Darth Bling

Thanks for the update Keith! I was actually just thinking about Rich a few days ago. Looks like I'm going to have to do a Mary's Peak ride this summer.

:goofy: Forcefield makes great stuff! I've got the Full back protector and I love it. Can't ride without it now. I've also got the underarmor shirt with elbow, shoulder, and chest armor too. Plus a separate chest protector piece for the track.

There's no real performance advantage to the 1100XX shock. It's a tad longer at 320mm, so that would be nice. Besides that, you would need to upgrade the valving in the XX shock at minimum in order to see any improvement. Since the 6th gens use a 315mm long shock you are kind of out of luck when it comes to options. I put a blackbird shock on my 6th Gen and it's was pretty much the way Jamie describes it. It was nice that it was a tad longer, and it was nice that the spring was a tad bit stiffer. Otherwise, it was the same POS crap shock that the OEM 6th Gen has. I eventually upgraded to a full Elka shock, so I sold the shock to Silver788. He found that the shock was a nice improvement for his 5th Gen since the Blackbird shock with its stiffer spring supports his weight better than the stock VFR shock.

:comp13:

Ha ha ha!!! Glad to hear I'm not the only fooled with the LH threaded bolt. :blush: And, the icing on the cake... I drilled a hole in the what remained of the bolt so I could use a bolt extractor to remove it. Yup, I broke the bolt extractor off inside the bolt. :huh:

ATV Handlebar Mitts Cheap, effective, easy to remove and install. :cool:

The suspenion on my VFR is set up for the track and it works fine for the street/touring. IMHO, all you're losing out on is comfort. You'll just have to deal with a rougher ride and a tad bit more fatigue after a long ride, but that's about it. Numbers wise, I'm running 0.95 up front and 18.8 in the back.

Yes, the stem is larger on the SP2. If you get your hands on an SP2 upper triple, I don't see why you couldn't make a spacer to make up the difference. I think it should work just fine. :goofy:

It was probably 108 links. Going 1 down on the front would only increase the distance between the sprockets by 0.146 inches over stock. Wouldn't going down in the front decrease the chain length needed? Techincally, yes. But, remember, links have to be added and removed in pairs. Since they don't make chains with 107.5 links, we use a 108-link chain. Therefore, the sprockets are further apart because our chain is "too long". You could use you a 106-link chain with the 16/43 combo for the 5th gen, but thene your sprockets would need to move 0.48 inches closer together than stock.

It was probably 108 links. Going 1 down on the front would only increase the distance between the sprockets by 0.146 inches over stock.

ATV handlebar mitts! Only costed me about $15. Actually, I found these things to be quite annoying. At highway speeds, the wind would push back on the mitts enough to slightly tap my brake lever, which would cause me cruise control to disengage. Around town though, these things were awesome. After trying heated grips for a bit, I've moved on to heated gloves. :biggrin:

The 6th Gen VFR has a calculated top speed of 168 mph (that's 11500 RPMs in 6th gear). Of course, the real top speed is closer to 147 mph. Like Jeremy said, the VFR is drag limited. It just doesn’t have the power to pull redline in top gear. But by going with a 15/45 sprocket combo, your calculated top speed would be 151 mph (again at 11500 rpms in 6th gear). So, if anything, you might actually pick up a mph or two in top speed.

Here's my Blue Sea fuse box: