JZH

Here's one I prepared earlier (2005): It works with a Bagster tank bag and cover, so in theory it is portable between my bikes (only needing appropriate electrical connections). This particular set-up is no longer in use (note the state-of-the-art Garmin 2720!) I had the tank bag set up with HID ballasts, Autocom intercom, Touratech IMO, MP3 stereo and Bluetooth phone interface, but the "sled" holding the head units was really a last-minute idea I had as I was running out of time to prep the bike for a European tour. Heavy duty adhesive Velcro was used on the bottom of the tank bag and the top of the sled--it held and has not even peeled in over seven years. The tubing is 7/8" OD alloy, the sled is stainless. As I recall, there was some bouncing on rough roads, but probably less than if the head units had been mounted to the bike itself. Location was great. Up and out of the way. Ciao,

Are you Chinese? Ciao,

The -013 is a different spec part than the -003, made by the same contractor, but I don't know what the difference might be. It's usually a revision, so the -003 shouldn't really be available, but could still show up on the system, or could be NOS (new old stock) that was picked up from a bankrupted dealer or something. Ciao,

You can get the LSL bar mounts w/o the bars, but you won't be saving any money! I've ordered from Louis.de when I lived in the UK, and I believe they also export to the USA, but even w/o VAT (which is included in these prices, but not charged on exports), once you add shipping and potential US customs duties, it would probably be more expensive than buying locally. Ciao,

OEM are simple hex head bolts. RC30 pins are available separately, so if they are a standard diameter, not sure why they would not have been used. When I got my NR rear wheel mount made I discovered that the NR's drive pins were a different diameter--and not available separately, of course. Rick Oliver (in the UK) managed to get a set made for me, though. Ciao,

PUT DOWN THE BLING AND BACK AWAY FROM THE VEHICLE. DO IT NOW... Ciao,

The OEM D1S system used internal (integrated, really) ignitors, and this was the type of system used in the infamous "PHID" driving lights that were once popular with the LD riding crowd. The advantage of doing it that way was that all of the wiring going to the projector unit could be regular 16-ga or so, rather than the high-voltage wire used by the D2S-type systems (which used to have separate igniter and ballast, but now incorporate both igniter and ballast into one unit). There are also D2S OEM systems that have igniters built into the bulb holders (rather than being part of the bulbs themselves), and these are very compact, too, and can use regular wires. Yes, I've been studying this topic for quite a while: I may never have finished a single xenon retrofit project during that time, but I've got boxes of xenon-related crap in two countries! Ciao,

Looking good. My own take on halos is that they're not really very noticeable when the lights are on--and they always are on a motorbike, no? Ciao,

I concur with BR. Btw, the piston sizes I quoted came from the Honda Workshop Manuals. Ciao,

I know they changed the rear caliper piston diameters vetween the VTEC-I and II, so I wouldn't be surprised if they had changed the fronts as well. Hang on a sec, I'll check... [time passes] ...yup, the '98-'01 right front caliper had three different piston sizes, 27mm, 22.65mm and 25.4mm (top to bottom), whilst the '02-'09 had only two sizes: 25.4mm, 22.65mm and 25.4mm. So, they're different, not by much, but I would say it is significantly different. Good luck on your rebuild, but I'd send that one back. Ciao,

Dude, that thing ain't gonna fit in a VFR! Ciao,

I've been "into" HIDs/xenons for several years and have never heard what you describe. What is your source for this? I've never heard of anyone referring to halogens by color temperature, either. Nor does it make sense to me that the color temperature would affect the direction of the reflected light above the cut-off. But I'm happy to be proven wrong... Ciao, Check out the post by MIBagentQ in this forum: http://www.rx7club.c...-lights-761233/ For halogen color temperature just Google, you guessed it, "halogen color temperature". The first reference directs me to some random internet guy who's made a custom glare shield for his reflector HID conversion--with dubious results. What does this have to do with what I asked you? There was no "side-by-side comparison", there were no pictures of halogen bulbs providing any kind of a cut-off pattern whatsoever, and in fact there was no discussion of color temperature in that thread at all. The second reference, to Google, confirms that (a) nobody refers to automotive halogen bulbs by color temperature, and (b) there is no such thing as an "8000k halogen bulb". Thanks for clearing that up... Ciao,

I've been "into" HIDs/xenons for several years and have never heard what you describe. What is your source for this? I've never heard of anyone referring to halogens by color temperature, either. Nor does it make sense to me that the color temperature would affect the direction of the reflected light above the cut-off. But I'm happy to be proven wrong... Ciao,

Wimps, all a ye. What you need, clearly, is a rear tire on the front to match the "phat" rear tire on the...er, rear. Surely the forks could be widened with some 6061 sheet and steel strapping tape from Home Depot? Ciao,

Not cheap, but Dan Dreisbach made me an underseat exhaust using an Erion full system. Unlike the TBR, though, he did have to cut about 50mm off the output to get a better angle for the link-pipe, so this is a one-way mod. See my build thread for pics. Ciao,

