My appreciation for VFR members

Looks like a similar effort to building an airplane- looking forward to more build pics!! I've always been partial to riding sportbikes, but I always like looking at good craftsmanship no matter what it is, bike, bicycle, car, airplane, or whatever. Better still when it's a bit different.

 

Yes ....a little less rake and fatter front tire, and it would be a sport bike.
Add a swing arm too.

I have thought that a VF1000R with a red frame and black engine and NO fairing would look great if cleaned up a little. They use the fairings to hide a lot of stuff. But I think it could be good if just cleaned up a little.

 

I have had several long term projects and when done I was a bit lost as to what the next would be.......what is on your plate next?

 

I will be working on my sculpture this coming winter and trying to get a book about my art published.

The rest of this summer I will work to get my bike dialed in perfect.
I am going to weld in a oxygen sensor bung and buy a air / fuel mixture ratio indicator.
Should be interesting.

I also would like to take the time to build a custom made gas tank for my bike.

 

Very nice project Don!!
I admire your attention to detail, ingenuity and patience! Someday when I grow up, I hope to have some of the skills you have demonstrated..

 

You can but it just happens a little bit at a time.

 

The frame gets painted ..rattlecan quality black chassis paint.
I do not have the money to do it with acrylic urethane, and I used powder coating on my last frame and I did not like it.
It gets dull after a while and then you have to buy cans of spray polish to make it look shiny again.
Powder coat is polyester.

Mounting plates and special chrome bolts.

This is engine mount, sprocket that is 3/8 offset,
and rear exhausts connected together.

Mounted rear fender. Tried some more pin striping.

More details added like ignition coils,ignition switch, and fuse block.
Its getting crowded already!

Ok I got the front forks. Hope all of my measuring was correct!
I measured at least 4 times.I also talked to the folks at DNA so
I would measure like they measure etc.,.
Lets take a step back and look at the thing now .
Then I put it on its wheels to check for ground clearance. The moment of truth.

I also made a battery box while I was waiting for those front forks.

Final report tomorrow.

 

Using a VF100

Using a VF1000 engine was unigue. More so than a old Harley twin and I'm sure your chopper has loads of power to boot.

BZ

 

'
Yes... I have always wanted to be different. IT would have been easier to go with the flow but I just could not do it.

 

Man that looks sick! I like it Keep the pictures up..

FROM UBAN DICTIONARY. (how hip am I now)

1. sick
1)crazy, cool, insane

ie."man, that bike was sick yo "

 

Doing a great job man, very impressed. Is it a budget build or is it costing you a pretty penny? I know that a whole lot of time is going into that, I don't have the patience myself to do that alone.

 

It is always a budget. and that is as much as I can get my hands on.
If it was not a budget, I would just buy it all ready to ride.

 

Super incredible props, Donald! I would love to see that thing in action! A Honda V4 chopper just boggles my mind with coolness. It looks reeeeeally nice. Don't be stingy with the pics!

 

Which is exactly what I thought building a chopper was all about, unique, one of kind power houses.

Keep the pics rolling!

BZ

 

OK today some details.

I mentioned having to redo the exhaust.
I had many considerations.
I could not put the exhaust under the bike because the clearance was 4-3/4 inch minimum.
I did not have space for 4 exhausts to the rear of the bike. The reason is the tubing had to clear the rear brake master cylinder fill lid, the oil check and fill cap, and the riders leg going to the brake pedal.

I had to study other v4 engines in other motorcycle and cars.
The VF1000R has the same firing order as a VW bug.
I saw that Honda cars used 2 into one exhausts on their cars.
It gave me some help to see what other designers had done about the firing order and the exhaust tube design.
NEXT PROBLEM

I originally wanted the radiator to be hidden between the frame tubes but that was not possible for several reasons like the design of the frame, The design of the engine,keeping the radiator away from the exhausts too.
At first /I got a Honda CBR600 radiator then got worried that it would not handle the heat. So I got a Honda VT1100 radiator and felt that if a 1100 radiator was on a 1000 engine it would be big enough.
The only problem was that the top neck of the radiator where hot water goes in was too close to the frame so I had to take the radiator to be modified and had the neck moved to the center of the radiator.

Here is a close up of the radiator neck centered although you can see I need to clean up some of that wiring even more.

The exhaust adventure continues.

You can see that the rear exhaust has a 180º doughnut in the tube. That is so that the front and rear exhaust are the same length. It even ran and sounded better.
The mufflers are H-D Dyna mufflers which are very heavy and were so quiet It sounded like a washing machine. VERY restrictive for sure. Did not like them. So far the shorties sounded best.
I was even thinking of having two shorties end to end.

Well tonight I found a solution. I welded two H-D style drag pipe baffles like these

To a piece of 1-3/8 tube and slipped that inside of the 1.5 inch header tubes and then put the slip on mufflers over that. I cut off the bell shaped part just retained the smaller straight baffled/perforated part.
Perfect sound!!! Good throttle response. Nice and crispy.
I will make a video tomorrow and post it. At least I think I can I will try.
Looks like this now with the slip on tapered mufflers JPCycle and the drag baffles inside.

No rejetting of the main jets now

 

What a nice post 10/10 .
Plasma.

 

:clap2: GREAT POST! Keep it coming!

 

My used Ebay foot pegs arrived today!! I was so happy.
It makes the bike look better and the arches of my feet like them too.

 

Very cooool!

 

See post #9 on this page VFRCAPN.