SAFE-T

No 6G up my sleeve :D Any MV exhaust for the F4 series should work - I still have to get some measurements but it's looking like a possibility.

Let me know when you are going to be there - I would love to see your bike in person :thumbsup: If I can find an MV Agusta exhaust for a decent price I think I can match it up with the sixth gen's upswept bend...

Ceramic coating is nice, and it actually keeps your header from radiating as much heat border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Right side close up showing hi-mount Staintune, ceramic coat border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Wouldn't be complete without an Ohlins rear shock, eh ?

The RC51 forks will be a lot less prone to flex than the stock forks, as they are 50mm as opposed to your stock 41mm. The brakes will be better, since the RC uses 4-piston calipers on 320mm rotors as opposed to your bikes' 2-piston calipers on 296mm rotors. One other option for you might be R1 forks. I can't remember their exact length but they are longer than the CBR929/954 forks and have the same stock spring (.740 kg/mm) rate as the VFR. The axle diameter is 22mm as opposed to the VFR's 20mm, but if you swapped out the bearings and made inner/outer wheel spacers (not difficult) you should be able to use the stock front wheel and rotors, which could save you a few bucks. This is what I was originally going to do, but ask vfrrider (Larry) what his experience has been putting an R1 front end on his third generation VFR750. The R1 fork will fit in the Honda triple clamps (either RC51 SP-1 or CBR929/954) and other than making some adjustments to the rotor/caliper alignment to account for differences between R1 and VFR, this combo should work fine. The R1 master cylinder is the same size as the CBR600F4's, so I would use that if you want to match your clutch master cylinder in terms of appearance. If you prefer the 'inboard-remote' look of the R1's front brake master cylinder, you can also look into a VTR1000 SuperHawk clutch master or RC51 (any year) clutch master. You can also use six-piston GSXR/Hayabusa calipers on the RC51, F4/F4i or 929/954 forks but I have recently been told they are actually inferior in performance to Honda's four-piston Nissins.

Perhaps check with Rod Holland at HiPerform - he has a '90 with CBR929 forks. Check out his 'VFR Project' bike on his website under 'motorcycles'. If you use CBR929/954 or GSXR forks you have to use clipons that mount under the triple clamps. veefer800canuck used a set of helibars for a Ducati 900SS on his RC51 front end conversion, and maintained a bar height that was higher and further back than stock - which is the way he wanted it. You can get higher, lower or equal to stock bar height and position depending on which fork/triple/clipon combination you use in your conversion.

I posted some stuff a while back, but here are my most recent thoughts: Brakes Initial engagement is more firm, and you definitely have more brake at your disposal. Not surprising, really since you now have more pistons working for you when you use just the front brake, on a larger braking surface. RC51 and GSXR forks have 320mm rotors. CBR929/954 forks have 330mm rotors. The RC51 wheel will accept the CBR wheel bearings and rotors, so you can use a five spoke front wheel in place of the CBR three spoke. 320mm Ducati rotors also have the same bolt pattern as the VFR's stock wheel, although I am not sure of the carrier offset and whether you could match it up. If anyone cares to measure the span across their rotors on their stock wheel, I do have a set of Ducati rotors I can place against a stock VFR wheel to check for comparison. I would need a measure from outside edge to outside edge. Forks The RC51 fork has a .959 kg/mm fork spring, compared to the VFR's spring rate of .740 kg/mm. Most suspension tuners seem to recommend a replacement spring in the .90 to 1.0 range for the VFR anyway so the ride will be firmer, but in a way that is beneficial for more spirited riding. I have not found the ride to be harsh in anyway. Triple Clamps The RC51 SP-1 lower and CBR929/954 upper is a great combo that I stumbled across by experimentation while I was looking for a CBR lower triple. If my poor memory serves me correctly, I used an RC51 lower bearing and the VFR's upper bearing in my '99. Check veefer800canuck's thread on his conversion. If you use RC51 forks in these triples set up the same height as your VFR forks were, you will end up with about 5mm more trail. Busy Little Shop has said I could balance this out by increasing my rear ride height. As I understand it, increased trail simply increases the length of the bike. The slightly increased trail is supposed to make the bike feel more stable at speed, but tend to let the bike go wide exiting turns. I do feel the bike takes some effort to hold a line, but doubt it is hugely different from the stock setup. An experienced racer might be able to notice the difference, but it feels marginal to me. One of the benefits of the different offset of the RC/CBR triples is that it does allow you to use a slightly shorter fork since the triple clamp offset increases trail and counteracts the decreased rake of a shorter fork, such that stability is maintained. Swiffer put shorter GSXR forks on his 4th generation VFR750 and has taken it on the track without incident several times, and there are numerous examples of 3rd, 4th and 5th generation VFR's with 929/954 forks on them. Larry (Busy Little Shop) has access to a program that computes rake/trail for different fork/triple/bike setups - perhaps if you ask nice he could give you some feedback on whatever combination you were thinking of using. His input was extremely useful to me.

