My VF1000R mod page

Updated 15 jul 2001 (for the last time - I no longer own this bike)

The whole truth, and nothing but the ugly truth on VF1000R modifications.

This is my 1985 Honda VF1000R, which I purchased in July of 1998. I found it sitting in someone's yard, and it followed me home the next day. Enough storytelling, let's get on to the important stuff - ripping it apart and making it a better bike. I've accomplished the first part, and the second part is starting to come together. For history and stats on this mighty bike, head over to my info page. Read on further if you want to find out how to turn your bike into a pile of parts for weeks on end.

Getting the basic package working.

This is the first thing I got to do to the bike when I purchased it with 24,000 miles - put in a new clutch. You can see the side cover removed in the photo if you look closely. Normally, this wouldn't be anything special, but it does show the bike with the lower fairing removed, and this did teach me an important lesson about motorcyles - you can't just replace gaskets with instant gasket maker or other sealants. The starter clutch and shifter shaft locate into the side cover, and both will get bound up tight if a gasket isn't used. Remember to order that gasket before taking the bike apart. Else, you can expect to torque everything down tight, and the bike won't start (as the starter clutch hub binds up against the side cover), and the shifter won't return to its center position (the pivot for this goes all the way from the left side of the motor to the right side, and locates itself agains the right-side cover).  This was probably my first lesson in the fact that bikes are not built like small-block Chevy engines.
 
 

Breaking the mold.

Here's the next mod I performed. Well, not exactly. You see, the stock shifter is too short, especially when wearing heavy boots. The kickstand really intrudes on the area immediately under the shifter, and so the only remedy is to lengthen the shifter. Orginally, I had my friend Chris weld on an extension that I had turned on a lathe. This worked for about 5,000 miles or so, but it eventually broke (ironically enough, Chris was riding it at the time). So, I went in search of a replacement, and came up with this item off a Honda CR80 dirtbike. It's better than the original, but still not perfect.
 

There's plenty of parking around back, right next to the shower...

This is where the project got a bit interesting.  Since the stock suspension and brakes are a bit weak (actually, they're pretty pathetic), I decided upon an upgrade path that'd update those parts to something a bit more modern.  Luckily, Honda tends towards standard dimensions for parts such as axles, fork tubes, and steerer tubes.

Forks:

We've now moved on from the shifter towards other problems, namely the 16" front wheel and rather archaic forks. Some parts from a 1994 Honda CBR600F2 were suggested as bolt-ons to fix handling problems, so I went ahead and ordered some from an individual who gave me a good deal from his crashed bike. So, I now have a bike in a bathroom, and a shower stall with a set of F2 forks, wheels, and front brakes. This part of the project took over four months, since I was in school at the time and severely pressed for time. The F2 parts were picked as they retain the stock speedometer drive (F3 bikes used a electronic speedometer driven off the countershaft, so they lack provisions for a cable drive off the front wheel). If you decide to give up the stock speedometer, there's a variety of other forks that might work, such as inverted Suzuki forks, and the CBR900RR parts. Unfortunately, the F2 forks are shorter than the originals. If you mount them with the upper legs flush with the top of the clip-ons (like the stock forks), you can expect the turn signal mounts to hit the front fender under full compression at full lock. There also may be interference between the fender and the radiator, according to some folks. This issue is only made worse by the super-soft F2 springs. First, get the right springs (I'm running Race Tech 1.0 kg/mm springs with 5wt oil, which was recommended by Race Tech's suspension calculator).  With the correct springs, these forks really improve the whole bike. Next, run the fork legs just a bit below the clip-ons. I run my about 10 mm shy of flush, and it works well. Continue reading to find my proposed solution to this.

Exhaust:

The stock exhaust came off, but it took some serious pounding with a deadblow hammer to loosen up the stock gaskets. Next, I installed a Holeshot Vortex 4-1 system. This is a nickel-plated lightweight system with a baffle-less "silencer", built by Hindle. It drops 35 pounds off the bike, and makes a lot more noise than the stock setup. It installs fairly easily, but requires a fair amount of high-temperature silicone sealant to prevent exhaust leaks. For fun, fire the bike up without the silencer, and pretend that you're sitting on the grid at Daytona. Even with the silencer installed, it's still a loud system. Expect lots of praise from squids, and maybe a few looks from the cops at full throttle.  I'd really prefer a system that lasts a bit longer, tho.ugh - the nickel plating certainly isn't real protective of the thin-guage tubing underneath.  If you have the money, explore some sort of ceramic coating if you'd like the system to last more than a few years.  The alternative is the Yoshimura slip-ons.

Jetting:

After installing the exhaust, I fitted a Dynojet Stage 1 jet kit and K&N filter. The K&N dropped in with typical ease, while the carbs came off with typical difficulty. I also removed the lid from the air box and kept it off, as the airbox is too small for the motor (it's only about 3 or 4 liters), and the snorkels are very small. I'm guessing that the small snorkels were installed for noise reasons, as the intake noise almost overwhelms the exhaust at part-throttle. I haven't done any dyno tuning on the carbs yet, but I did find the kit specs for idle mixture to be way off. I started with the recommended 3 turns on the mixture screws, and later went to 2 1/2 turns with much better results.