Good luck matching the front! Ciao,

Update: Bike with PCIII runs great; bike with PCV runs bad (same A&A-modified base map, which was created as a PCIII map). I've converted the PCIII map using the PCV software a couple of times, so at least it is consistently bad, but I have no idea what is wrong at this point. One potential cause I'm considering is the PCV's requirement (?) to tap into the speed sensor and water temperature sender wires on the VFR: the PCV instructions are written for an '09 VTEC, but I've determined which of my Y2k's wires are the equivalent (it was pretty easy, given access to wiring diagrams for both bikes and the fact that Honda used the same wire colors) and tapped into those wires at the gray PGM-FI connector. However, I managed to damage my gray connector whilst removing the wire terminals, such that one of these wires backs out of the connector when it is attached to the PGM-FI unit. Accordingly, my speedo readout and odometer do not get the speed signal. (Wiring harness from eBay on its way...) When I first got the bike running with the PCV I did not have either of these sender wires connected, either, so I'm wondering if the problem isn't the PCV map conversion, but the lack of these signals being fed to the PCV? One other thing I can try is to take the Autotune out of the circuit (I'm not sure it's even working at this point), but I think I tried that in the beginning with no difference. Ho hum, another project bike day at the office... Ciao,

Update: By "poor fueling" I meant it stumbled all over the rev range, but in particular just over 5,000rpms. Went for a ride yesterday--and before the ride I had re-loaded the PCV map, but nothing changed. Riding in the twisties with an fluffy throttle response is no fun at all! So...what's the update, then? Well, when I got back home I was wondering what I could do to solve this problem when I remembered that I had an un-used PCIII USB (which I had purchased before learning that the PCV/Autotune could be used on a 5th-gen), so I swapped that for the PCV and loaded the same (but unconverted) map I had been using in the PCV: The bike now runs great! So, maybe the PCV's map conversion feature doesn't work entirely? Or maybe my PCV is faulty? Clearly, I still have some problems to work on...but I also now have a properly running bike! Ciao,

In my experience, more bikes just means more unfinished projects! I just realised that I probably don't have a map installed in the PCV, which could explain the poor fueling... This is what happens when there are long delays between days working on the install, I guess. Time to steal the wife's laptop for a little garage action! As for the next stage, it will probably be the front forks, as the Penske out back is making the OEM front forks feel entirely inadequate. Hope I've got all of the RC51 swap parts... Ciao,

Now it happened! Ciao,

It's a good question! Firstly, I wouldn't know where to take it for a dyno run. It's been a long time since I've lived in this area, so the only shop I know (and actually did use for set-up work many years ago) is Vance & Hines, but I don't know if they actually work on customer bikes these days. Secondly, while it would be interesting to see the numbahs, I've seen others' numbers, so it'd only really be for bragging rights--and I don't really care about that. But we'll see. Maybe once I've got some miles on the bike I'll be more curious to get objective confirmation of the results of spending all that money! Ciao,

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for (or at least the moment I've been waiting for!)... She runs!! After a short year having been consumed by a rather depressing episode, as well as my relocation from London to Hong Kong, I am back in So.Cal. for the summer and have now had a chance to enjoy some quality time with my motorcycle. First ride was today. It lasted about 20 mins, but was very nearly over after five minutes--when I was very rudely reminded that I had mounted new tires about a year ago! (Note to self: tire release agent does not wear off merely due to the passage of time...) Caught the inevitable rear-wheel slide and carried on--once I'd confirmed that it hadn't been caused by oil or coolant. So, how does she run? Well, it's hard to say at this point, as the kit instructions say to avoid using more than 1/2 throttle for the first 65mi. That (and my new tires) kept me from riding at anything above little old lady pace on this first ride. Instead, I concentrated on listening to the engine, the compressor, the blow-off valve and the very lovely exhaust note. I did have one leaky water hose, and I will be checking the belt tension again this evening, but other than that everything looks and sounds right. I think (although it was hard to tell) that I may need to adjust the PCV mapping, because when I did let the revs rise I think I hit a flat spot. Anyway, tuning is inevitable with a project like this--the main thing is that the engine seems to run smoothly and strongly (and sounds great!) Speaking of the exhaust note, I had asked Dan to provide me with a set of "dB killer" inserts for the Lasers, which he did, but I had also wanted a set of un-baffled sleeves to use if the baffles were too quiet. They aren't! I still have to do some slight bodywork mods before I can fit the side fairings, so at the moment I have to ride around on a small-block-Chevy rumbling, screaming yellow bike with blue silicone water hoses and a supercharger belt spinning menacingly away--can't wait for the inevitable "Is that a Ducati?" question... Ciao,

And you also make a good point! Fluid "volume" is not really relevant in hydraulics. However, I would say that the level of complexity in an ABS system vs a standard brake system is much greater. I went a little way towards doing a fork upgrade on my ST1300A, but decided to stop when I started to understand how much engineering had gone into the ABS system I was hoping to retain (in a now de-linked environment). I realised that I was never going to be confident enough in that kind of hybrid ABS system (and that was "just" a touring bike). Swapping the complete ABS system from a CBR1000RRA might be an option (for a VFR), but there's still the difference in weight and the location of that weight to consider. Ciao,

I certainly wouldn't expect what works for cars would necessarily work with bikes... They're slightly different machines, you know.Ciao,

I don't know anything about ABS systems, but it would not surprise me to learn that they were carefully calibrated to work with (and only with) the OEM calipers and rotors. Sure, if you swap everything so that the hydraulics function, the system might work just fine. Or it might be the same as having no ABS at all. Hey, its only your front brakes--what could possibly go wrong? If it were my life on the line, I'd definitely do more research... Ciao,