ShipFixer

I got these six months ago for $32 and they work great. Pivot up in case of a drop, adjustable, and are more comfortable than stock. Reduced travel and a beefier lever for my size medium hands equals less clutch fatigue on me. The clutch lever won’t actuate the clutch signal switch if it’s adjusted all the way “in” like I wanted, but it’s one or two clicks out of six from it and good enough. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0837FWWKY/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_7J7XZE0QJZYH17SW3YW9?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

This is one of the China/Hong Kong replacement fairing companies that sells on eBay. I think if you Google around the forums for "eBay fairing kit" or somesuch you will get an idea of whether it is for you. The one misleading part of this is the tank in the picture, and they all seem to do that. You can get a "tank cover" but it does not come with a new tank. That may or may not be a deal breaker for you if your tank is in good condition and unfaded. I went with OEM plastic all around, but it was an incremental thing. I sometimes wish I had at least tried one of these kits to see if the color and fit was close enough, and RC213-V repliracer might have been pretty cool. $500 or so on top of the ~$3K for new and repainted plastic is pretty close to being a wash. That being said, nothing will match the piano finish of the OEM Honda plastic. It's super thin and yet appears to have crazy depth. Pretty obvious why one or two year old red plastic looks different from new out of the box when you get it. ** Color Rite red matches very closely, and looks like red plastic that's a year or two old. My repainted pieces are difficult to tell from the brand new ones and are harder to tell apart ~8 months later.

Throwing some more data points in. I rode mine all the way around San Diego yesterday, including Sunrise Highway, over several hours, and included a stop at @sfdownhill's to show off how his creation is getting used on my bike 😄 So riding between sea level and 5,000 feet, mostly highway speed and 30-60 in twisty highway stuff. It was 78-80 most of the time. I haven't touched the Rapidbike since installing it before the headers and Delkevics, and my bike really needs some injector work plus starter valve sync, etc. just to give you an idea of how it is right now. I'm also only using the stock narrowband sensors. But I still managed 42mpg with saddlebags, which equals what the bike got when new (42 with, 46 without). It hasn't seen quite that good mileage in a while! It also managed to keep temps lower as it wasn't working as hard. At steady speed it was pretty rock solid between 174-180. Performance wise...wow. There is little to no resistance climbing past 6,000 RPM. It's pretty crazy how it wants to run, regardless of gear. There is quite a bit more torque across the rev range, and I'm wondering just how much, along with how it'll go once I've got everything fixed and tuned. This is more due to RapidBike, but there's still no return of the dreaded closed-loop taper/surge behavior. Even though I haven't gone in to reset it or anything, it's adapted to the Delkevics pretty quickly. The "quieter baffle" in the Delkevics also brings down the sound level to just within tolerance for riding. At speed (above 55 or so) the sound disappears behind you so long as you are at cruising RPM. Sitting at idle or low speed it's still pretty loud but doesn't wear me out. What's really interesting is how cars react. They all know I'm there for sure now, and on Sunrise Highway they all either stayed pretty far back or used the next available turnout to let me pass :lol: I still coast in a bit to my driveway and try to get away from home as quickly as possible, but my neighbors tell me they have yet to hear the bike inside their houses. Bike still has some behavior that's attributable to old and dirty fueling, including difficulty starting/restarting sometimes. On my RapidBike auto map there are also a lot more maxed out values than in the other kids. So there are clearly more gains to go here, but the headers are crazy good so far.

Sea water cooled! 😎

The oil has polymers that absorb the water. That's the white layer floating on top of your oil when it's cold. When I used to park my bike under cover but outside in NorCal, it often had condensate. When the oil heats up, the water is released quickly evaporates. Crank case vacuum (if so equipped on a big engine) or a breather tube will get it out pretty quickly.

Since most of it is in a service tank...it's less hard than you'd think. The other thing is big engines like these have jacket water heaters. We keep them warm (not operationally hot) when they are in standby, and prior to starting them. I am trying to remember, I don't remember if it was prescribed to change oil at temperature or not. But I'm really draining far more out of the service tank and sump than I am the engine, it's an even smaller percentage that we would pull out. And again...goes through a purifier, etc.

In all these cases over 90% of the fluid is replaced. It resets not just viscosity but the main "worst" things about old oil, like acidity and whatnot. It is interesting but I would not go out of my way to do hot or cold. Agree that for most industrial applications, hot changes are directed. But a lot of those procedures were written "way back when" and it's just how things continue to be. On a related example, the procedures for breaking in large diesel engines look just like how we did it in the 60's and don't reflect modern tribological studies, which shows that for modern, plateau honed cylinders, "break in" is done really quickly (rule I recall is 80% of lifetime wear in first 21 minutes) and doesn't matter like we used to think it did. But we still do it that way anyway, because "it's always worked." It's also worth mentioning that for most large engines, they do condition based oil changes based on test results vs. intervals, and they sometimes have attached things like oil purifying circuits and whatnot. On small engines like cars and trucks we are changing oil relatively early, so 90% change out is good enough.

No car has ever detonated due to choosing hot vs. cold oil changes. They do fail when you forget to change the oil though. 🙃

Minor update here. Finally got the "quieter" baffles from Delkevic and was in town long enough to install them. They "fit" at an angle and could have been designed better. But...they're in. The bike is a bit quieter and more liveable, but still loud. Kinda wish I'd tried the SS90's instead, as they're capped and another inch (thinking every bit counts). Contemplating getting a couple 13" Delkevics of similar design since they will fit the collector and modding them into 10" sets. Very happy with how the engine is running, just a lot louder than I am used to!

I would say look at the 8th gen slip on options, and how to mount those to the 6th gen passenger footpeg bracket (or, if an 8th gen fits...dunno). Probably pretty easy to get a Delkevic slip on that way, which includes the downpipe to the stock header. Now that I am 90% done with my exhaust, I kind of wish I could get a longer side mount slip on vs. the 8" Delkevics, to make the thing reasonably quiet. But I don't have much interest in trying to fill in the space under the rear cowl like you are thinking about. Color Rite makes a really good R157, it matches a VFR that's been in the sun at least ~1 year very well (they turn a little orangeish, my opinion). I have mostly new plastic on my 2002, plus a few things I had to paint (front fender and a corner upper fairing piece), and it's usually impossible to notice the difference. Used the spray can version (it's expensive for a reason) and was very, very happy with the results. I let them cure 7-10 days before wet sanding and they came out just about perfect.

My temps will get that high and stay pretty high when it's Africa hot. Some people have theories on air flow direction, stalling, etc. if you Google through. Have never had it stay high after I stop or get somewhere where it should cool though (down hill, coasting, stopped with fan kicking on, etc). That's in the same rides too, like Palomar. Do not remember what it was like in Virginia as I didn't ride it much there.

Google says shelf life is five years. Stuff that breaks down oil otherwise all only occurs while your engine runs: shear stress and contamination from piston ring blow-by (fuel dilution and exhaust gases).

That's... interesting and disturbing at the same time! I don't really want to re-enter electrical troubleshooting purgatory myself.

Well, fortunately I did get a switched power extension with the VFRNess I haven’t installed yet (put the R/R in and haven’t felt the urge to prioritize). This is sounding like a bit more work than I was expecting though 🙃

Since mine is long gone, but the replacement looks like that…is that the original Honda red connector? Did you say you already replaced the R/R, or not? My bike no longer smells like hot wires on the road or after a ride since switching mine to a MOSFET 😁