Front wheel and brakes:

With the forks, I used the F2 wheel bearings and axle. If you'd like to keep the stock fork, the F2 wheel should work with the 1000R's axle without any problem. You'll have to press out the bearings to swap over the axle, though. The F2 rotors are placed slightly closer together than the 1000R's rotors, but the stock calipers should float enough to clear them without a problem, as long as you're still using the stock thickness pads. Aftermarket pads may be too thick to allow the caliper to float properly on the F2 rotors and wheel. I'd think that going with the F2 wheel would provide an immediate improvement in handling with a minimum of hassle. Placing a 120/60-17 tire on the front yields the same nominal diameter as the stock 130/80-16, but with a much better profile.

Rear wheel and brakes:

Here's where the difficult part of the F2 modification came in. The stock axle works fine with the F2 wheel, but you'll need to cook up some new axle spacers (large washers can be made to work, but you'll need to figure out the sizes since I've long forgotten). Since the stock VF caliper didn't work with the F2 wheel due to the size of the caliper and the large hub of the wheel, a new caliper was required. I ordered a F2 caliper sight unseen, and found that the mounting bracket was totally different. Shown is the small bracket that I added to the rear swingarm. It's current constructed of mild steel bar, but I have a machined aluminum one planned. The rearward bolt hole is the hose bracket mounting hole from the old setup, while the front mouunting hole was drilled and tapped in the swingarm. Additionally, a feature was created out of 0.120" wall aluminum tubing and welded to the stock F2 caliper bracket, and runs in the slot between the bracket and top of the swingarm. This is somewhat similar to the stock F2 bracket/swingarm interface. I'm thinking of trying to do a cut-and-weld operation on the stock caliper bracket to space it out from the axle centerline, and then get a new rotor made with a correspondingly larger diameter. This would allow the use of the stock caliper. The F2 caliper combined with the 1000R rear master cylinder provides just about useless amounts of braking force. Some like to use the rear brake, some don't, so it's a matter of personal taste. I usually only use it when riding two-up, so it's not really a big deal to me.

Rear fender:

This is a shot of the rear of the bike, showing the Holeshot silencer and F2 rear wheel. If you look at the rear fender, you can see my trim work on it. I removed the stock plate bracket and light, and removed the small panel from the bottom of the tail light reflector. This illuminates the plate quite adequately. The stock signal were removed, and I trimmed off the stock mounting tabs from the rear tail light mounting bracket (I saved the tabs, as they could be easily welded on at a future date). This made room for the Lockhart Philips flush-mount teardrop signals. I can't overstate what this did to the appearence of the bike, as it's much slimmer and resembles a HRC racebike from that era.

Ride height adjustment:

What you can't see in this picture is the lengthened rear shock. The F2 forks, wheels, and tire sizes combine to lower the bike by about 0.75". The Holeshot exhaust sticks down further than the stock exhaust by about 1", which creates a serious lack of cornering clearance when riding two-up. I fixed this by fabricating a crude ride-height adjuster. I cut the lower clevis off the shock right at the weld, and welded a 12mm nut into the bottom of the shock shaft with a TIG welder (this is no place for flame or arc welding, just in case anyone is inclined to try). The nut fit just about perfectly into the hollow shaft after I ground the corners off of it. Then, I drilled a 12mm hole in the center of the clevis. This gave me a clevis that bolted up to the bottom of my shock with a 12mm bolt. Placing 0.375" worth of washers between the clevis and the shaft raises the back of the bike by 2", which is the maximum amount allowed as the swingarm will top out on the frame (it hits a small tab on the right-hand pivot, if you wish to fix this problem). Then, bring the rear shock up to 80psi or so, depending on your weight. I didn't play around yet with thicker shock oils, but I suspect that it's make a significant improvement.

All of the above mods brings the rake up to 24 degrees, and the bike handles extremely well at this point. I now have a 160/70-17 rear tire (due to a second flat in less than 1000 miles), instead of the more common 60-series piece that I was running earlier. I think this tire, with its extra 1.2" of diameter and rounder profile, really makes the bike turn-in better.  It seems to complement the ride-height increase.

Clip-ons:

Yet another mod, and maybe one of the most-significant ones in terms of day-to-day comfort.  As anyone who's ridden this bike can tell you, the clip-ons just aren't in a comfortable position. While addressing the length of reach is difficult, I found a way to raise them up. You'll notice that the center of the bar itself sits above the centerline of the clamp bolt in this photo. Originally, the clip-ons sat below the clamp bolt centerline. Performing this mod is as easy as swapping the clip-ons from side to side, but you'll need to drill the appropriate holes for the locaters on the switchgear (the pens in the second photo point to the old and new holes). While the clip-ons are off, note how heavy they are - aftermarket pieces could easily drop five pounds off the bike.

I mentioned a solution to the fork length problem. At first, I thought that machining a new upper triple-clamp with a slight drop would be the best solution. With some thought, though, the idea of mounting the clip-ons under the triple clamp would free up some fork leg length. The stock clip-ons will be way too low, however.

There may be more room for improvement on this bike, but I jumped to another bike before reaching the full potential of the bike.