Cherryriver

Maybe my only regret with my 5th is that when I got it, I replaced the tires with something other than my usual Michelin Road 5s: I gave the Pirelli Angel GT IIs a try since I liked how they fixed the slow, heavy steering of my ZRX1100. At 8000 miles, I'm not quite as enthused. They worked very well but now they are getting slightly hinky in the feel due to some mild cupping. I am sure that, based on prior experience, Michelins would not have done so. I voted with the wallet- when a 6th gen '03 came along, it immediately got the Road 5s. I would say the very slightly slower steering is a small price to pay for the much longer life and excellent rain performance. Not that the Angels were bad in that regard, but I feel the Road 5s are just a bit better in the wet. Along the same lines, my FJR1300 has Road 5 GTs, and honestly, there's no other tire for that bike. And my friend the local dealer service guy agrees, nothing else lasts as well. The ones on my bike are well past 10,000 miles and have life left. On that heavy, front-end-loaded tire-eater of a bike, that's really good. Now I see Michelin has the Road 6 going. The 5th gen VFR will see a set of those before summer is out.

My 5th has the Moto CNC bar adapters. For bars, I am a repeat user of the long-discontinued Heli Multi-Tour Sport handlebars, an adjustable pipe bar set that can drive one crazy trying to get everything perfectly symmetrical. Once you do, you can do any angle or location you want. Most people use ordinary 7/8" pipe bars with this Moto CNC adapters, and it's really easy. There are miles of extra wires for the handlebar switches under the instruments and the brake and clutch hoses were no problem to relocate, needed in my case as I raised the grip positions a good deal. This was the third time I use Moto CNC adapters (ZX-9R, 6th gen VFR) and couldn't be happier. In the photo, you can see that in my particular case, the wide horizontal Heli base bar necessitated adding 30mm risers to clear the fork adjusters. With ordinary pipe bars, that won't happen and is not defect in the adapters. It's a quirk of the Heli design.

A running gag in our household is that the Missus has a Sargent butt and I have a Corbin one. That's mostly true, too. I have had Corbins on many bikes, and almost all, not all, have been right for me. The one on my ZX1100E (GPZ) was good for lots of 600 mile days and went 830 once. Yes, there was a lot of fore-aft room and movement. Which I much preferred. In traffic, scoot up, on the road, scoot back. Then among the Corbins I got one for my FJR1300 and dang, that didn't work. Looked great, looked right, sat right when in the garage. Two hours on the road and nope, that wasn't it. Wound up with a Seat Concepts thing on that bike that's pretty good. And then again, my 5th gen VFR came with a very nice Sargent that does right nice by my lights. My only complaint would be, you guessed it, not enough fore-aft space to move around. I'm not big, 5-9, 215, and it's a little bit cramped for space overall. Yet, I like it quite a bit and before the winter closed in, I ran a 600 mile day on 1/3 Interstate, 2/3 two-laners and it did fine. It's a keeper. But I can't forget how the Sargents the wife had on her Ninja 650 and NC700X practically kept me off those bikes. So there. I hope that's clear enough and helps.

While not directly to the issue in the original post, I would like to comment with an alert on the return valve problem mentioned above. A couple of summers ago we found a crashed Ducati ST2 at a low price in the town north of ours. We grabbed our trailer and headed over to take a look. The left side bodywork was trashed. The lady doing the selling was the wife of the owner. Brembo master cylinders apparently commonly have this return valve problem. So, when the brake is applied, pressure in the system increases but can't decrease and release the pistons. The owner had put the battery back in the bike after a winter rest and gone for a test ride down the residential street. No gear. In two and a half blocks later, the front brakes unexpectedly locked up solid and threw the owner onto his head. Months in the hospital and more months in rehab, he survived, barely. I bought the bike, test-rode it with a trace of disbelief, and sure enough, locko-the-brakeo, and down it went. I was okay apart from wounded pride and a bump on the knee, but I had to walk back home to get a wrench to open the bleed valve to release the brake enough to roll the bike. I considered rebuilding the master, but a new one seemed much safer, and that was what was done. As for the whole bike, I miraculously found a body set on Ebay with opposite-side damage for only $450 shipped- from Italy! The bike went back together fine and I enjoyed riding it for a while before selling it to move on to the next project.

For what it's worth, during some fairly extensive exchanges with Jack Fleming of Roadstercycle, he pretty much insisted I go with the 847 series-type for my '03. I had already changed all the lamps to LEDs excepting the high beams. He says that shunt-type regulators will suffer with being too lightly loaded and so the series type is needed. That makes sense enough to me, so I purchased and installed his 847 "Superkit". So far I've only managed 300 miles with it- it is winter, after all- but the voltmeter on the panel is pretty much locked on 14.4-14.6. That sounded a touch high to me but Mr. Fleming says it's fine that way. The bike keeps running, so there's that.

I will endorse the DID VX-series X-ring chains, if longevity is a desired trait. The current model they sell is the VX3, I believe. That's what I installed on my 5th gen VFR when I got it last spring. An earlier version that I installed on my ZX1100E after the OEM chain started kinking at 48,000 miles ( 77,000km) lasted until I sold the bike with 106,000 miles (170,000km). That's 58,000 miles. The DID was still just in spec on the link-length check, had no kinks and was running smoothly over the OEM sprockets. I'd never changed the sprockets since they never showed signs of bad wear. Nor did I ever clean the chain, excepting once when it collected a lot of mud during a gravel road episode. I've never had an O- or X-ring chain that I owned from new go less than 40,000 miles (64,000km). If I had a "secret", it would be an application of PJ-1 Blue Label every 300-500 miles. And keep an eye on the adjustment, although in the case of the ZX, it rarely needed adjustment between rear tire changes when I would be getting only 7,000 miles out of those things. The Michelin Road 5 was still off in the future. Good chains are much cheaper in the long run.

