MooseMoose

I'm just now noticing that some parts are getting less available. Compared to a few years ago when I picked up my 5th gen, that is, some stuff that was to be found then is now dropping off. Fairing pieces, hoses, etc. Still a good selection of parts, though. Anyway The special nuts are part number 90304-HB3-771 and can be had anywhere. Just do a web search. They're about $4.50 each and Honda uses them on all kinds of motorcycles, so there's no problem with them going out of stock any time soon.

Don't be intimidated by this job. Especially of you have a second set of hands to help you spread the front pipes to fit the ports. I posted my issues as well as success to show you that there might be tiny problems, but they'll all be easily handled with patience. From reports so far, I think mine might have been the wobbliest of them -- nobody else has bumped into their fairing and everyone else has been able to get their outlet past the centerstand without dropping it -- so I bet you don't even have the minor hassles I did. Use Anti-Sieze grease. I used this kind: https://www.oreillyauto.com/detail/b/versachem-5169/chemicals---fluids-16461/maintenance-chemicals-16867/grease---lube-16582/anti-seize-17774/31f81cb18df6/versachem-anti-seize-lubricant/13109/4776633?pos=8 I chose it because it was available at a local auto parts store and SF had used it as well. I live a few exits down the freeway, so we probably bought it at the same store. I would also be perfectly happy with the Permatex brand Anti Sieze. Comes in a similar tube. My mechanic friend uses a different brand of Copper bearing (maybe Loc-Tite) as well. The problem comes in taking the nuts off after they've been heated up and cooled down many hundreds of degrees over a couple of years. This helps with that. I used a dab of it on the threads of the o2 sensors, as well. Be careful not to get it near the holes, but I figured it should be used. When you buy an o2 sensor for a car or truck it'll normally come with antisieze already on it and so I assumed it was needed. And in this application it definitely won't hurt anything.

I think that was expected Scottie. Greg didn't torque the rear cylinders so they are just started, not fully seated at all.

Looks to me like 1 and 2 (with the seams properly facing in) would have been just fine. 4 is the oddball here, I swear my ports look a little different on the front, but I still think 4 would have been fine if properly placed. SF and Duc have done several header installs with 42mm, I'm using 42mm, all successfully. Mine sealed on the first try and have been through a dozen heat cycles and 100 miles, still good. SF tried multiple sizes and types before coming to the 42mm Delk recommendation. That said, You do what you need on your bike. You're a good mechanic and I'll be interested in your results. Please post what happens with the 41mm.

42mm. Mine did that, too. They're exactly as large as they can be, and one was even difficult to get in there, but they worked like a charm. I had to cram them into the ports, but the headers pushed them into place and I'm leak free, first try.

Not sure how you wired that. Not having resistors sounds elegant, but a couple of Rs covered in cold shrink tape really don't get in the way, either. But I am interested in what you did there. I just plug the lambda sensor into the stock harness, and I assume it gets its power there. The MTB is powered with the rest of the RB stuff off a relay I wired to the tail light circuit, so it's isolated until the key is turned on. This afternoon I put it back to resistors in the sensor feeds. I left the stock o2 sensors plugged into the rapidbke harness, but unplugged the connectors on Honda side and put the eliminators there. This is how I was running it before my experiments. Without being plugged into the Honda end of the harness, I assume they're not being powered and, therefore, doing absolutely nothing here. In summary, I'm glad I did the experiments. I know now, for absolute fact, that rapidbike's docs are utter shite and that I was doing it properly before, correcting off the static map. I post all the experiments here so all others don't have to bother.

That's exactly the way the original Two Brothers pipes they were patterned off of fit. Everyone should expect this.

This is exactly what I expect. I just wanted to do my due diligence since Rapidbike say you should leave your stock sensors connected. Now I know for certain, with all other variables fixed, it doesn't work that way.

Just for giggles I did run it with RBo2 unchecked. Oddly, it cruised a little better. It wouldn't switch back and forth between modes as quickly, causing surges. But it would go DEEP into the cruise mode and stay there. Throttle would be really pathetic at 5-10% between 4 and 6K. It corrected, but just seemed to do the corrections more slowly. The map it made was hilarious. 1s, 2s, 3s, maybe occasional 4s one way or the other in most cells at higher RPM and throttle settins, and 11 (the max) in the half dozen cells surrounding 5000 at less than 30% throttle. No wonder it falls on its face! Whatever, it's a bust either way. Rapidbike doesn't solve this problem. Next time I pull the fairing I'll disconnect the sensors. Just conjecture, knowing how software works and guessing at Honda's tricks, I don't have actual data, but I think it got into a race condition where both the bike and the rapidbike were chasing each other until the correction maxed out. In fact, it would be fun to do some datalogging to see what's really going on, but I don't have a bluebike module and it's just curiosity for me, not anything that really matters. The fact is that this isn't working for me so I'm going to jam the resistors back in and let Rapidbike lean it off from the map Honda uses when it isn't getting sensor data. It's good enough for a power commander, it's good enough for me. I should actually buy some bung plugs and just take them out, in fact. Save some fugly wiring routing up behind the coolant tank.

