magellan

Fantastic, Keith! The coffee cup belongs there! I wish I could have joined you, but I was in Colorado in cages for a long weekend... :blink:

It's about time for me to go up too and visit my buddy.

cassandtim just told me about the mishap last night. Pop your head out of the garage for a minute and let us know you're still recovering well, would ya? I hope to see you at the meet, even without your "hot date". :biggrin:

Happy days!

Rode the bike up the lane yesterday to 20mph. :biggrin:

Vaypor speedo needs calibration as the speed sensor uses the wheel circumference to calculate.

Sweet!! It must be a great feeling to know it functions as planned after all that work!

When I calibrate the dyno, I take a tape measure and wrap it around the largest circumference of the tire and divide by Pi. Easiest way to get a super-accurate diameter.

I am wondering if the SC kit would fit to my 6th gen with the frame slider in place?

Whaddya mean? Dan's kit is a frame slider (on the right side at least).

J/K!!

Ooooo, that would suck... :fing02:

Very cool project, and well done. I can't wait to see the ride report, final weight, and fairings.

Picture 145.jpg

I plan to get the ss braided brake lines and running them through the swingarm for next season though.

You've done an outstanding job taking care of my one big complaint with VFRs (most gens): big, heavy-looking tail-sections. Once you get the lines through the swingarm (something I'll likely do this winter too), you're gonna need a prettier wheel, 'cause you'll sure be showing it off!!

I've never quite had the nerve to get rid of the chain-guard completely. I have visions of something getting dragged into the chain (I know, not likely). So I made my chainguard out of a free piece of L-channel aluminum:

Mistresses.jpg

Nicely done. It's amazing how well the lines flow into the 6th gen tail :fing02:

What's that saying again, "good things come to those who wait?"

Good things come to those who wait . . . . . but only what's left behind by those who hustle!

Believe me, we are all abaited breath for what you have in store for us. Your attention to detail and perfectionist ways will serve to a great, reliable product.

Now finish and share your toys :comp13:

Figured I would stop by and give this thread a :bump: It hasn't seen any action in the last twelve days. I am slowing putting the money away for one of these kits for the sixth gen when it comes out that is. I don't think that there should be that many adjustments for VTEC as there are many boosted Honda civics out there with VTEC.

VTEC on Civics is completely different than on the bikes. The way the VTEC kicks in on a 6th gen radically changes breathing. Therefore any SC kit will have to be tuned accordingly. Dyno tuning 100% required.

Looks good!

If you ever do this again, try adding a layer of mesh sheetrock tape on the backside of the fix along with the epoxy for a more secure fix. :dry:

It looks great. What technique did you use to fill the hole where the signals were? Did you epoxy a patch to the back side?

I filled the holes with cut-outs from an extra seat cowl, plastic-welded the perimeter, sanded to find low spots, cleaned the ABS with a swipe of brake cleaner on a rag, mixed epoxy, and smeared it on as thinly as I could and still fill any dips.

On the back side I slathered on a good layer of epoxy too, for strength. After the epoxy dried it was simply a matter of sanding with progressively finer sandpaper. 500-grit wet-sandpaper still leaves sanding swirls that can be seen after clear-coating, so I'd recommend a couple of coats of primer and a final sanding with 1000-grit or so before painting.

he's got signals in his mirrors

Tim knows that. He's just trying to be funny. Try harder next time, Tim... :dry:

:491:

Well, I finally got my bike repainted to my satisfaction. After low-siding in June, I tried repairing and repainting just the right fairing and front fender (which I had cracked earlier with a dropped floor jack handle :biggrin: ). The color match was terrible and my paint job sucked, but I did learn a lot. I think I could now paint a bike reasonably well with a good spray booth (believe me, I know where every dust fleck is in the current paint job).

I rode the bike in a semi-repaired state all the way to the Kootenay Hootenanny, but when I got back it was time to bite the bullet. Here are the results:

S7000892.JPG A sad sight

S7000890.JPG No more dumbo holes

S7000891.JPG Great ABS plastic repair epoxy!!

S7000894.JPG Lots of sanding...

S7000893.JPG ...and several coats of primer

S7000896.JPG Finally, painted, wet sanded, buffed, buffed, waxed, and buffed some more! You can see that I need to pull the side fairing and remove a blob of filler that's holding the front cowl out a bit. Later.

S7000897.JPG The paint is a pretty good match after three tries at the paint store (DuPont), but not perfect. ColorRite is no doubt better, but they have no retailers in Portland metro.

S7000899.JPG You might be able to tell that the front fender is 1.5" shorter and re-contoured for a slightly sportier look, but it's hard to spot.

And the money shot:

S7000900.JPG

I'm pretty happy. Of course I toyed around with painting the whole bike a different color, but who wants to lose 10 HP?? :wheel:

Great thinking! I'm on board with the sss show, it was one of the reasons I liked the vfr, the other was the underseat exhaust. Unfortunately the fifth gen doesn't have the right combo. I don't like the front fairing or engine of the sixth gen so that's why I don't just buy one of them. Has anyone done this mod on a fifth gen? If you did this on a fifth gen would the factory bags mount up?

