tinkerinWstuff

I did the RC51 oil cooler on mine and am quite pleased. It doesn't do anything for stop and go in town traffic, but once you get moving in clean air, temps drop much faster. Fantastic mod for the price and simplicity. I have to tear my front end down this winter for some other projects and will probably build a different bracket to move the cooler back to center.

I never got my hands on a set of 6gen rearsets etc in order to see just how hard it would have really been. From the photos I studied, it didn't look easy. Lots of pros and cons either way. Riding with some 6gen friends today and will have to look at that harder.

I do not believe so. I don't have technical data but would love to compare some actual temp readings with an OEM setup. I do have my leg sitting right there and do not notice heat. It's my opinion that the right side plate on the 5th gen is more about aesthetics than function. When you look at how the OEM brake lines are routed right next to the engine and down along the exhaust, there's ample heat saturation happening anyway. I haven't boiled the fluid out of it yet or baked the paint off the master cylinder :) Thanks for asking your question and if I get an opportunity to get some measurable data, I will be sure to post.

Blew me away too. It was the one biggest things I hadn't anticipated in this project. I didn't expect the brakes to become what they did either but I did know I was going to have some sort of issues there. I could not find anywhere in the rear to stuff that brick of an ECU. I started a thread here looking for the ECU connector sockets and tried a half a dozen other places I could think of. No one could find the correct pins. That is until a day or two AFTER I butchered the old one ( http://www.corsa-technic.com/ ) So I had to completely unwrap the harness, take all the ECU wires and fold them over toward the front, then trim and extend wires as needed to reach that location. Was NOT how I would choose to do things but could find no other option at the time. Maybe this winter I'll take that spare harness I have now and some new pins and build one without solder connections.

thanks. as for your cooling comment - I would take the old radiators up to a local radiator shop and have one custom heat exchanger built to suit the project. Probably see if they had the skills to curve the core.

pics for anyone unable or uninterested in YouTube

When I originally set out, I thought I could make this a quasi-bolt on mod and fabricate extra mounts for sale. I finally gave up and just made it work for myself. The real shocker came when I discovered the ECU would not fit in the rear and the whole wiring harness had to be customized. The rear brake master and exposed header pipes are my favorite part of the whole build. I think it could be a cool cosmetic mod to any 5th gen.

I had tried them that way as well and liked the look. I had a concern with the LEDs being on the bottom of the mirror in that orientation and possibly less visible while daytime riding.

Thanks - glad you guys liked it. I'd have to do some digging to figure out exactly which vendor I bought those mirrors from. They were cheap $40 ebay specials.

I revived this 1998 over the winter. Still have a few loose ends to tie up but she'll do for now. The video is 8.5min long with the final product shown at the end. http://www.youtube.com/embed/lDScHfeyYxE

So how about a link then? As I said in my OP, I've read plenty on the fan mod but have never seen a discussion on routing the hoses differently.

I have no doubt that a parallel system is efficient when the bike is moving along with some airflow. But moving in slow traffic with reduced air flow thru the radiators would seem that a series system would work better.

Looking at the radiator configuration for the 5th gen (assuming 6th is the same), the radiators are essentially a parallel circuit. Water flows into the top of both, or either, radiator and then out the bottom and back to the motor. So essentially, when the bike is hot and the fan is running, all the water in circulation isn't even passing through the left radiator and the fan. I have to believe that Honda had their reasons for this configuration but curiosity is getting the best of me. Maybe the radiators are too thin and can't handle the full volume of flow? It would be interesting to remove the upper cross-over tube, route the lower hose from the bottom of the right radiator to the top of the left. Then plug that remaining port at the bottom that was used by the lower cross-over tube. Thus, all the water would be forced to pass through both radiators in series. I have read lots of discussion about the VTR fan mod for cooling but never a peep about radiators.