Haven't tried RBo2 Active unchecked in this configuration. That's specifically supposed to be checked if you have stock sensors, according to rapidbike. I could flip it off and see what happens, but I don't know what to expect. Does the stock signal still pass the harness without RBo2 Active? And if so, will I throw the codes and go into the failure-rich map? Might be interesting to see. But I'm sure I won't be running it RBo2 Active with the sensors connected for long. I did try it before I got the MTB module and it most definitely didn't work well with stock sensors connected. Same problem, but worse as it takes a lot longer to correct the bad readings. That was why the eliminators went back in after I sold the PCIII, and it worked much better with eliminators. Basically, it works properly with not active and eliminators so that's what I ran most of the time, before and after I got MTB. I just decided to try it hooked to the stock sensors since I was in there with the fresh pipes, and I have my MAP sensor error fixed, so I am theoretically in the best possible state for things to be tested since I got the bike.

Of course I do. I did that long before the rapidbike, actually, but the rapidbike literally will not work properly with the Pair enabled. Why do you ask?

RapidBike Users I have a Rapidbike Racing with a single MTB. I think it is using the older 4.2 sensor, not the newer one. Backstory (Skip this if you don't care) ==== For a long time I have been running it with resistors in instead of connecting the stock sensors. I did this for a few reasons, the first being that my Delkevic headers occasionally leaked after big temperature swings, so when they got super hot I could sometimes get fussy correction, which I controlled by limiting the max correction that could be applied. And the second, big, reason was that I had a horrible experience with the lean mode as the bike would go super lean at constant RPM while cruising. I'd add throttle, it'd get slower, I'd add more throttle, then finally when I hit 5% throttle it would switch out of lean mode and surge. REALLY annoying I couldn't just hold a steady speed and stay there. Some of the problems might have been traced back to an error code I was getting my MAP sensor, which sent the bike into "Default mode" for fueling. This is richer than normal and makes for a huge difference from lean cruise to normal. However I didn't figure this out until after I'd already started using O2 eliminators and then the rapidbike. I fixed that problem, and the new headers do not leak, ever, from what I can tell. So I decided to try connecting and RBo2 Active to see how it worked. ==== Current Setup: I have both stock sensors in and connected. I am running the single sensor MTB My advance map is zeroed out completely RBo2 Active is checked Results: RBo2 Active does not seem to account for the change to lean fueling. The bike will go into lean mode, and still surge annoyingly The MTB will completely pork the map after cruising between 5000 and 6500 rpm. I hate the Honda engineer who came up with this lean mode at steady RPM thing with an abiding passion The end result is that, if you cruise along at say 5500rpm for a little while the bike will eventually run normally, but then when you grab a handful getting on the freeway or something, there will be a monstrous hole in the powerband between 5 and 6K. A couple of runs accelerating through that range will restore full power again. My basic assumption is that the maps are chasing the lean. It never reaches real runaway level, but it does make for a substantial correction on both sides before it stabilizes and when you're using it more dynamically you can get bad results. On rare instances, it'll pop and backfire on throttle shutoff. Basically, if you cruise, then accelerate (taking it out of cruise mode), then roll off. This tells me it is going too rich as, when it's running nicely and I'm going up and down the RPM range it never sputters or pops. So, I don't buy that RBo2 Active is a valid solution on 00/01 VFRs. My next experiment will be to put resistors back in and unplug the stock sensors, counting on the leakless nature of the new headers to make a much better map. Overall, when I haven't been cruising for a long time beforehand, the acceleration is glass smooth and noticeably stronger above 9000 RPM. It's not a huge difference, but palpable in the right circumstance. It just never stops getting stronger where the delk headers kind of weakened a but as you approached redline.

A couple of follow ups. Sensor Wiring I'm pretty sure the sensors are wired Natural to 1-2 Black to 3-4. I've seen a couple of pics including a recent pick of a 6th gen and that's how they are. Noting it here in case anyone loses track and needs to know for sure. Please respond if you think I'm wrong! We don't want bad info out there. Fairing I tweaked the right lower attachment just a little -- this bike got backed into. Twice. Heh, -- and got the fairing lined up as perfectly as I can. It clears enough, I think. I rode it and with it up to temp the outside of the fairing wasn't even warm. Inside WAS warm, but not too bad. I think I'll use Seb's suggestion and put a bit of heat shield there, but I am in no hurry, I don't think it's really too much worse than stock. I'll bring my ir thermometer with me when I can run it hard for a bit and really get the pipes hot to see, but I'm fine with it. The chin fairing is really fouling badly. I had to remove a good bit of plastic, and after yesterday's short test ride it was still too close once everything got warm and relaxed. I'll pull a couple more mm off next time I take the fairing off and can get at it from the backside. More on using RapidBike with this setup in a later post.

Guys, don't stress over this. I'm not challenging it at all. I just wanted to know how it worked. Engineering wise, you can't put something on one mounting point and expect it to not rotate. You have to have two points, preferably with some spacing, to create the leverage necessary, and that one creates it by butting up against the case as the second point of contact. That's all the question was. Idle curiosity about a different design that solves this problem in an innovative way.

I'm not picking on your prototype. I do my fair share of brakeless sheet metal bending as well, and there's only so much you can do with a vice and a hammer. That one's a perfect proof of concept. I was just sort of thinking as I typed. Since it buts up against he case there it is going to have no problem rotating with just one mounting bolt is what I was thinking about. I don't know what Seb's shop has for brakes, though, but he's good enough at solving problems I'm confident he will come up with something that he can produce out of this.