enzed_viffer

Good work, Dr Toro - that's a very professional-looking and well designed kit.

Meh!

I say, "Meh!"

My remote is invisible - mounted under the fairing, out of the weather, away from prying eyes. Can't even get damp from exuberant washing off the bike.

It's not a problem being inaccessible, as the battery lasts so long that I don't need to get at the remote very often.

And the switch? I toyed with the idea of using the high-beam flasher, and will use that method once my switch wears out or stops working (again - it's the second one; the first didn't last long).

For now, the switch is where the headlight switch would be if the bike had one - I removed the blanking plate from the right switch block, drilled a hole through it, and remounted it.

Magic Door Opener button

Dan painted the SSSA on his Torocharger (see pic below.) I prefer the stock look myself.

GIven how ugle the VFR's swingarm and rear hub look, anything that makes it less visible (like Toro's black paint / powdercoat) is a good idea.

Sorry, I haven't got my bike at work with me today, but a couple of cheap farkles I've done are to remove the "air guide" from below the swingarm (WTF is it for anyway?!?), the centre cap from the hub, and bought some chromed Honda Civic wheel nuts to replace the standard dull VFR ones. They're practically the same size, just slightly different taper on the inward end. I wasn't game to remove the chainguard even though it's ugly, as too much chain spooge finds its way around the bike as it is.

Another no-cost farkle that was on my bike when I bought it was cutouts in the tail cowl so I don't have to remove the pillion grab handles to fit the tail cowl. I had to enlarge these slightly with a laminate trimmer though, as the handles are higher than stock due to the Ventura pack rack I fitted.

I also have the unique VFR800Canuck 'racing' lightened footpeg brackets that he kindly gave me to replace my bent ones. They were cheap - cost me ~NZ$30 to be shipped on a SlowBoatViaChina (8 week trip, IIRC). Thanks Rob! :goofy:

Cleaning up and I find two small metal pieces. Oh, shit. They're the dowel pins that are supposed to install with the shifter cover. Arggggggg.... are these things important enough that I really have to disassemble the whole thing again to put them in?

AFAIK, they're just present to make it easier to put the cover in place, as they locate it and hold it there while you slip the bolts in. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about it - just install them next time you take the cover off to change the countershaft sprocket or clean the accumulated chain spooge out.

So here's the stuff I use:

RainX

I'd heard that RainX wasn't recommended for use on plastics, especially not visors.

There's some other product that's similar to RainX and is OK for visors, but I can't remember what it's called.

Lemon Pledge works OK though. I've recently started using it instead of Plexus.

Years ago (about 1999), I made a wiper that attached via an elastic strap to my left glove, using a cutoff piece of wiper blade. It was terrible, partly because it wasn't very intuitive trying to get the wiper blad seated properly on the visor - took too much attention. My next one will just use foam or microfibre, I think...

what kind of glue is used? i wanna do this with my cbr954

I used silicon on the first two bikes I did, but because some people said silicon could wreck O2 sensors, I used hot-melt glue on the VFR800.

I've done this on my last two bikes (and the VFR750 before that already had a Unifilter fitted, saving me the trouble, and the VF500 that I took to a guy who did professional filter conversions). I've got a pictorial somewhere (maybe even on here?) but can't be bothered digging it out.

The stock philter elephant is WAY over-engineered for summat that's disposable, so it's ideal to be re-engineered.

Oh what the heck - here's the VFR ones:

dirtyfilter.jpg She's a wee bit dirty, Jim!

innards.jpg Oops.<br />It's fallen apart....

denuded.jpg Filter cut out. Remaining bits of the element were excised with a knife and sharp chisel. I decided to remove the middle rib, to make installing the new filter easier. I also cut away some of the bits of plastic the rivets holding the screen in place were embedded in. Seems to still be strong enough.

done.jpg Filter all glued in place.

Here's the VTR pix.

He told me that your average solar panel takes up to 9 times the energy to produce that it actually returns during its lifetime. They are horrendously inefficient at the moment, but improving slowly as pressure comes on to find alternatives to fossil fuel derived energy sources.