Now that would be quite an exotic remedy. Further down the road, I've ordered a new EK chain after having a really good look at the one on the bike. Visually, it looked pretty good and was well-lubed, but upon closer inspection, not so good. I see where Honda has the wear gauge indicator on the swingarm, which seems pretty imprecise to me compared to the usual method of tensioning the chain and measuring 20 links. Yet in this case, it seems to be indicating more than the limit of wear. Yeah, but then I really checked closer and discovered a clip-type master link. No dice, for me. It will be in the dumpster tomorrow. I ordered the EK this time instead of my more usual DID VX series one, as I am very interested in the screw-type master. I have the Motion Pro chain riveter set but somehow I never get fully confident with my riveting. To my old carpenter's eye, the mushroom never looks large enough even if it measures the proper width (and, fingers crossed, have not had one come apart on me). I did re-work the Heli Multi-Tours with a longer riser from another set and that, unexpectedly, did ease the vibes a bit. Let's see if the chain is a factor.

To the suggestions of fuel treatments: already done. Since I had reason to believe the bike had been lightly used in recent times, as soon as I got it home Sta-Bil Marine went into the tank. I'm not convinced the Marine version is better at curing ills than Seafoam, which has worked very well for me in the past. But, it does work wonders for winter storage. My carburetted ZRX sat, unfortunately, for six months without the carbs being drained but with Sta-Bil Marine in the fuel and when retrieved, it started instantly and ran every bit as well as I remembered, which is pretty darn well. A pleasant surprise. Spark plugs will be in the to-do list shortly. I should note the vibes are present in the pegs and seat to lesser degrees. The worst of it is 5000-6000rpm, which is the range normal, non-frentic road riding takes place. By 7000rpm it does smooth out a bit, if not completely. Part of what keeps the topic in the front for me is in comparison to my two recent Kawasaki fours: a ZX1100E and a ZX-9R. Both were very smooth at 75-80mph in top gear, the GPZ almost eerily so: it came close to the GL1800 I also had in terms of not finding any vibration in cruise. That was a heckuva bike- it went 106K with no repairs ever and was running near-perfectly when I foolishly sold it three years ago. I was looking to the VFR as a lighter, handier version of that bike as I get older and nearer the end of my riding days. While I no longer expect to do 600-800 mile days on my "sportier" bike (as opposed to an FJR or GL "touring" bike), I still would like to see 300 a day on it from time to time. Here's hoping it can step into that role.

Having looked through all the replies, I have a bit more perspective to add. I'm approaching 2000 miles covered with the bike so far. The vibration, again primarily in the bars but also in the pegs, is RPM-related. It becomes noticeable right around 5000 RPM and increases with engine speed. To hit some of the points above, the tires on it were good but old. I had Pirelli Angel GT2s installed at the local shop where the tech is not only very experienced but a VFR fan. The tire change made no difference in the vibration level. The chain appears good, is within stretch service limits, and is not showing kinks. The countershaft area was well-splattered with old and new chain lube, suggesting there had been maintenance. I remounted the Heli Multi-Tour Sport handlebars on different adapter risers and it did lessen the vibes a little. I have medium-weight Throttlemeister bar ends installed. Past experience with this Heli bar on other bikes shows they usually reduced grip vibration over stock, so I don't think there's a problem there. It does appear I will need to get after the starter valve synchronization.

Now I've had my new-to-me 2000 for two months. As with any used bike purchased, one always wishes for more information about its past life and what's been done, but that's just life. I've put on about 1500 miles so far and the bike has been a mixed bag. It arrived with 30K miles and in very good overall condition. I like to look for tells on what level of attention a bike's gotten, and this one sports Galfer stainless brake lines. That's always a good sign to me, one of the better ones. My take is that the previous owner rode it some but less in recent times. It starts perfectly and idles well, albeit right at the high side of spec and can't be adjusted any lower. The throttle response is good all across the range, although I'd rather have less snatch in the first portion of the range, like pretty much everyone else. So far I have two main problems with the bike, the first being the ergos, specifically the bars. They are simply too low and far forward for me. I'm not as flexible as I once was and have an old neck problem that hasn't allowed me to use lower bars since the mid-'80s. I've installed longer throttle cables, rerouted the brake and clutch lines, pulled out more length on the handlebar switch leads, and am experimenting with higher bars. But the bigger bug is the vibration. I'd been told many a time how smooth the VFR engine is, but this isn't the one. Now, I'm no sissy- I put 50K on a BSA twin once upon a time- but the hands are taking more of a beating on longer highway stretches than I care to take. Specifically, at 70+mph, it's enough to bring discomfort. On a conventional four-cylinder, such as the ZX-9R I sold to buy the VFR, one starts with a valve adjustment and a carb/throttle body synchronization. On this bike, the valves ought to be near enough to spec since they were supposedly done at about 17k and are only coming due now, and I am not seeing a TBI sync procedure in the factory manual. I have some ideas, but I would look to the conventional wisdom first to decide on a path. GIven that there's a half-dozen other bikes in the garage, there's only so much wrenching time to be had. For heaven's sake, the Missus has just informed me she's interested in a GSX-R600 front end graft on her SV650S. If that isn't an inhaler of time, I don't know what would be (besides a BSA crank bearing upgrade job).