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As most might know, I and fellow member sfdownhill were great friends and were a couple of key members in bringing the high performance headers the VFR community. After his untimely passing, I volunteered to help his family with all of the motorcycle related items Lance left behind. One of which was his prized 5 Gen. After a long battle with DMV hassles, the title was finally transferred to his father’s name and that bike is now up for auction at IconicMotorcycles. Seeing the pics of his bike on the auction site brings back some tears, knowing that his beloved VFR is a step away from finding a new home and me having one less shared physical connection with my friend. (It hit a little deeper than I thought it would). He and I talked a lot about the mods he planned and did and I even helped install some of the parts it still carries. I originally planned on being the one to sell it but after a lot of thought, I felt it would easier for it to be handled by a shop like Iconic. As just seeing the bike being loaded on their van when they picked it up was hard to take, imagine me dealing with someone coming to me to buy it? I’d probably be like the over protective father who feels no man is good enough to take his daughter on date :] Seriously though, it took a lot out of me handling the three bikes I took in, amongst the other moto bits I helped handle. After discussing with Lance’s father we both felt good about letting Iconic handle it. On that end, they were really great to work with, especially knowing that I as the middle man in this process. Anyway, thanks for reading and hopefully whoever does buy Lance’s VFR will get the same enjoyment as Lance did and will appreciate all that went into this special bike. Cheers, D https://iconicmotorbikeauctions.com/auction/2001-honda-vfr800-interceptor-3/

Darryl, thank you, and thanks again, and again, for doing all this for Lance, his family, and his bike. Can't be easy for you. Hopefully the buyer will post a shot of the bike in action soon.

I traded the 1200 VFR a year or so ago for a KTM GT. Similar idea, but different take. The KTM has roughly the same HP, but 100lbs lighter, much more torque. I always loved the engine on the VFR it was a monster, I could pass a slow mover on a 2 lane road without even having to downshift, and be around them in mere seconds. The KTM is even more torque and it wizzes by rather quickly too. I was a bit tired of the VFR because I had this constant elbow pain, something about the ergos put a strain on my elbow, and my knees would be wrecked after a half a day of spirited riding. The KTM has a much more upright riding postion, which in itself has a whole different set of trade offs. Taller seat height, which I remedied with a set of lowering springs, stiffer and it dropped the KTM 20mm. Wow what a difference that made. I really like all the doo dads too, semi active suspension. I would describe the suspension settings as Comfort - wallow, Street - not quite, Sport - Bumpy as F**K. The new springs really improved that too, its dialed in now. I had an Ohlins shock on the 1200 that I kept for 12 years and had rebuilt 3 times, and Andretti front cassettes and springs, it was about as good as it gets, but I never could get the front end just right, but it worked ok fully adjustable one fork was rebound the other was compression - and old racer solution from way back in the day. I sold it because I just cant do that bent over knee wrenching riding style anymore. So far I am happy with the KTM, I put 80,000 miles on the Veefalo, so far I havent even scratched the surface on the KTM. 6k maybe now? I am getting ready to put on new sprockets and chain, new tires, oil and filter, and then a valve adjustment. Some weird KTM required cleaning, a strange oil port you have to clean to get smooth shifts, its got a little removable oil jet you have to clean every few thousand miles. Here is a you tube vid of me an 3 guys in tow doing one of my favorite local rides to Bishops Castle in southern Colorado, make sure to crank up the quality..Youtube always puts it in the lowest setting???

Great story, sad ending, beautiful 5th gen. I bet that bike sounds amazing on the road.

That is one properly cared for VFR! I hope someone gets it who will understand what a riders bike it is.

No, but I've tested the removal of the snorkel and open top airbox at full throttle in 3rd gear. Snorkel removal gave a miniscule improvement with a nice bump in intake noise. Open top made no difference compared to removed snorkel but the intake roar was extreme. Absolutely deafening in VTEC even with earplugs in. I went back to the unmolested, snorkel-less airbox top.

Oh man! I will never be tire of repeating how much I DO LOVE this stuff ❤️

900RR front end w/R6 wheel and 285mm rotor, Z900S calipers with a Brembo master cylinder of unknown origin. The seat subframe is a sliced and diced 5th gen subframe with a scratch built support section for the RC51 tail unit. Seat is a Sargent 5th gen seat that was cut down into a solo. Brakes are delinked and I just finished building a rack so I can moto-camp this year.

Don't forget that with all this Forking around you guys are doing to the front that you need to consider increasing the rear spring rate to better maintain the bikes balance and get better performance from your forks too. I first did the forks with valving & .95's and I installed an Ohlins on the rear with a stock rate spring, though it was an improvement it wasn't right. When I finally installed the proper rear spring on the rear (19kg for my 200 lbs) it transformed both ends of the bike!!! :thumbsup: Turns out running a soft/stock rear spring with new stiffer screwed up feel on both ends because the stiff front transfered more weight to the already to soft rear making it feel worse and the stiffer front tended to bounce across many bumps and irregular surfaces instead of absorbing them. I had a old post about it " transformed" don't know if it's still around, but consider stiffening the rear spring in close to the same percentage as the front and you'll be much happier. (note if you just commute and don't hit the twisties you may never notice it) B) found the old post! http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.p...;hl=transformed

Uh...not for a 5th Gen. The RaceTech springs are slightly shorter, and come with about a foot of spare spacer pipe, which is plenty. You'll have to cut new (longer) spacers from this, and toss your OEM spacers. RaceTech's instructions give you a method for determining this new length (old spring length minus new [shorter] length = new spacer length), but that didn't work all that good for me for some reason. So what I did was use their method, plus some "by gosh and by golly" experimentation by going too long at first and then trimming a bit from each spacer once I got everything reassembled and on the bike. This allowed me to end up with adjusters that show 5-6 lines when sag was properly set, instead of being cranked down to zero like everyone's stock bike probably is right now (unless you weigh 120). This trimming process required removing the caps and pulling the spacers out (of course!), but it not a big deal at all once you've had the whole fork(s) apart for all the other work. You just use a coathanger to fish the rod back up out of the oil down there...... Use a large tubing cutter for spacer cutting to keep the ends square, or be prepared to do a lot of careful filing work if you're using a hacksaw. This will all make more sense once you get your forks apart. I'm sure it seems like rocket science to read about it, but it's not.