Naked Delight - Phase 1

[BiKenG]

Kind of a shame to waste the brilliant engineering design that went into that fairing, but I still like it. And you're learning more about the bike than any of us will know. I'm really fascinated with the flat screen display.

The Aerial (using Honda's V4) is a sweet bike, but yours is better. You have a fuel tank!

Thanks for sharing.

By the way, how much weight did you lose?

I'm not concerned about losing any brilliant fairing engineering. Not knocking their efforts (unlike many who hate the VFR1200's looks), but I just don't want a fairing covering my bike. I've been down that path and in the end realised it was spoiling my biking enjoyment. I come from the time when standard production bikes had no such thing and you could bolt bits together till the cows come home, but now it's so much harder to change things and you get frowned upon for even trying it. And of course insurance companies are staffed entirely by total fuckwits - but that's another story.

The Ariel has a decent tank. One of the options carries more than the VFR. It just looks slim. They cheated by putting the ABS unit in the middle under the tank. The airbox is just a small pancake filter. I'd like to know what that did to the power output. Really, I'd like to know how much difference the fancy airboxes foisted on us actually make. I do like the Ariel very much, but anyone can drop £25,000 on a bike like that, but no-one else is likely to have one like mine which in many respects is actually better than the Ace. Well, for me anyway.

No idea about weight loss. You couldn't lose any more, well, not much anyway. I picked up a box with all the steel bolts and fittings I've eliminated and it wasn't light, quite the opposite. Of course I didn't directly compare to all the Al and Ti replacements, but that would be noticeably less.

Looks good. If you could get the radiator and all that other crap off the front it would look great. The Harley guys would like it better as well.

To be honest, I'm not that unhappy with the rad etc. It is partially shielded anyway and I don't think it looks too bad. I certainly don't want any huge side fairings covering it as that would be something of a retrograde step. I might look at some small covering in the future, but it's not top priority.

My Harley has an even bigger rad.

[BiKenG]

Where did you find those forks and brakes

Ah, now there lies a tale.

I knew I was removing the ABS so could utilise normal 109mm mount calipers. I have some Tokicos from a 2008-> FireBlade that work exceptionally well and I was going to use those - until I spotted these on eBay, from a FireBlade SP and had to have them just for the bling factor. I had already ascertained that the 'Blade's 30/32 piston sizes would suit the VFR Master Cylinder, so Brembos from a ''Blade would be ideal.

After much research I discovered that the Kawasaki ZX14 has almost the same fork dimensions, length and size at the clamps meaning they should slot straight in. Not only that, but Kawasaki use the same front Wheel Speed Sensor as Honda with the VFR so it would bolt right on. But it was at a larger radius, so I'd need a different ABS ring. Happily the new VFR800 (8th gen.) had the right diameter and also used a 5 hole mount, same as the 1200 and should bolt right on. Also the Kawasaki uses the same front wheel spindle diameter and which could therefore be used with the VFR front wheel. So I bought the VFR800 ABS ring and ordered some nice new Ohlins forks that they make for the ZX14 and found a really neat and sexy front mudguard for the ZX14 which as std. has a big huge thing totally unsuitable to what I was trying to achieve. Also found a ZX14 front axle. So all looking good.

Then it all went a bit pear shaped.

When I started trying to fit it all together I discovered that the VFR800 ABS ring, despite being the correct diameter of the slots to suit the Kawasaki's WSS position, its 5 mount holes were in fact NOT the same as the VFR1200, so I had to manually file the holes, all while keeping them even so it would rotate true.

Then I noticed that although the WSS was the same on both bikes, on the ZX14 it was mounted 180* from the VFR position. Easy to rotate, but then the cable was pointing in the opposite direction and not long enough. I then 'found' a damaged front WSS from a VFR and so cut off the cable and used it to extend my good one. The cable exits straight down and then curves through 180* to travel up the forks. One day I'll get another REAR WSS from the VFR as that is the same orientation as Kawasaki use for the front and hence will be exactly what I need, except again, too short. I'll then disassemble my current extended WSS and extend the rear one and use that. Not top priority at the moment though.

I made spacers to place the callipers at the right 'diameter' to suit the discs and had already worked out that the callipers on these forks would be 2mm closer together, i.e. each 1mm closer to the centreline of the wheel than the discs, but as long as the caliper body doesn't touch the rotating disc, that's not a problem. Just means pistons on one side will be 0.5mm further out than the other side and when I trial mounted the fork legs in some other yokes I had and made suitable wheel spacers, everything bolted up correctly. Then I moved the Ohlins fork legs over to the bike....WTF?

The forks were not parallel, being narrower at the bottom. No question, whichever way I measured it, they were narrower at the bottom than the top and it appeared to be the bottom yoke whose holes were simply too close together, by about 1mm each side. Huh? Honda don't make these mistakes.

No, but I can. When originally researching this project, I 'ascertained' that the VFR's forks were 50mm at the top and 54mm at the bottom yoke and all subsequent decisions were based on that 'knowledge'. That was many months ago and I now have NO idea whatsoever from where I obtained that data - erroneously as it turned out. The VFR forks are actually 55mm at the bottom yoke and this had major ramifications to what I was not trying to do.

