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Least Favorite Mods


WIN6

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As much as I like the dual megaphone on the right side of the bike. . . I think this amazing weld job under the bike has to my least favorite thing about my bike right now. Commence wisecracks about cutting corners while welding (instead of bending them) and fess up to your least favorite mods. I know you've got them too.

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Beautiful Welding. . . ?

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Polished frame on my old superhawk. Made me feel like a harley fag because of all the needless time spent trying to keep it decent looking. The chromed wheels came in a close second. Pretty and low maintenance but they were kinda' like putting steel-toed work boots on a track athlete. :goofy: The wheels I would later replaced for a tidy profit but the frame was always there....... :comp13:

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I would say the pyramid plastics hugger on my 5th gen. It didnt mount up all that straight and hit the tire sometimes. To get a handle on it, I cut about 7 inches off the thing so that the tire coverage is about half. Still does the job of keeping crud off the shock, and doesnt bounce around like it used to. More better funtionally, but not much on esthetics.

MD

Edited by mello dude
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I would say the pyramid plastics hugger on my 5th gen. It didnt mount up all that straight and hit the tire sometimes. To get a handle on it, I cut about 7 inches off the thing so that the tire coverage is about half. Still does the job of keeping crud off the shock, but doesnt bounce around like it used to. More better funtionally, but not much on esthetics.

MD

I was about to bag on my powerbronze rear hugger. I hate the heavy gauge steal mounting bracket and plan to re fab a new smaller one out of aluminum. Once I do that it will go back on. Does a good job of keeping road crud off the rear of the engine and shock. I'll probably bob it a bit like you did to get rid of some of the monkey motion.

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Race only slip on. Way too loud. Vibrations and back firing from the lean condition.

Disconnect the PAIR system to get rid of the popping. The back fire has always been there, you can just now hear the combustion that takes place in the headers as the PAIR valves open and allow oxygen to mix with unburned fuel and hot headers.

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Strip and polish of the rear wheel lip.

It was a biatch of a job. The wheel came out looking OK, but I never cared for it that much.

Plus keeping it clean was a chore.

Never again.

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My worst mod was done "free" for me by my local mega-dealership right before I left for a 3500 mile trip. I didn't catch it until almost half way through the journey. Brand new tires mounted with the rear on the rim backwards. Is it REALLY that hard to match up the directional arrows on the tire and rim?

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Bailey Harbor - Lake Michigan '08

We did two full days of riding in the rain and I never felt a slip. I did get free replacement upon my return. Thanks (I think) Grand Prix Motorsports in Littleton, CO. :laugh:

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I guess the worst mod I did was dropping one tooth up front. The acceleration was great but I was always trying to shift into 6th when I was already there. MPG took a tumble and the speedo was even further off than normal. Two months later, I went back to stock.

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I drilled my footpeg hanger brackets and thought it was ok for awhile, then I sorta decided against that later on, so I bought some off EBAY to replace them.

They live on though, I sent them along to Ian in New Zealand and AFAIK, they are living on his blue viffer to this day!

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Following Joey Dunlop's death, I put a "Joey R.I.P." decal on my OEM windscreen.

So far so good.

But to remove some glue residue later, I used a solvent....... leaving some irreversible milky stains on the screen.

Hence I bought a smoke one..... :laugh:

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Dulop and Conti tires, lol! Putting Vortex sprockets on my bike when I re geared it was a bonehead move.

Why do you say that? What's up with Vortex?

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My worst mod was done "free" for me by my local mega-dealership right before I left for a 3500 mile trip. I didn't catch it until almost half way through the journey. Brand new tires mounted with the rear on the rim backwards. Is it REALLY that hard to match up the directional arrows on the tire and rim?

Amen brother - that's happened to me twice. The second time I watched the guy doing it as he put the tire back on the rim and said "uhhh, mate...it's backwards". The response is always the same - "sorry mate I'm used to doing BMW wheels".

Damn them and their paralever-on-the-other-wise wheels!

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Guest Gap Trash

Dulop and Conti tires, lol! Putting Vortex sprockets on my bike when I re geared it was a bonehead move.

Why do you say that? What's up with Vortex?

Vortex sprockets are aluminum, and wear much faster than hardened steel. My local mechanic has a collection of them that he has taken off, some look like you could cut down trees with them others have 'bout as many teeth as a jack-o-lantern. So I have a $140 chain resting on some crappy sprockets. No need to use aluminum sprockets on this bike. They are fine on a race bike where you will save a marginal amount of weight and rotating mass. If I had it to do over I would have gone with stock gearing and hardened steel sprockets. Nothing wrong with regearing, but I'm using the VFR for touring now and not sport riding, so I would like to go back to stock to drop the RPMs at speed and make the speedo/odo accurate again without adding a speedo healer.

