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ggathagan

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Posts posted by ggathagan

    I am going to shut down vfrd soon

    in Site Comments, Help, & Support

    Posted

    Thank you, thank you, thank you for the effort you have made over the years.

     

    VFRD is by far the best VFR community I've been involved with, both in the technical knowledge and the member's willingness to help.

     

    Much of that rests on your shoulders, Miguel.

     

    If thtanner and others are able to keep the site going, that'd be great, but 21 years is an admirable run.
    I'm also glad that you are back on a bike, even if it isn't a VFR.
    Whatever the future hold for VFRD, know that we are all better for having been a part of it.

     

    Aloha and God bless

    • Like 3

    Gsxr Mirrors On 6th Gen

    in Body and Paint

    Posted

    I'd looked briefly at replacing the single filament socket with a dual filament version.
    The two main concerns:
    Finding the proper socket for the bulb.
    The locking bulb socket that Emgo uses looks pretty generic, so there's a pretty good chance you could find a replacement piece that was made for a dual filament bulb and would lock properly in the lens.

    The wiring is a more difficult hurdle.
    The passageway that runs through the stalk of the mirror and the hole that DB drilled through the large Phillips-head screw would both have to be enlarged to allow for a third wire.
    That would involve a complete dis-assembly of the mirror and make a very labor-intensive process even more so.

    All in all, I think that my relay scenario involves the least amount of work.

    After soldering the wire leads coming off the relay, those connections could be covered with heat-shrink tubing and the relay itself could be attached to the inside of the front fairing with double-stick tape somewhere near the existing turn signal lights.

    You would want to terminate the leads from the mirrors with the same sort of 2-conductor disconnects used elsewhere on the bike to allow the mirrors to be removed.

    Gsxr Mirrors On 6th Gen

    in Body and Paint

    Posted

    Ahhhh...the old "crank up the car radio to get rid of any annoying car sounds" trick. I had a roommate in college that knew that one well. So....2 diodes AND a relay, for each side? And #30 is the 12v power lead, I'm guessing?

    No, 30 is ground and no diodes are needed.

    87a is the power lead from the running light circuit.

    30 is the path to ground for that circuit (the mirror's bulb).

    85 is the power lead from the turn signal circuit.

    86 is the path to ground for the turn signal circuit.

    Instead of attempting to run the mirror's single filament bulb with two different 12v sources (running light and turn signal), my circuit is interrupting the steady state running light source by opening up that circuit's path to ground for the mirror's bulb.

    Attaching the turn signal lead to one side of the the relay's coil (85) and the other side of the coil to ground (86) causes it to open the relay's normally closed contact(87a) at the rate of the turn signal's "blinking"..

    Going by the service manual's wiring diagram,

    Right side connections off of the existing bulb socket:

    Light blue/White - turn signal - connect to 85 on relay

    Light blue - running light - connect to 87a on relay

    Green - ground - connect to both 30 and 86 on relay

    Left side connections:

    Orange/White - turn signal - connect to 85 on relay

    Orange - running light - connect to 87a on relay

    Green - ground - connect to both 30 and 86 on relay

    Gsxr Mirrors On 6th Gen

    in Body and Paint

    Posted

    Without the diode (an electrical check valve for us plumbers) the electrical current back feeds from the running light wire to the turn indicator (when connecting any two wire light to the VFR's three wire circuit) and this circuit makes both turn indicator lights on the dash stay continuously lit.

    During daytime riding it is annoying, at night is a potentially dangerous distraction.

    You could also correct this as I have seen many older VCR owners do back in the day...a piece of electrical tape across the flashing "12:00" on the dash.

    I'm unsure where we disagree.

    That's the safety function I allude to.

    The diodes do nothing for the subject being discussed; trying to make a single filament bulb function as a dual filament bulb.

    Gsxr Mirrors On 6th Gen

    in Body and Paint

    Posted

    It's hard to be sure, since I've got my face right next to the mirrors as I reach for the turn signal switch. Nevertheless, it appears that my running lights are brighter than the turn signals -- they actually seem to dim when they start flashing. I am not using any resistors, nor a relay -- just the diodes mentioned above.

    All that said, the increase in conspicuity is so substantial that I don't worry to much about it. It's a huge improvement over the stock indicators alone.

    The diodes serve well as a safety function, but do little else.

    If there is voltage present on either the running light feed or the turn signal feed, the bulb will be lit.

    Having voltage from both connections simultaneously will not brighten the bulb enough to be of any use.

    So, it's not a matter of providing two different signals.

    Rather, you wire the mirror as a running light, then use the turn signal feed to activate a relay which lifts ground for that bulb.

    You'd want it set up something like this, using a 12 v single pole dual throw relay:

    signal wiring

    The numbers are the connections on a standard relay.

    85/86 are the coil connections,

    Gsxr Mirrors On 6th Gen

    in Body and Paint

    Posted

    Gentlemen,
    My apologies in the delay on getting back to this.
    Life/work has this irritating tendency of intruding...