Your son got hold of old and severely exaggerated information.

Yeah, well I did say I hadn't checked it out for myself. :fing02:

In fact, now is the time to get in on all of the rebates and incentives that make the cost of a solar electricity and water heating installation (or windmill if you have the wind and available land) worthwhile. With a large array you have all the power you need for your home and sell the excess back to the grid. California has an initiative to put solar panels on every rooftop, though Germany (yes, cloudy Germany) currently leads the world in solar infrastructure. Clean power is already available. We just have to go get it.

I need to check the veracity of this out for myself, but according to my [electronics/technology expert] son, solar panel technology is actually not good with respect to the whole global climate change / energy conservation saga. He told me that your average solar panel takes up to 9 times the energy to produce that it actually returns during its lifetime. They are horrendously inefficient at the moment, but improving slowly as pressure comes on to find alternatives to fossil fuel derived energy sources.

I liked a comment in the paper here in respect to some lame-ass, ill-considered 'energy conservation' proposal: "CO2 emissions would be reduced more by the people concerned holding their breath for one minute".

I think the bike looks great for 48,000 miles.

Yes.

A lot better than my '01 which has similar miles. :rolleyes:

No pics, no reality ! :rolleyes:

Oh - you mean:

Great work, Mr Seb! :thumbsup:

Looking forward to updates. :rolleyes:

i think it important to note, that the thickness of the washer doubles the washers thickness at the rear of the bike. one or two washers wouldn't make a lot of difference. however: raising the front fork tubes 5mm (geometry wise) would be a very BIG difference.

Meh.

I forgot I'd raised the fork tubes already, and did it again, ending up with a total of 14mm.

Oops...

And I shimmed the rear shock as well, by 5mm.

It handled fiiiine!

But it's better now, with my overlength Elka (effectively shimmed more than 5mm), and about 1mm on the front.

the other part that bothers me besides the shims falling out, the mating surface of the shim (slotted steel) bolted tightly against aluminum? :blink:

I used a piece cut out of an aluminum heatsink, which happened to be 5mm or so thick, and right-angled. This allowed me to hold onto it while putting the slotted bit in, and also that helped to hold it in place while tightening the bolt. Plus it was nicely painted!

Hey, that was really kewl!

Thanx for that, Mr V4 Rosso! :thumbsup:

So i'm hoping there's is something to make sure its in nuetral!

Like Tightwad said: "the regular safety mechanism that prevents it from starting in gear would be in place".

The bike itself won't let you start it if it's in gear, and the sidestand is down and/or the clutch isn't pulled in.

Good work! :thumbsup:

Just a suggestion: if you find the new screen has some turbulence off it, take the bead off the edge. I guess you've put it there to cover the cut edge, but you should be able to get that smooth with some very fine sandpaper. I found with my VF500 that taking the beading off made a big and very noticeable difference to the turbulence over the screen. I did this after reading an article about Alan Cathcart test-riding Aaron Slight's RC45 and another one (John Cozinski?) and finding that the beading Aaron put on his screen so he could see the edge and wouldn't hit his helmet on it made for much more turbulence. So, I took mine off, and Bingo! (A game for old people.)

I may find this to be the case. After cutting I took a file to the edge and it is very smooth and looks very good. I put the lip cover on just b/c it was supplied by MRA. It may have to go.

I was interested to look at the screen on a friend's Suzuki RF900. Whereas the VFR has a moulded beaded lip that sticks up into the airflow (and thereby creates potential/real turbulence) the RF has the bead on the underside of the screen, where it still supplies rigidity but not at the expense of aerodynamics.

Good work! :thumbsup:

Just a suggestion: if you find the new screen has some turbulence off it, take the bead off the edge. I guess you've put it there to cover the cut edge, but you should be able to get that smooth with some very fine sandpaper. I found with my VF500 that taking the beading off made a big and very noticeable difference to the turbulence over the screen. I did this after reading an article about Alan Cathcart test-riding Aaron Slight's RC45 and another one (John Cozinski?) and finding that the beading Aaron put on his screen so he could see the edge and wouldn't hit his helmet on it made for much more turbulence. So, I took mine off, and Bingo! (A game for old people.)

