back will this move the pegs?

I need to measure the rearsets and work out the new mounting brackets. From what I can tell, if the brackets are just built to fit the VFR's mounting spacing (vice the CBR's), it will move the pegs back and up around 10 mm each way. I need to decide if that will be okay, or if I need to design the brackets to position the pegs in the stock location when farthest forward/down. By the way, I got the idea for this one from the following site:

VFR800 VTEC build with Vortex rearsets

Hi Lacy,

You've got some great gear there for your front end conversion. I've wondered about the ZX-10R forks for a while now, the fork spacing was what I was trying to determine but I didn't want to just ask on a Kawasaki forum as it might have alerted the natives to a forthcoming drought of forks! smile.gif 210mm is the same as the R1 so it is a simple conversion - 2mm spacers on each side for axle and rotors.

Your Marvic Penta is damn sexy, I don't think the 5mm spacing that it requires is too big a deal - one-piece spacers will help maintain rigidity and you'll of course just need longer rotor bolts.

BTW am I the only person who read your initial post properly? I like that idea of doing what Honda singularly failed to do, in updating the VFR regularly to ditch weight and increase performance as the technology advanced. They weren't racing it of course so the return on investment could never match the GSX-R, but had they done it they'd never have lost their 'tech king' crown and bikes like the Sprint and ST4 would never have gotten close to the VFR - let alone beat it in comparisons.

On the rear wheel lug nuts - I have a couple of sets of tuner lug nuts (you can just contact ebay sellers to ask them to sell you four and they will do so) but my concern is that they use an 'acorn' seat and the OEM Honda lug nuts use a 'ball' seat. Honda is the only manufacturer to use ball seats AFAIK, and I'm yet to find an aftermarket manufacturer who does ball seats. Acorns seem to work ok for the tuner (rice) crowd and a member or two here have also had no problems, I'm just not 100% sold. I guess it's just a matter of regular checks on tightness I suppose, just as long as there's no sudden catastrophic failure caused by the different seating stresses over time.

Speaking of catastrophic failure, the words "Marvic Penta" gave me a bit of a shiver; Robert Dunlop had a hell of a crash on an RC45 at IoM in 1994 or so because his Penta rear wheel failed, and there were quite a few other examples. However I understand that Marvic learned from that lesson and increased the wall thickness of the spokes to a more rational measurement.

Phantom, you get me! I really want to update the bike to something as flexible as the current GSX-R750, labeled by many as the perfect bike. We'll see.

I see your acorn vs. ball seat lug nuts concerns; I've had my aftermarket Civic lugs for around a year, and they've done well. Although I need to go check the torque on them now that you mention it...

I'm not too worried about my Marvic Penta; they fixed their problems after the TT crash, and I don't intend to pull a Joey and get a foot of air under the wheels at 150 mph!

On the parts side, my Speigler lines showed up in the mail while I was gone, along with the longer caliper mount and rotor mount bolts I ordered. Pretty sexy stuff, especially the safety wire drilled caliper mounting bolts. I kind of wish I went with titanium instead of stainless, but it is hard to justify doubling the cost, and I need room to upgrade later, right?

Lacy

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i would just like to say a few things...

this has been one of my favorite threads up on vfrd for a while.

there are definitely some awesome looking bikes on here.

as far as weight goes id say ive probably droped about 40 lbs off mine.

the stock exhaust is 28 mine is 8 20 lbs

the stock header is maybe 20 id say the motad is 10 10 lbs

the passenger grab handles are like 5 lbs

and all the pair equipment evap canister and airbox shit together should weigh in at about 10 lbs

thats all roughly 40 lbs there. plus i can easily ditch the passenger foot pegs, the dummy can, and the mirrors for at least another 10 lbs...

the center stand is a bitch to remove though and doesnt seem worth the effort at the moment.

what i would like to see is a titanium subframe. about as light as aluminum and about as strong as steel. best of both worlds...

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