Having now realised my error, after some head scratching the very simple solution that presented itself was to use some (exactly) 0.5mm aluminium sheet, easily bent to the curvature of the fork leg and used as a sleeve to adapt the 54mm legs to the 55mm hole. Some yokes are made to take different size foklegs with suitable sleeves being supplied. But they ensure the sleeves are somewhat thicker than I needed. It would be impossible to machine sleeves of only half a millimetre. However, it was actually very easy to bend the sheet and slide it all together. I might think about replacement yokes sometime, but there's nothing wrong with this current solution so again, not top priority.

The rear shock is the Ohlins VFR1200 unit, but I needed to modify the reservoir/adjuster mount plate and mount it at an angle to completely avoid the hugger. Oh and 'adjust' the orientation of the hose fittings without losing any pressure. The way Ohlins supplied it, you'd never get it to fit, even as they specified, which is no good if you want to clear the hugger. Well done Ohlins.

Apart from that, piece of cake.

[vfrAustin]

Outstanding job!!!!

[f3racer]

Wow

[BiKenG]

I have had several enquiries from other VFR1200 owners who wish to eliminate the ABS from their VFR1200s and rather than keep repeating myself (not complaining, but hardly time efficient:-) I thought I’d explain here about what I did.

First of all, contrary to what has been opined on this forum (and others) in the past, removing ABS is not tantamount to writing ones own death warrant. I’m sorry to disappoint all you doom mongers, but bikes have been happily and successfully ridden for many, many years without death rearing its ugly head due to any lack of ABS.

I can unequivocally state that during nearly 50 years of motorcycling, I have NEVER experienced anything with which ABS would have helped. Not once. But, in the last year riding merely 1,000 miles on a bike that does have ABS I have twice nearly run into the back of the vehicle in front when the ABS decided to switch off the brakes for me (due to a minor pothole). This mileage to incident ratio has simply confirmed my conviction that I do NOT need ABS on a bike. I will no doubt have to endure it in the future on other bikes and it may get better, but not having it concerns me not in the least. Indeed, my european bike trip was conducted this year on my eVo4 with huge enjoyment to be had in the Alps, modulating my rear and front braking with foot and 2 fingers respectively and no interference from any ABS ECU programmed by some anonymous programmer at a desk with no idea of what is going on at this exact moment.

I am also concerned at the long term reliability of such systems. There are many older cars currently being driven with non functional ABS due to failure of some part or other. The expense involved in replacing the part is simply astronomical so owners ignore it - or disconnect the light to avoid the irritation. So much for the ‘safety’ aspects of forcing all vehicles to have ABS. I think this is a disaster waiting to happen with bikes, once ABS equipped bikes get old. But I digress…

In truth, I simply had to eliminate it anyway for my eVo4 project as there was no room once the fairings are gone. So here’s what I thought and did:-

On the front you might have to experiment. Once I decided to fit Ohlins forks I had to change callipers anyway and I calculated that the VFR’s Fr master cylinder size was suitable for the normal 30/32 piston sizes of Honda's (and almost everyone else’s) radial callipers. I had a set from a 2008-> FireBlade I was going to use, then came across some Brembos from a FireBlade SP and couldn't resist. I'm under no illusions about any 'better' braking from Brembo as the 'Blade's Tokicos are excellent, but I liked the idea of the additional 'bling' factor of the Brembos and being different on a VFR.

But you will have to take a different course of action if you keep the original forks as their calliper mounting is 130mm and won't accept any normal 109mm callipers such as fitted to ANY other Honda and many other bikes, nor of course the 100mm size on many Italian bikes. The only other production bike (I am aware of) with 6 piston callipers and hence the 130mm mount, are some years of the Yamaha R1 and MT-01.

The alternative is to re-connect the VFR callipers to eliminate the split design on the LHS, so you'd end up with all 6 cylinders connected together. This would leave slightly different piston areas on each side, but don't worry about that, many bikes only have the calliper on one side, so any slight imbalance will not be an issue.

So, will either the Yamaha or the re-worked VFR callipers suit the master cylinder size? I’ve not come across any 130mm callipers that would be a good match, although I think the latter will be ok as calculating the relative sizes of the VFR’s front master cylinder and callipers indicates that the brakes would end up powerful and not too soft - as long as you use good hard lines. However I have not actually tried this combination. Should work fine though.

Otherwise, you'll need to play with Fr master cylinder piston sizes and lever ratios. I definitely wanted to keep the original master cylinder, but you may feel otherwise. However, if the original items will work together (as I believe they will), it's not a problem. In any case, you'll need to get new lines made up.

There is another scenario that I toyed with. Keep them linked front to back. If you do that, then all the original items could certainly be used, callipers and master cylinders. No need to swap any of them. But you would need to run a brake line from back to front, which I didn't really want and in any case, I wanted full manual and individual control of each brake so I opted to not go that route.

