ShipFixer

The headers take a bit of patience.  You won't be slapping these on as quickly as a slip on.  It takes a combination of ratchet extensions on a torque wrench to get the rear exits seated correctly, and as you methodically tighten each lug down a bit at a time, all around the bike, to the final number, you also have to make sure the header is not contacting the frame (I used wood shims).

There is nothing particularly difficult about it, it's just a little fussy.  You will want a garage or spot where the bike can be worked on for at least several hours, maybe a few days depending on your pace.  And one or two universal joints and an extension set for those rear pipes.

Also...it's totally worth it 😁 The bike is waaaaaay more open above 7K RPM.

On 8/22/2022 at 4:41 PM, Ziffer said:

Btw admins, Ian tried to sign up for VFRD, but said Unable to sign up due to non-functioning verification emailer.

What did he do to make them decide he shouldn’t have access to header buys, that’s the question… 😜

Okay and this is “something @SEBSPEED did for my VFR that I haven’t installed yet.”  Cerakoted upper triple clamp and brake calipers.  I have red Galfer stainless steel brake lines to go with them, as we all as a red Oberon clutch slave piston upgrade.

Last week…but new Michelin Road 5 and a whole lot of cleanup on the rim.  I also hit a lot of the trim pieces with Cerakote ceramic trim wipes.  Highly recommend them!

Hi ShipFixer,

Thank you for your donation of 50.00 USD. We look forward to improving the forums with your donation.

Thanks VFRDiscussion

I got some of those Emgo replacement mirrors and replaced the mounts on my stock mirrors.  The Emgo ones "look stock" and probably work but I didn't like something about them.  Stock mounts had chips in the paint and the aluminum was bubbling.  Now looks new...

PSA: clean injectors and a new fuel filter plus RBR is pretty swell!  With the full exhaust, once my RBR settled my mileage was just "okay" and the bike really liked bottles of Redline SI-1 fuel system cleaner.  I haven't refilled yet but past the time where the RBR should have re-settled and I'm going to guess it's easily 40+ with saddlebags.  Bike starts like it's new and is a lot smoother across the board.

22 hours ago, Dangeruss said:

The hollow VFR rear axle presents a creative opportunity for keeping the front end off the ground for service;

 

 

IIRC I had 35 lbs on each side. If the front end stays up comfortably with the bike complete it only gets more stable as you remove parts.

Similar...on my 6th gen I put a 20 lb or so dumb bell in each saddlebag, and a tool case or another weight on the back seat.  Since there is a tiny chance of earthquakes here, if it's going to be a long time, I will put something under the front of the engine case as well.

I suspect the dealer changed the outer seal but not inner.  Some oil film gets past my new seals but not like old seals.  See part 21:

One other reason "why" is the original seals could have just aged out, and in addition to grit allowed water and other contaminants in.  And whatever is still in there is still in there.  It occurs to me the dealership could have (don't know why they would do this, but...) just replaced the seals or just upper and not oil and whatnot.  Or, they could have replaced the oil but not cleaned out the bottom.  
 

FYSA, when I got my bike back in 2020 and serviced the forks, the last time they had been apart was in 2007 when I revalved them.  I want to say the other two owners put about 10,000 beginner and commuting miles on it past whatever I did after that.  The bottom was something like crude oil and the seals were not awesome.  (Bike was clearly parked outside in the weather and the upper seals were cracking...so there is that.)

I only know this because I completely disassembled the fork and looked at the damper and bottom of the lowers to clean them out.  There are two dozen different versions of "servicing" forks for oil change or maybe outer seal swap that would not lead you to clean out the bottom of the fork.  I think I've even done the oil change with a siphon method without removing the forks.  Let alone a technician who's doing a bunch of things today and maybe isn't going to take the time you or I would to make sure it's clean and grit-free after removing the sludge.

I guess it's possible that your bushings are bad enough to misalign your seals enough to let oil out and other things in.  But even my bushings weren't that bad after pumping sludge, and I think you would notice other problems.

Looking around for the how-to.  Meanwhile, are you able to remove your forks yourself, and leave the bike balanced on the center stand wherever you park it?  If so, hardest part is really over.  The seals and bushings are actually really easy to change.  Goes something like this if you want to consider DIY, and I'll add some extra steps:

* Buy the parts you need first: seals, bushings, and the gasket/crush washer for the bottom of the fork.

- Loosen the top caps before you remove the forks from the upper triple crown.

- Remove the forks (remove front wheel, front fender, brakes, and make sure something is holding up the brakes so they're not stretching the lines...I put mine on a 1' tall tool case).

- Remove the stanchion protectors (plastic shields).

- Remove the top cap, push stanchion down.  The top cap should pull up the damper rod.  You should see some flat sections you can get a wrench around, along with the upper spring perch (has a notch so you can just take it out).  Remove spring perch, unscrew top cap from damper rod and put all of these things aside.

- Pull springs out.

- Invert fork and dump oil in a container.  If your dealership did their job...oil shouldn't look that bad.

- Possibly using an impact wrench, possibly not, unscrew the 6mm Allen bolt at the bottom of the fork.  The damper rod should come out.

