Beck

Geeze Dutchy!!,.......... Now I'm surprised the NL does not have a population explosion problem these days...... Must be from living below sea level for extended periods........ Beck 95 VFR

Self proclaimed mad scientist and HK resident, Dong Li Chen didn't think that his teleporter machine would really work till he tried it on his cousin's 5th gen VFR...... :dry: .........Pittsburg PD still couldn't figure out where this bike came from......... :blink: Beck 95 VFR

It's really frustrating that the long 4th gen rear shock do not have a plug and play equivalent out there from other bikes, but don't these spacer/extender plates adversely affect the function of the rear suspension as it might shorten the stroke of the swingarm with the shorter shocks??. Wouldn't you end up bottoming out earlier with these shorter shocks?? Beck 95 VFR

Well, the stock slip-on weighs 11-13lbs by itself... Yes, you typically knock it down to half (with an SS Staintune and a little less for a super lightweight CF can system. But there's still about 60 hard get rid off. pounds to go.... Beck 95 VFR

We didn't buy the bike wrecked. The bike was perfect and had 6k miles on it when my dad purchased it. At one point or another we both laid the bike down on the same side, so after a while we started sourcing body panels for it. And while sourcing panels, we decided to get rid of all that weight and transform the look of the bike too. The weight reduction idea started with the all-in-one gauge and it exploded from there. In the end we took off close to 70 lbs from stock trim (most of it was reduced up top, which makes a huge improvement in the handling). I also don't think it looks like "every other sportsbike" either. Single sided swingarm, hidden lights, solid paint job, and lets not forget the sound! :) It handles great and sounds like no other sports bike out there. 70 punds off?? I don't think the 4th gen bodywork and all it's related hardware could weigh that much? :blink: :huh: So you're saying you found a whole bunch of boatanchors hidden in the bike?? I can believe maybe 20+- pounds off , but 70? We need to know how that's done. Beck 95 VFR

IIRC, there were some people out there modifying Honda Civic aluminum wheels to bolt on to SSS rear ends like the VFR at one time. Can't remember if they sold it to the public or if they were just one-off projects, but this is not the first time that aluminum car wheels were modified for motorcycles. Don't agree with the 3 spoker request though, I always thought that three spokers looked kinda weird and unbalanced. Ideal (aesthetic-wise) number of spokes had always been 5. 4 might be nice too. 8 is always appreciated here! Beck 95 VFR

I always say, do it the best way you can if possible. If putting it next to the hottest parts of the bike is a good place, then already we've seen many bikes with that setup.....but we don't.....Don't we have enough problems with heat buildup damage to our RRs with Honda also locating it in the least ideal area under the seat fairings??.... Beck 95 VFR

As I noted, the best mounting locations for horns is an area as high and dry as you can find under the fairing, for lngest life and reliability. I believe that if you look hard enough, you can find spaces in the upper fairngs on most VFR models that should work out. I too had to experiment and go through a few less than successful installations for my Fiamm low tone snail horn on my 95. Tried it first at the stock location in front of the radiator, but found out the front fender kissed it on bigger bumps ended up finding a space to the left of the upper radiator mount and the horn had been happily living there for at least eight years now. Here's a pic: MVC-010F.JPG See it peeking out of the faring on the left side, below the left handlebar. I think a few 6th gen owners have mounted their Stebels near the same area under the faring, right next to the radiator. Beck 95 VFR

GPM, that low location next to the headers does not look to be a good idea because it's like the harshest environment you can find on a bike. Those header pipes get hot enough to actually glow red hot in the night and it could spell disaster for the plastic material the horn body is made of, That area also get the most rain splash, moisture and muck from the road kicked up from the wheel. The higher and cooler place on the bike you can find the better it would be for the life of the horn. Beck 95 VFR

That looks like a better/tighter fit than the old Wolf system and without all the crazy tire clearance problems that came with it! Congratulations on the great job on the undertail! Weird thing is, current "bike fashion" now dictates that thelatest motorcycles have the old conventional low mount right side exhaust routing :biggrin: . I still prefer the high right and undertail systems though. the ginormous low right system on the new 1200 is not looking good to me at all. :squid: Beck 95 VFR

4130, fantastic! it should come up to be a fine, strong and light frame for the bike. A "Reynolds TI" sticker on it might look good too, if that's what you will be using. Are you planning to powdercoat or polish/nickel chrome the frame..ala Harris?? I vote for powdercoat...red would be nice, but I've seen some black powdercoated frames on late model KTMs that also look great. Beck 95 VFR

