The Phantom

The only off-the-shelf underseat exhausts ever made for VFRs were the Wolf Racing systems, for 4th Gen and 5th Gen, and they were a slip-on only i.e. the original header system was not changed. Any underseat system you see that is not Wolf, is custom. TBR headers are a full system.

You'd probably get 4th Gen carbs on a 3rd Gen, but they are smaller (for improved throttle response). I know you can swap tanks with a bit of work on the rear mount, so there's no significant airbox difference. But yeah, what Greg said. Did mice eat them?

Ditto, congratulations. The new bike looks like the old bike

Awesome

There was a race???? Oh yeah, there was a race. Interesting start... and for a while I thought Dani had the pace to take it to Marc, but nope, it seems we're in for the ultimate year of records. Well statistically it was inevitable. However, will he do the lot? That is the question. He is certainly capable of it. I was going to say that 'you could say that of many riders' but when you compare those many riders to MM, and realise how (relatively) often they toss their hardware away and fail to finish, you start to understand what's going on with this guy.

That's pretty cool! Go girl.

I told his wife myself

That's very nice!

Rider weight and preferred riding style may have some bearing on this. The VTR is a bit lighter than the VFR so yep it probably runs a lighter spring.

I recall seeing that mod done where the four factory holes were welded up. A bit of work, but not particularly difficult for a good welder.

Ahh yep Ducati gets out of jail free, then... they need all the help they can get. Apparently Crutchlow is struggling to get to the same lean angles as Dovi and Crazy Joe - the data shows that he can only get to within 5 degrees of their max lean or so, any lower and he bins it. Weird...

LIKE!

With Dovi having taken two second places this year, the Ducati now drops from 24 litres of fuel to 22 litres. Another podium and they lose the extra-soft tyre option.

It's quite simple - even in Lincolnshire they can't understand half of what Guy Martin says, so there's no chance for the US market...

Great photos, it's good to see the close-up stuff that shows what the builder actually did. A few things I noted: - the steering lock stops look to be well done - the subframe that holds the headlights is interesting! looks like a factory item - centrestand frame tangs have been cut off to give more room for the exhaust (a mod I am about to do myself so great to see) - solid front brake rotors (unusual) - cable tie on fork leg shows that previous owner knew a bit about suspension set-up - rear coils mounted to frame where rear panels are normally bolted up - good spot for them - twin lines to front right caliper? - exhaust headers - I can't quite work out how they are set up but looks like 4-2-2, with front bank and rear bank paired?

The R1 front end is almost as simple as the Honda front ends, now that MVinOz has done the homework. You just need to change the top bearing on the stem, and it's a direct bolt-in. "The bearing you need to do the swap is R1 dimension inside, VFR dimensions outside, 47mm OD, 33mm ID & 17mm high." From http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/index.php/topic/66526-r1-usd-fork-swap/

This is the only bolt-on underseat exhaust ever made for a 4th Gen, it's from Wolf Racing and they're not easy to find. Not 'exactly' a bolt on as you needed to cut the rear inner fender up and add aluminium panels and brackets, and many owners reporting problems with the tyre hitting the pipes. This could be solved by flipping the eccentric, but that involves pulling the rear hub right out to countersink a brake caliper bolt. So all in all, quite a bit of work, almost enough to make a custom system worth considering - and then there was the price, $1800 US if I recall correctly... I didn't pay anywhere near that for my used system. In fact after I sold the Staintune I had, I was only $100 out of pocket.

Centripetal force. If you're turning left you're forcing the bike into an arc, but the bike actually wants to continue straight ahead (body in motion tends to stay in motion and all that). Note that the centripetal force is stronger than the gravitational forces that are always acting on the bike, but not as strong as the force being exerted on the bike via your steering input. When you brake you're giving some of the power back to the centripetal force, which then becomes stronger than the steering input force you're applying to make it go left - even if you don't alter your steering input - so its natural tendency then is to go in the direction it wants to go in - which is out of the arc, and in a straight line. Ergo, the bike will stand up. There's also some stuff going on with the wheels (centrifugal forces there) which act as gyros to keep the bike balanced - braking forces upset those forces as well. All bikes will do this given equal parameters - same speed, same radius of arc. But if you go a bit slower there is a point where the bike isn't going fast enough to have those centripetal forces overcoming the gravitational forces acting on it - in reality the centripetal and gravitational forces are pretty much balanced - and upon braking the bike will then fall into the arc rather than out of it. Good on you for doing the advanced rider training, and for asking questions

I could not imagine a VFR on anything less than sport tyres...

Awesome work there, and you write as well as you wrench. You've started with one of the best models (some will say it is the best, I am on the fence between 3rd and 4th Gen) and you're making it yours, which is what it's all about. Is your seat in the right position for you? I have an R6 tail on one of my 4th Gens, and the seat goes up against the tank and gives me a very similar riding position to the stock seat.

I'm all for doing stuff just because you can, but I do agree with the guys above regarding the quality of 4th Gen carburetion... the 4th Gen is right in almost every way and the carbs didn't miss out. It's one of Honda's masterworks. Not sure if it was mentioned earlier but someone was indeed working on putting GSX-R FI onto a 4th Gen, there should be a topic somewhere in the archives.

Absolutely send it to Seb...

As Ded says, HID bulbs are not designed to work in a halogen reflector lens - making it hard for oncoming vehicles to maintain lane position because they can't see shit is not the best idea I've ever heard. And dirty headlight glass makes the light scatter even worse (which is why most factory fitted HID systems incorporate a headlight washing system). People who've fitted HIDs to reflectors often claim they never get flashed, means nothing. Most road users these days have realised that if you flash a reflector HID kit, the next thing that happens is you get their high beam retort, and if you were struggling to see the edge of the road before, just try staying in your lane now... meanwhile the HID dude goes on his way with warm thoughts of how he "showed that guy"... The only way to go to HID in a reflector len system is to fit HID projectors, as per what theretrofitsource.com sells. I bought a pair of 3" Stanley projectors with Osram bulbs from them for my Nissan Patrol. Not cheap, but there's no better way to improve safety at night, you get a great low (main) beam without causing problems for other road users, and the high beam is off the dial. The Baja Designs 6" HID spread/spot driving lights I also had were made redundant overnight by the projector retrofit. Fit the best halogen bulbs you can get (the 4th Gen reflector is a very good design) and if visibility is an issue, look into a headlight modulator, and/or a LED daytime running light retrofit. You could also make one headlight lens yellow, a VFRD member did that to a 4th Gen once and reported that it did seem to make people look twice.

You're a masochist :) OK, if you must, the stripper to get is the POR15 brand. I just did a Cannondale mountainbike with it, one of the older US-built frames, they have seriously tough paint and the POR15 took it off like nobodies business. It's also one of the few paint strippers rated to not etch aluminium. Because I'm lazy I employed a pressure washer to blast most of the paint off after the stripper had done its work, that worked pretty well. Let the workspace (driveway) dry out, then vaccuum all the paint flakes up. The best stuff apparently is what is used in the aero industry. Planes are repainted regularly (shabby paint increases drag), and have lots of alloy bodywork, so their stuff has to be good.