Besides being messy and a PITA, this is the main reason why I got my wheels commercially stripped, which removes 100% of the paint but does not affect the anodization underneath. Using anything abrasive on the wheel is a no-no. If you are going to do the wheels yourself I agree that the best route is to do just the smooth outer rims - this area will clean up fairly easily. If you really want a 'chrome' looking wheel, I would just get it chromed. For me, polished aluminum is fine where you can get at it without disassembly, but not anywhere else.

Neat. I would have just got another frame, though.

You might want to consider a new set of rotor bolts. Friend of mine replaced a front rotor but not the bolt and snapped the head off one - probably cost him more to get it extracted than a new set of bolts would have been.

Close....the centres of all modern Honda wheels are roughcast, but in the case of some wheels they are also machined. This applies to the 98-01 VFR rear wheel and the 02+ RC51 front and rear wheels. The wheel is cast, then machined, then anodized bright silver, then painted. Paint stripper only takes off the paint, which is good since the bright silver anodizing on the machined parts of the wheel underneath shines up nicely. Anodizing gives a dull finish on rough cast parts, which is why the centres turn out a darker color. Important: The wheels ARE NOT polished under the paint. The anodized finish is not as shiny as bare aluminum but very close. The anodizing is what keeps the wheel from tarnishing like bare aluminum does. If you polish off the anodized finish the wheel will be shinier but require more maintenance.

I believe Swiffer's bike has 6-piston GSXR1000 calipers, which is why he used the Hayabusa m/c Apparently the VFR's master cylinder bore is too small to drive that many pistons, or even the 4-piston Nissin calipers for the RC51.

The front brake master is from a CBR600F4, isn't it ? Swiffer changed over to one from a Hayabusa. The Ohlins suspension front and rear do make a difference - the front end is much more compliant over bumps when leaned over. Other bikes I have owned would skip a bit if you were going through a turn and encountered a bump, but the Ohlins pretty much suck it up and keep the front wheel planted. Whether or not you could get this same control with stock components I can't say. I DO know a local racer who had Ohlins on his ZX10R and actually went back to his stock forks that had been professionally setup by Traxxion. Phil Douglas at AfterShocks has said it's sometimes better to retain/use/modify stock components these days as the design and component materials is quite good, and in some cases better than what's available in the aftermarket. Other tuners have told me this as well. As for the RC51 fork, I was told I could make work as good as an Ohlins unit for about $1000, plus the cost of the RC51 forks, of course. As that would work out to just a little less than I paid for the Ohlins forks in the first place I kind of took that with a grain of salt... I did get a chance to ride Rob McKinnon's VFR800 pre-frankenviffer and I thought it handled just fine. I recently also rode a CBR900RR with front forks that had Traxxion stuff, while the CBR's owner rode Murphy. I thought his bike felt just fine compared to mine, but the first thing he said when he got off Murph was "THAT SUSPENSION IS AMAZING..." so maybe there was more of a difference than I thought. At least for him. Bottom line is how picky are you and what do you really want ? I would be happy with a stock bike with suspension that had been tuned by AfterShocks or Traxxion, and I was originally planning to put F3 fork internals in the OEM forks. At some point I made the decision to see if I could make a bike that I could get in a magazine, and from there sprang the whole inverted fork/Ohlins thing. Would I start from scratch with a different bike ? I don't think so. It was fun, I'm glad I did it, and I am more than willing to share what I think I know to help others out. But it probably ate up 300 hours of my time that I wouldn't want to give up again.

PM me...

Might have an SP-1 lower triple and CBR upper for you.

The RC51 uses a 22mm axle. I believe the GSXR axle is 25mm. If you want to put the RC wheel on the GSXR fork just use CBR929/954 bearings as they have a 25mm ID.