It's a 1985 Vitus Carbone Plus 7 I just got off an auction a couple of months ago. It's an interesting frame with carbon fibre wrapped saluminum frame tubes. I'm kind of a Francophile when it comes to bikes, since my college "serious" bicycle riding days, in the era of Hinault, Sean Kelly, Fignon and LeMond, when IMO, bikes were most beautiful. I'm currently cleaning/polishing up the aluminum head, bottom bracket and seat cluster "lugs" on the bike and working to put together Frech period components to replace the original Shimano dura Ace BL7400 series gruppo. This resto will be a full French one, because IMO, a classic French bike whoudl have French components. Goodies that I have put together for the transplant, so far: Ingeredients for a two wheeled French Souffle?? It's gonna be a long winter project, but I'll make sure to post up the final results, by spring, most likely. Beck 95 VFR

After weeks of struggling with my winter classic bicycle restoration project, with stem, bottom bracket and steering head races all siezed with corrosion that usually occur between the dissimilar metals involved, Soaking in Liquid Wrench. PB Blaster and pounding continuously with a deadlow hammer, nothing was budging. in desperation I started looking for ammonia which was recommended by the big bicycle forum I am a member off, as a last resort solution to dissolve the siezing aluminum oxide and hopefully release the parts. Couldn't find the recommended strong solution of ammonia when I bumped into the CRC made product in the auto parts store (Kragen) called "Freeze-Off" I was so frustrated that I bought it on impulse and did not really have to much high hopes for the product working to release my parts of my bicycle frame. Boy, was I wrong, In literally 5 minutes, I was able to remove the very tightly stuck stem from my fork as seen here in these pics. It came off so easily with a few hits with the dead-blow hammer that it felt like it literally fell off the bicycle fork steerer tube. I was pounding and soaking these parts for over two weeks without any success! I was so elated and surprised how well the Freeze-Off worked. Have since removed the also seized bottom bracket and head races from the frame and fork. Even experimented to see if the other supposedly super penetrant products I used didn't work for sure by trying them first. Again no success, but after using the Freeze-Off on these other parts, they came off easily in a couple of minutes at most with minimum persuasion from my tools! Trick is to use it liberally and analyze where you should blast the part or fastener with the Freeze-Off to properly shrink it away with the freezing effect and "crack" the Ferrous and aluminum oxide material to let the penetrant oils in the spray dissolve the corrosion, thus releasing the part. Make sure you use it liberally, because you really have to frezze the part for it to work. Hope others here can take advantage of this product as I did when working on seized parts and fasteners from your motorcycles or anything else around your house. I better buy a case of this stuff lest the Feds find something in it to ban it one day!! Beck 95 VFR

No, that's the point. There is no drainage bolt per say on either fork, it's just the bolt that holds the cartridge in place. The bolt location is identical, in fact every conventional fork has to have the same set-up to hold the cartridge assembly in the bottom of the fork tubes and the axle would be in the way one each one. Don't know if it's my picture or what making you believe there different because there is NO drain bolt on the side of the F4i fork? Now there are some forks, usually older one's that have extra drain bolts on the bottom sides of the forks, but VFR & F4/f4i's are not one's. :fing02: I hope I've clarified what I'm saying this time. :unsure: :blush: BR BR, please note that the 95 4th gen and earlier did have a fork oil drainbolt at the bottom aft side of the lower fork tubes. I think the 3rd gen bikes had them too. They decided to save some money and blank out that bolt with the 96 VFR and later...........VFR de-evolution or simply just an attempt by Honda to force fork oil replacement towards the dealerships??....Kachinnnggg!! Beck 95 VFR

Beck I agree with your opion on 1020 DOM tubing it's not suitable for motorcycle chassis. ERW Electric resistance welded (seamed) and (DOM) Drawn Over Mandrel to increase it's tensile strength. I believe that Ducati use 4130 for there production frames. interesting facts: Reynolds 753 tubing is heat treated 531! 531 Reynolds tubing was used on the legendary norton featherbed frames. Reynolds 531 tubing has had an illustrious history in sport and motorsport. It was even used to build up the spaceframe on Richard Noble's Thrust SSC Land Speed record car in the 80's, which is a testament to how engineers trust the tubing's stregnth. Noble's LSR car wore the big "Reynolds TI" decal on it's nose with pride. Another ineresting CrMo steel tubing brand is the French "Vitus". They actually came up with tubing even lighter than the much vaunted Reynolds 753 and 531SL tubing with their "Extra Legere Super Vitus 980" tubing. The tubing built up to bikes that challenges aluminum frames for lightness but still keeping the lively characteristics and stregnth of CrMo steel tubing. Beck 95 VFR

Coming from steel racing bicycles background from my college days, much was made of CrMo (by Reynolds, Columbus, Ishiwata, Tange, Vitus...etc) tubing for the best quality steel bicycle frames. Maganese steel alloys covering the middle part of the market and 1020 high carbon, high tensile, seamed steel tubing was the material expected for the cheapest "department store" bikes. I guess 1020 is certainly good enough when you are putting together frames or roll cages with many tubes that can help spread the loads, but the thinking in the bicycle frame builder's world was, you are depending on 3 main tubes for the bike frame's structure/stregnth plus you are trying to minimize weight as much as possible and compromises cannot be taken at the competition levels for safety and performance. I would think that a custom steel bicycle frame builder will cringe if he hears your mantra of "You can't go wrong with 1020 DOM!" Doesn't Ducati also use CrMo seamless tubing for their bike frames, and shouldn't that be sort of the modern benchmark for building sportbike tube spaceframes if they do?? JMOs Beck 95 VFR