Oh, really? :biggrin:

Baggage.jpg

I thought quite a bit about putting a 6th gen tail on my 5th gen, but decided it would be easier to do an underseat exhaust and mod the 6th gen luggage frames. Now I wonder if I made a mistake... if the 6th gen tail can fit a 4th gen, it ought to fit a 5th gen too, right?

Whew, we got 'er done. :musik20:

What Tim didn't mention was that we had to chase a very scary gremlin. Last night we fired up the bike and got an FI light. After putting out a call for help on VFRD I realized that I'd mis-located one of the pins from the harness to the black ECM connector, but after putting it right we still had the FI light and the codes wouldn't clear. Uh oh... ECM damage? I have to point out that the Honda manual was pretty damn lame at laying out a troubleshooting tree for the symptoms, but I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that after already having replacing numerous damaged wires at the black connector (from last year's accident), we eventually found one more that was completely broken inside its insulation. After replacing it, VROOM!!! No more FI light. (BTW, Tim, I checked all the other wires on the connector very thoroughly for internal breaks or hidden damage. We're good now :fing02: ).

I may have missed it, but is the front fender staying that colour color?

After further thought, I'm voting for matching red. If not, matte black to match the fork lowers... :goofy: Either way, this is officially the sickest VFR I've seen yet.

Awesome project! Good luck with everything. You might want to edit out the video at 0:53 and 3:02.

LOL!! I was hoping someone would notice that. Since it's an empty industrial street in the evening, we do our trial runs then. The bike isn't registered or insured yet (this week probably), so...ahem, doing that thing to which you refer is the least of our worries. We had to see how fast it would go, right?? :wheel: :fing02:

Seb,

Those bolts are titanium from Yoyodyne. They're worth more than the oil cooler :biggrin: .

All that means is that they'll make white sparks instead of red like steel... :goofy: Go ahead and slot the oil cooler holes then, it really can't hurt to do it, especially since it's so accessible at the moment! 10 minutes and a Dremel is all you need.

Sorry if that comes off as pushy, I'm just one of those OCD, anal types about how a bike goes together... :warranty:

At this point the bolt heads don't so much contact the oil cooler as they do whisper sweet nothings gently into its, uh...fins. The oil cooler mounting tabs aren't slotted, but they have big holes for grommets. We removed the grommets (too bulky) and pulled the cooler as far forward as possible before mounting it firmly, so I'm not worried a bit about future damage. The OCD child in me wanted 1 mm of clearance, but we don't always get what we want

Sarah and I will meet you in Philomath. In Rich's honor, yes, we will have to tear highway 34 a new one...

Don't forget to strap him in with the 'Four Point Harness'................. :dry:

( Ps. He is going to KILL you for that pic when he grows up, not to mention the lawsuit!) :musik20:

:rolleyes:

I'm pretty conservative about bling unless it's functional, but I'd guess this makes you a lot more visible at night. I give it a :biggrin:

Wow....! If the devil is in the details, your bike is going straight to hell!

Very cool.

I am, however, concerned about potential galling between the 7075 and the titanium. I have some Vibratite thread patching compound that clearly states that it minimizes galling/stripping. I hope that I don't have too much to worry about.

I believe that these would work on 5th Gens. That is, if it works on my 6th Gen after bolt up.

Yes, these are direct bolt-ons for a 5th gen, as long as you're installing RC51 (or same diameter) forks.

As far as galling, it'll never happen as long as you use anti-seize or Vibratite. These parts will never experience widely ranging heating and cooling cycles which cause dissimilar alloys to gall when in contact with one another.

Beautiful parts, proud papa! :biggrin: Can't wait to see it all installed!

Take some bigger, higher res pics when you get it all back together!

Will do. Should have the fairings painted tomorrow eve, back on the bike Wednesday. Got a 1000-mile ride Saturday!

Bump (my last post was actually made today).

I might have missed it so I'll ask. I bought the bike used with 1,000 miles and I don't know if the first oil change has been performed so needless to say I'm going to change the oil and I was wondering if I can start with synthetic oil or not?

The first oil change my bike got I put in synthetic.. Made the Vtec transition smoother actually.. I dont think it will harm it..

:rolleyes: The tolerances within a VFR engine are so exact that you can go straight to synth now. The old advice about sticking with dyno oil until the motor is broken in isn't bad, but it's a lot less necessary now that we have diamond plateau-honed cylinder walls and mirror-polished cam and crank journals straight out of the box. There just isn't a whole lot of rough metal inside the case that needs to be abraded away during break-in on a new Honda.

Just a reminder: break it in the Motoman way. Problem is, you have to apply this method within the first 20 miles!

I question your welds

So do I. We are so screwed.... :unsure: :laugh: