Nice mod to the rear brake line!
Did you use the standard rear caliper? Can’t wait until you finish your page on delinking the brakes! I bet it would save a few kg, even without changing the heavy linked front caliper. Excellent stuff!

I haven’t been to the Thursday night ride for a few weeks… I’m waiting for parts to come in from overseas, so my suspension can be fixed. I’ll let you know when I’m back on two wheels, so maybe we can meet up at the ride, so I can drool at your bike…

Cheers,
Danny

It is also a change made to other bikes with the PAIR system and not unique to VFR.

I suggest you take a look at the many posts on this topic – eg: &

Cheers,
Dave.

Have CBR600RR & CBR954 swingarms to play with next. Will more likely go with the 600 swingarm to allow the rear exhaust headers to reach back under the engine. Looking to make a considerable weight saving there with both the much lighter swingarm and wheel. Will weigh the VFR swingarm when I get it out as it looks very solid and heavy.

Will keep you informed.

Cheers,
Dave.

Not sure exactly how much weight has gone from it but I’m guessing 20Kg+. Weight loss was really a sum of the parts. Things that were removed or swapped out for lighter items included – centre stand, forks, front wheel and discs (slight weight saving), removal of the entire DCBS especially the heavy front caliper, handlebars, fairings (yes they are heavy), pretty much every bit of non-required stuff and of course the super-heavy rear subframe and mufflers.

Will soon be putting a conventional swingarm (CBR600 or 954) which will take more Kilos off, especially considering the heavy weight of the VFR wheel also, if time (my wife) permits that is.

Also working on a different kind of motorcycle lifter to make working on it much easier. When that is done it will be easy to actually weigh the whole thing accurately.

The brakes – removed it all and ran a line inside the swingarm for the rear brake as shown here – rear-brake-line-re-route

Yep the front brakes are standard CBR1000 matching the forks and work great on the VFR.

Have heard of but never been on the thursday night rides. Might be a fun thing to do as have heard a bit about it from those who have.
Something you do often?

Cheers,
Dave.

Nice bike! Just wondering how much weight you’ve taken off it. I have a 5th gen that I’d like to shave some weight off (probably the easiest thing is to remove the centre stand), and I’m interested in knowing what worked for you.

There are rumours of Honda bringing out a RVF1000 in 2012 to be the new flagship sportbike, making the CBR1000 take second place in the Honda line-up. Dare I say it, it’s about time! Since the RVF disappeared, the Honda V4′s have basically been good general bikes, but nothing spectacular at anything.

Also wondering what you did with the brakes. I assume you de-linked them (as far as I’m aware, the linked front calipers wouldn’t fit on the CBR forks). I’d love to know how you went about doing the brakes.

Again, nice work on the bike. I hope to see you at one of the Thursday night group rides from the BP servo near the St Kilda marina (people meet there 7:00pm for 7:30pm start every Thurs night).

Cheers,
Danny

I want to remove the PAIR system from my VFR800 since I read is heavy, lesspower and emit some noise at low speed.
Could you help me?
What can I remove (solenoids, etc)?
Best regards and very nice bike.
Jose Vives

I too was hoping to see Honda really pull something special out of the bag with the next generation VFR. I was thinking they might do something V4/V5 ish in a sportsbike considering the moto-gp examples over the last few years, I wish they had.

Thank you for your compliments, I very much appreciate the positive feedback for the work gone into it. I still have a lot to finish off and prettify but that for slightly cooler weather. It has been some work .. some beer as they say. The beer sometimes helps with the imagination .. sometimes.
A lot of it was helped by the availability of online parts referencing, tracking down what fits across multiple models, bearings giveaway great clues for that. If a shaft or a wheel or something from two different models uses the same bearings ……

Hope to see you out on the road Mark. I don’t go up the spur much these days (just got demerit points back) but hoping to be down at the superbikes in a few weeks.

Cheers,
Dave.

Luckily Honda front end choices are many and varied. Most of the late CBR models will fit, VTR1000 and others.
It comes down to headstock bearing sizes, tube lengths etc and how much you are prepared to modify the plastics, dash, etc to fit. The VFR forums have a number of examples of guys doing this too with other front ends. It is something you take on when you have already accepted that you WILL have to cut, reshape, remount, reroute things and that some of those changes will likely be permanent.

I chose the early CBR1000RR front end as I wanted something suitable for occasional track use and hey why not go for a pure sports front end, worth a try, they’re there
BTW: the 08 and onwards CBR1000RR front-end is not compatible without more extensive mods.

The difference for me, and making it easier, is that I wasn’t bound by any existing fairing shapes or mounts or objects that couldn’t be moved if things were in the way. In saying that I will probably move the radiators back a little soon as the lower triple clamp touches the radiator hoses reducing steering movement a little.

Are you up for these sorts of things with your bike?

Cheers,
Dave.

My interest in the CBR 929/954 swingarm conversion is from a weight saving perspective. All that single-sided swingarm rigidity sadly comes at a heavy price. I don’t yet have definitive weight differences between the VFR/CBR swingarms but reading on the internet suggests that the VFR swingarm maybe around twice the weight.
When I remove it from the bike I will then have a much better idea of the swingarm overall weight contribution to the total package and if it is worth pursuing from that angle.

But one of the fun reasons to try it is simply to try it out and see what happens.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Cheers,
Dave.