    I've added a gallery for the pictures I took:
    http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.php/gallery/album/7119-mirror-mounts/

    I have no precision measuring equipment at hand, but the dimensions are along the following lines:
    Length at the base: between 3 1/2 and 3 5/8 inches
    Overall height from the base to the highest part of the adapter is 1 1/4".

    Other than the spacing and diameter of the mounting holes, I think every other dimension would be up to the designer.

    The trickiest part would be drilling through the large Phillips-head mounting bolt to route the wiring.

    Gsxr Mirrors On 6th Gen

    in Body and Paint

    Posted

    If you don't need them I'd be happy to take them off your hands...

    Sorry, they're going on the bike at some point; probably when I get sick of looking at the spots on the stock mirrors where the black coating has come off.

    Tomorrow's the 8th. How was your trip?

    Don't forget about me/us when you get settled in back home, yeah?

    Ugh...

    I got caught in all that snow and low temps and didn't get back home until Saturday night.

    I'll pull out the mirrors later tonight.

    Custom Devil Dual Underseat Exhaust System

    in Exhaust Systems

    Posted

    One of the things I wish was different on my underseat exhaust is the profile of the up pipe in the section immediately in front of the rear wheel.
    I don't know if it's feasible to do, but if a fabricator could bend/pound the up pipe into an oval profile in that section, it would go a long way towards solving cleareance problems, particularly with huggers.

    Front end conversion - was yours worth it ??

    in Suspension

    Posted

    Did anybody did the front end conversion on an ABS VFR? Preserving the ABS is what's keeping me from atempting the upgrade. From what i've seen on this topic all the modified bikes were non ABS. CBS can be dropped ... I guess, but I'm not willing to do the same for ABS which saved my butt several times.

    Thanks!

    You'll note that more than just the forks are involved with these swaps.

    ABS cannot be preserved for the same reason as the requirement to get rid of the linked braking setup: the new forks do not have the proper mounting bosses or proper wheel offset to retain the original brake calipers. Those calipers are needed for both linked brakes and ABS.

    Given that the new forks are generally from a bike with better brakes, the trade-off between better brakes and linked/ABS brakes is usually considered part of the advantage.

    Cooking with Hydrogen.

    in Modifications

    Posted

    1st off:

    I applaud John's work, regardless of the outcome.

    2) To those who put forth the if it was a viable solution, it would have been out there already type of argument:

    Prior to toro1 having the desire and the requisite skills/knowledge to put his kit together, no one made a bolt-on supercharger kit specifically designed for the VFR.

    The fact that such a kit didn't exist prior to this point did not prove that it wasn't possible, only that someone with the desire and abilities to create one had not yet decided to put one together.

    In a similar fashion, the fact that no one has yet used HHO gas production in this particular way, does not make it impossible. It simply means that no one has yet been interested enough to do the work.

    That lack of interest may be due to any number of reasons, including economic.

    One always has to remember that the matter of scale is always a factor when it comes to the implementation of technology with regard to automotive/motorcycle companies. ROI is always a part of the formula. Witness the demise of our beloved gear-driven cams.

    One also has to remember the federal government has a lot to do with the direction and types of R&D in the automotive and oil industries. Tax incentives, research funding and government mandates all play a role.

    Remember the formation of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation after the oil crisis of the late '70's and it's subsequent abandonment a mere 5 years later?

    That resulted in Exxon abandoning the oil shale project it was working on on Colorado.

    On a related note, it is the federal government that has mandated that both industries develop the use of ethanol, even though ethanol is a less efficient fuel, causes a host of longevity issues and ethanol production for fuel in the US has far-reaching agricultural ramifications.

    As long as the current method of oil extraction is the most economical, it will be used.

    That will change only when oil extracted with that method is no longer available, or another method is more economical.

    3) Apart from being a fuel source, oil has many roles in many industries. Moving to an alternative fuel will not eliminate the desire for oil.

    Since it is a finite resource, it makes sense from a business standpoint to develop alternative fuel, thus prolonging oil's life span in the other industries.

    4) Unfortunately, the old adage of necessity being the mother of invention is true.

    Human nature being what it is, the alternative solutions are never ready to implement ahead of time.

    There will always be a lag-time when transitioning from one energy source to another.

    Blingy Rear Rotor

    in Modifications

    Posted

    I had a set of Galfer wave rotors on my Klingon before the SP2 front went on, along with a set of EBC HH Street pads.

    I found them excellent, and did not chew up rotors or pads with either...

    :fing02:

    I had them on my 4th gen and really liked them. Very good bite, but progressive. I didn't notice undue wear on the pads either.

    Fifth-gen Bi-xenon Retrofit

    in Modifications

    Posted

    With xenon you don't get a lot of heat, fortunately. And let's just say that flat black is apparently an acquired taste... :dry:

    Ciao,

    What about taking rubbing compound to the reflectors and giving them a brushed metal finish, instead of reflective?

    It would keep the look of the original but wouldn't cause much light bounce/scatter.

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