Fantastic job! Could be the best looking VFR street fighter posted on this forum yet! :biggrin: :fing02: BTW, correction on your title. You have a rd gen VFR, I believe. Beck 95 VFR

Holy Cow Doug!, This is real bad news but I'm very glad you are OK! Hope that those bumps and bruises will heal fast to get you up an going again. The great RCBVFR might not rise up again from this bout, but I'm sure you will come up with yet another fantastic project bike or even a new one (Maybe some new Italian V4...maybe...hint..). Beck 95 VFR

What bugs me about my voltmeter that's run through an existing circuit (former license plate light) is the wiring and relays along the way that switches the power on and off with the ignition, will most likely cause a voltage drop, so the numbers I am seeing isn't exactly what the voltage is at the battery. Not as critical with analog meters, but the digital ones tend to see thsi discrepancy more. Beck 95 VFR

I suspect it's something like "Post traumatic shock syndrome". I can relate to the feeling. I never crashed my motorcycles since I started riding as a kid, but I did crash badly on a racing bicycle (lowsided going at least 30MPH on a curve). Got real bad roadrash on my right side and arm and had to heal/treat myself, foolishly avoiding the doctor because I was a poor college kid. I tell you, the trauma I went through scrubbing the debris away by myself from my road rash was some of the worst pain I have ever felt and it affected my racing bike riding from them on in a major way and surely continued to affect me many years after on my motorcycles. I don't feel as invincible as I felt back then before I had that bicycle crash (before when I dove through turns so agressively and without much fear or calculation), which in someways must have saved my life as a motorcycle rider, because I try to use my head to ride as smartly as I can every minute I spend on the saddle since that fateful crash many years ago. You'll surely get more comfortable later, it just takes time, but your riding will definitely change to most likely many better ways. Do change out that awful cupped Dunflop 208. I'm 100% sure it's not helping out and making that front end nervous feeling. Spoon on some smooth handling Michelin PR2CTs on that bike and it will be night and day difference for the better...I guarantee! Beck 95 VFR

I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here, I ended up putting the rear caliper back at the 12 oclock position again since that is how long the brake line is. Also, anywhere between 1 and 9 the caliper bolt heads would hit the swingarm, I didn't want to try to make a whole new caliper bracket and just used the Triumph one. (and now its too late, I just put everything back... getting to know every screw very well...) When you tighten the chain on a 4th (and maybe also 3rd) gen VFR, the eccentric makes the rear end drop down a little, slightly changing your bikes chassis geometry. If you flip the eccentic and relocate the caliper to the bottom of the disc, the effect will be reversed, so you raise the tail (which the VFRs can all use anyway to improve handling/response) when you tighten the chain on the bike. It's been done by some here, but does involve countersinking a couple of bolts for clearance. You can do a search on the site. I'm sure a few threads must have been saved on the topic. Beck 95 VFR

Ghey??!! maybe you're just getting too "anal" about those stickers .....they don't bother me none.... Beck 95 VFR Those warning stickers on bikes are terrible, DO NOT PUT YOUR TOES UNDER A RUNNING LAWNMOWER :excl: duhhh... My Polaris snowmobile was the worst, DO NOT HIT A TREE AT 80 MPH, IT COULD HURT OR KILL YOU :excl: duhhh..in French and English and those damn stickers are a PITA to remove, I have a v-strom, its not mine, but I dont think I can ride it again with all those damn warning stickers, DO NOT READ THIS STICKER WHILE RIDING :excl: duhhh... I hate them, really I do, lol :goofy: Doug, I got more just for you! MVC-010F.JPG Courtesy of the Honda safety police! :fing02: Too bad I didn't catch the "Unleaded fuel recommended" sticker in this pic! Ooohh...get a load of my little Kryptonite "take off your disc lock before you ride...dummy!" sticker too! :excl: Beck 95 VFR

Beck, After seeing your I also had to do it. Simple cheap, clean mod.and CHEAP! Picture 094.jpg Chain Guard Mod. and yes I gained 5 hp. Looks great! You can gain 1 more HP if you will take off the plastic end cap on the axle like I did. It will get rid of just that little bit more of unsprung/reciprocating weight from your 4th gens rear end and make squids think twice before challenging you to any race. :fing02: Seeing through the axle gives the rear end a racier look! Beck 95 VFR

Ghey??!! maybe you're just getting too "anal" about those stickers .....they don't bother me none.... Beck 95 VFR