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Dulop and Conti tires, lol! Putting Vortex sprockets on my bike when I re geared it was a bonehead move.

Why do you say that? What's up with Vortex?

Vortex sprockets are aluminum, and wear much faster than hardened steel. My local mechanic has a collection of them that he has taken off, some look like you could cut down trees with them others have 'bout as many teeth as a jack-o-lantern. So I have a $140 chain resting on some crappy sprockets. No need to use aluminum sprockets on this bike. They are fine on a race bike where you will save a marginal amount of weight and rotating mass. If I had it to do over I would have gone with stock gearing and hardened steel sprockets. Nothing wrong with regearing, but I'm using the VFR for touring now and not sport riding, so I would like to go back to stock to drop the RPMs at speed and make the speedo/odo accurate again without adding a speedo healer.

OK that makes sense. I use Vortex sprockets is the reason I was asking.

:laugh:

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My worst mod was a combination. Heli bars, heated grips with a switch in a project box stuck on top of the left bar, and a NEP throttle lock. These three things together meant there was only one spot that each bar could sit in, where it didn't foul on either the tank or the fairing. And the spots did not match. I don't know how the PO could stand having asymetrical handlebars. I suppose you can get used to anything, but I chose not to get used to that.

I removed the throttle lock and redid the grips so they use a different controller, and now the bars are straight and the bike rides very nicely.

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My excuse was I was a skint student and couldn't afford to buy a slip-on (this was pre-eBay, obviously). Yes, I succumbed to the temptation to stick a long drill bit down the snout of the OEM exhaust on my FL... Using various additional tools in addition to the drill, I was able to get the hole to about an inch in diameter. But, as you know (if you're currently suppressing a snigger at this point), it sounded like crap. Sort of a tinny farting sound, not even close to the throaty roar I was after. And worse, it sounded exactly like some cheap bastard had drilled out his OEM exhaust!

Needless to say, I saved my pennies from that day forward and eventually scraped up enough for a gen-u-ine TBR C2 slip-on--absolute aural heaven!

Ciao,

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My excuse was I was a skint student and couldn't afford to buy a slip-on (this was pre-eBay, obviously). Yes, I succumbed to the temptation to stick a long drill bit down the snout of the OEM exhaust on my FL... Using various additional tools in addition to the drill, I was able to get the hole to about an inch in diameter. But, as you know (if you're currently suppressing a snigger at this point), it sounded like crap. Sort of a tinny farting sound, not even close to the throaty roar I was after. And worse, it sounded exactly like some cheap bastard had drilled out his OEM exhaust!

Needless to say, I saved my pennies from that day forward and eventually scraped up enough for a gen-u-ine TBR C2 slip-on--absolute aural heaven!

Ciao,

I'm starting to think that mine might be stuck that way. . . it sounds like open headers though. Actually, I had the cans off the other day and fired it up and my friend didn't realize that I hadn't put them back on yet.

I think I'm due to spend some time in the exhaust section of VFRD. . .

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I drilled my footpeg hanger brackets and thought it was ok for awhile, then I sorta decided against that later on, so I bought some off EBAY to replace them.

They live on though, I sent them along to Ian in New Zealand and AFAIK, they are living on his blue viffer to this day!

One of the best mods on my bike is the fancy drilled footpeg brackets I got from a nice Canadian VFR owner - they're MUCH better'n my bent ones! :rolleyes:

Unlike The Mailman, I like my one-tooth-smaller front sprocket, but I know what he means about looking for another gear. It's not really a big deal here, as the maximum speed is 100km/h, which puts the bike at 5k rpm, so there's still a fair few revs left...

I was about to bag on my powerbronze rear hugger. I hate the heavy gauge steal mounting bracket and plan to re fab a new smaller one out of aluminum.

That's what I'm currently doing. I bought my powerbronze hugger sight unseen from an ex-member, and it's a piece of crap - seems like they didn't even both to test-fit their prototype against a real VFR. I tried to auction it off, but failed, so decided to just keep it ad make the most of it. I've trimmed it up a bit to give more tire clearance, and next thing is to fab a new bracket. Like you, I've decided to go with aluminum, and I'm going to tap some threads to screw it to the swingarm.

The worst mod by a previous owner would have to be crashing it. It was 'fixed' when I bought it, but not properly, so in strong sunlight the panels aren't the same colour, the footpeg brackets (now replaced - thanks Rob!) and brake pedal were bent, and the right-hand disk is off a different model of Honda, so it was a different colour and pattern. I've since spray-painted it to almost match the other one, but when it gets wet it rusts more as the rotor is a different grade of s/steel.

Oh - it also had a bright yellow headlight protector, which I got the dealer to replace with a clear one before I even paid for the bike.

Still, at least part of the fixit job included a new Satantune zorst, and the PO fitted a pair of heated grips, so these two mods and the blue paint were why I bought it in the first place.

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