I put as much pressure on as I felt comfortable with; enough to flex the spanner and, more worryingly, the frame! To no avail. The ball didn't appear to move relative to the FPR at all.

Yeah, I found this too.

The frame is scarily thin and flexy, unlike the FPR, which seems to be made to military specs. <_<

I'll post new pics by the end of the week...

There you go: we have it in writing, so there's no excuses now. :mellow:

Can i be granted Moderator status so I can sanction The Phantom for posting an "update" using just 2 emoticons? Come on, thats just weak!

And I bet Murray Duncan (and his twin brother Duncan Murray) still calls himself a VFR rider... :blink:

What the hell does ATGATT mean???

All The Gear, All The Time.

Those indicators are just SO dumb. When I dropped the VifFerraRi after fitting the replacement confirminators, it was very heartening to note that they weren't even scratched.

Bad luck, Adam. Hope the repairs aren't too expensive, and I hope you have no complications.

The Aprilia bolt dimensions are a little narrower than the VFR's but I think Safe-T covered that. I have one I'm working with now, needs a mounting spacer to move the mirror out a little and put it at a more useful angle.

50mm spacing on the Aprilia mirrors - same as 5th gen Honda OEM. I mounted them without spacers and I think they look great but not very useful for actually seeing behind you ala Franco in The Gumball Rally.

Oh - and a belated reply to AB's question - the Suzuki's are 50mm too, I believe.

I was working on my son's car in the weekend (chucked out all the intake hoses, and fitted a shorter flexible hose, K&N filter, and hood scoop)

WOT????? NAE NACA'S??????? :rolleyes:

Frayed knot.

There was actually very few scoops/vents/ducts available. The one he bought was a "Imprezza-style' one, in black-painted fibreglass. Afterwards I had a look on the Interdweeb and there were very few available, and all much dearer than the (what we thought was outrageous) 150 UnZud ShekelDollars.

The whole project was surprisingly expensive. It started out as his Peugeot 205 GTi having a hiccup, that I thought might be an airleak, as the bolts for his airflow unit had previously fallen out. It turned out that the intake hose to the airfilter was ripped almost completely through, as was the hose between the filter and the sensor. Our options were:

Try to get a 70mm connector hose to replace the latter one + another hose that was 70mm at one end, and 60mm at the other, OR

Replace the whole thing with just one hose and a pod filter. :thumbsup:

Looked alright in theory, but ended up being a two-day mission for me.

We (eventually) found a flexible 75mm hose+clamps ($35), a K&N pod-filter ($140), a straight connector we thought was chromed steel, but which was plastic ($13), the scoop ($150).

Then we needed a replacement Bosch airflow sensor flange ($20), a grinding wheel for the hole in the hood ($4.95), some plastic clips ($30), some primer paint ($18), a piece of metal mesh ($1!), some epoxy putty to glue the mesh in the scoop ($14), some black silicon to stick the scoop on ($17), a sheet of aluminium for a heat shield(~$4).

That's nearly $450!

I'm sure that the Peugeot hoses (if we could get some) would've been less than half that, but he likes the "kewlness factor" of the big black nose in front of the windscreen. (He didn't think a lower-profile scoop or duct would've been as kewl...)

Well, I just bought some clips too, and I screwed up badly.

I was working on my son's car in the weekend (chucked out all the intake hoses, and fitted a shorter flexible hose, K&N filter, and hood scoop) and the hood lining needed new clips. The standard ones were rivets (!) and the few that were left were corroded to hell. Anyway, he wanted to re-rivet the lining, but I thought the chances of getting some rivets with giant heads on a weekend were minimal, so suggested we buy some 'cheaper' plastic body clips.

<_<

Found some at the auto parts store, 6 to a packet, so I got a packet of 4 6mm "screwvits" while I was there. His 18 body clips were around $30, and my four clips cost me nearly $10.

Would've been cheaper to get the Genuine Honda ones...