It’s about time Honda updated their bikes with new ABSs, like Bosch’s latest, that can link front and rear, yet don’t require fancy split callipers, but that’s another topic I guess.

The ultimate solution for the front would be to drill between the cylinders in the LH calliper, so all are joined together (like a normal calliper). If drilling had to be done from the outside, any hole could then be tapped and plugged, exactly how many callipers are made. So you would now have 2 hydraulic connections on the LH calliper, but both connected to all 3 cylinders. Then you could run a single hose from the master cylinder down to one connection on the LH calliper and another hose looped across from the other connection to the RH calliper resulting in minimal pipework and a neat installation. Otherwise, it will all need to be linked up externally with hoses. Not impossible, but not as neat. Getting hold of another LH calliper might be wise so you could return to standard.

The original Rr master cylinder is too big for the Rr caliper on its own. So find another Honda one with the same mounting orientation and 14mm piston. I first tried a 2008-> FireBlade one, but then realised it mounts the opposite way around and hence is no good. I then tried an SP-2 one which fits, but the threaded rod was way too long. I tried to swap with the VFR one, but I discovered they are too different internally so I simply cut down the SP-2 rod to the same length as the VFR original and it fitted on and works perfectly. Most Honda units are very similar with the same mount hole spacing, but sometimes reversed (like the 'Blade). There's a very good chance you could find a 14mm one with the correct length rod if you search around. Crawling around on the floor at your local friendly Honda dealer is a good way to check out the current range. Breakers are hopeless, they don't understand any of this and very often quote the source of a part as the wrong bike. But, the piston diameter is cast into the cylinder body so you can confirm this. If you try and use the original VFR Rr master cylinder, the Rr brake will feel very hard and not very effective so you really do need to replace with a 14mm one. The reservoir tube should go straight on, but I use a small Brembo reservoir fixed to the hydraulic line which I like the look of (they're very cheap, only about £8) and it frees up the space under the seat side cover allowing me to store waterproofs there:-)

That's all the easy bit. Now you have to consider the electronics.

Pre 2012 bikes have no traction control so with no ABS the Fr wheel ring is (I think) redundant. But for all bikes, the Rr ring is used for bike speed and it is the ABS ECU (attached to the modulator) that powers and reads the output from both sensors. Remove the modulator and on the early bikes you will lose bike speed at least, maybe more. For the later bikes, you would also wreck the traction control and even if you're not bothered about having TC, it HAS to be happy as otherwise it's seriously restricting, i.e. killing engine performance. The TC system HAS to believe the wheels are not slipping, so you need to keep both rings and their processed output to the main ECU. But although the ABS ECU has no actual interaction with the main ECU and hence could otherwise be removed, you unfortunately do need it just to process the wheel speed signals. I looked into driving the wheel speed sensors with my own circuitry, but it was easier to simply split the electronics off the modulator and leave them in place doing what they're supposed to do electrically, but with no hydraulics attached. This does work, but I think the ABS ECU is aware the pump is missing and throwing an error. I don't have an ABS warning light so not an immediate problem for me. It can throw a hissy fit for all I care, as long as it keeps processing the wheels speeds (which it does), that's all I need. Having said that, I will look into it further in the future when I have time as I quite like the idea of a warning light flashing to tell me the brakes are on the limit, even though nothing will be affected by this as I will be in complete control. In any case this might be more of a problem with a more normal VFR as I suspect the ABS light will stay on (or flashing). However, since like for me, there’ll not actually be any real ABS hardware, you might as well simply disconnect the ABS light. You can’t pull the fuse as you’d lose the Wheel Speed Sensor signals and you need those.

I will look again at the possibility of creating my own module to drive the WSSs and pass the signal(s) on to the main ECU, but I’m no electronics expert so it would take time. If anyone IS an electronics genius and could help here, it would be great if we could develop our own module to allow us to eliminate the entire original ABS module and just replace it with our own much smaller unit.

I had additional problems that you won't experience if you're keeping the original forks etc. I needed a different ABS ring on the Fr wheel to match the different sensor location on the Ohlins forks. The ring I thought would simply bolt on (VFR800), didn't and in any case it was 60 slot and not the 50 slot of the VFR1200, so I had to modify it to fit and convert the frequency to make the VFR’s main ECU see the appropriate frequency and keep the TC happy. I also had to reposition the ABS modulator electronics and extend the wiring etc, but with the original faring still in place it could stay mounted in the original location, under the fairing. As I said, shouldn't be a problem for anyone else.

I think that all years of VFR1200 use the same front callipers, but if you’re thinking of getting hold of a spare ABS module to split so leaving your original intact, don’t forget that in 2012 with the advent of TC they use a different ABS unit (and main ECU). On the later bikes the ABS ECU passes the signal from both front and rear WSS to the main ECU, but on the earlier bikes only the rear WSS signal is sent to the main ECU. So both are different parts and unlikely to interchange.

Hope this is of some help to others wishing to eliminate the ABS from their VFR1200.

[Rush2112]

I like it!!!

Well done.