Here comes the surprisingly easy part!  Pull up on the stanchion, and the bushings and upper seals will come out.  May have to knock it a few times like a slide hammer.

Clean out all of the parts really well.  This is a good time to consider revalving with Racetech if you haven't done it, or changing fork springs.  If you revalve, one OBTW is polish the damper rod really well while you've got the damper apart.  But no reason to disassemble damper if youre not revalving, just blast it clean with something like White Lightning.

Bonus steps: I forget who told me to do this, but now is a great time to resurface your stanchions.  Clean off the rust and wet sand (I used isopropyl, steel wool, and 1000 grit) the pits flat.  Then use phosphoric acid to convert the rust, and then seal with expoxy ( I wiped it over, then wiped it off real quickly several times until I got it very flat.  Did not leave it on the chrome long enough to turn hard and require sanding or something later).  

My 2002 has no problems with altitude.  It is a little reluctant to restart at 5,000 feet but I blame dirty injectors.  It also sometimes needs a little throttle to start when cold.

Ha...I have dual 8" Delkevics, they sound really good. But I had to go with the "quieter" baffles.  With the stock baffle and catless VFRD header it was waaaaay too loud.  I was really looking at whether I could take two 13" Delkevics and have them cut down to 10" or something 😕

Seconded...my Road 5's are amazing!

16 hours ago, boOZZIE said:

It took a bit of figuring out how to place the expander into the pipe and then to get my brother to hold the exhaust and I used a breaker bar. An oxy would have been good

I tried both a giant breaker bar and my impact wrench.  The Delkevic bent the pipe expander sections instead of expanding.  No joke.  Tossed out the expander.  🙃

4 hours ago, Cogswell said:

As long as we're revisiting this topic...

We never left this topic... 🤣

In response to @boOZZIE 's experience here, the do it yourself pipe expanders made no change at all to my Delkevic pipe and my impact wrench is no shrinking violet.  Had to be done on a hydraulic machine in a shop.  Two tries and it was done.  

My Delkevic mid pipe expanded just fine, no cracks or tearing.  The way Delkevic carbon copies things, I suspect the 5th gen mid pipe will be exactly the same pipe as what my 6th gen has. 

So my headers almost wrecked someone else's bike last night... 😂

I was following two sport bikes from a left turn lane into an entrance ramp, from 50 yards or so.  With the headers and Delkevics, when VTEC kicks in the bike goes from a V-8 rumble to a shrieking V-4 race bike sound.  When it switched on one of the riders (clearly now a beginner) did a big, swerving-S panic stop with no idea what was going on... 🤦‍♂️
 

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.

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!

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 🙃

That's awesome! Did you just email Yaman and ask him when he was available? I have not messed with the software too much since initial install.  

Those baffles are my next priority! 

For sure, it's better at speed! 😁 I received the "quieter baffles" but I'm in Virginia for work through most of next week.  I'm going to give them a shot and see if it's better.

1 hour ago, ducnut said:

When you buy bazookas for mufflers, it’s not going to be quiet. 😁

Well, it's not like I'm totally surprised here... 😄

I have a couple options.  Delkevic makes a "quieter" baffle that drops the sound 1-3 dB, or so it says.  I can also try their next-shortest increment and buy two 13" tri-oval mufflers from them, but I think they might stick out too far back.  My options for rotating the exhaust splitter further forward/up are kind of limited, so it is what it is.  

Will almost certainly at least go for the quieter baffles, but for now...been too long without the bike!

Only had time for a quick test ride, so it will be a bit before the RapidBike catches on to what's different in the back end here.  But...I mostly like it!  Only issue I have is the header plus exhaust is louder than I was hoping.  On the highway it's not too bad, but at low speed it's way up there.  If you get off the bike and stand ten feet back, at idle...quieter than you think.  Yet it is loud, so I will be going through a lot of earplugs I'm sure.

Performance wise, wow!  It's a positive change across the rev range, and once again the higher gears are yet more useable at low RPM with more torque.  But there is a dramatic increase above 8K RPM.  It's less that I notice the bike is faster/better so much as the RPM's climb a lot more willingly now than they did before.  I rarely push the engine that hard, so it surprised me how fast it got near redline without any intent to get there.

Definitely want to get the injectors cleaned soon, along with some poking at the RB so I can see how much better I can get.  Going without the head shield for now...would need to be trimmed to go back in, it's only a little warmer on my ankle through my Sidis, and I would want to sand and repaint the thing anyway.

One install note, for those who haven't done theirs yet.  Despite @sfdownhill 's warnings and my double-checking, once everything was torqued my header was in contact with the frame, on the right side near the swingarm pivot.  I had to loosen the header nuts, hammer in some wood wedges, and then torque down.  I've included a photo below of the area in question, post-test ride when I was verifying I still had space there. 

Again...I was not in contact all along until after everything else was bolted in so, you may want to check yours!  It's a sharp corner that's not obvious unless you really get under the bike to look, or feel in between to check.

Second install note/exhaust header trivia.  Those extra tall flange nuts I received from Belmetric are very close to the Honda special M6 nuts for the studs, and I used the other Honda part ones that were identical to the VFR part number (which I have not received yet).  So if you are still waiting for either part, there are some lifelines out there.