New VFR Owner Looking for some tips

Good Morning All;


Figured this would be the best way to say hello LOL, by having to get help fixing stuff. Anyway, I just acquired a 2001 VFR 800Fi yesterday. Was quite pleased with the way it handles and the acceleration. I have gotten so lazy riding the Goldwing that I forgot how much fun a sport bike was.

So I have two questions that I could use help with if anyone has some time.
1. My headlights seem to be possessed. One, they are aimed way too low (front is lowered) and two, when I hit the high beams, instead of moving the beam of light higher, it focuses lower on the ground. Could that be an upside down bulb? And are both supposed to come on in high beam or just the right side? And where the hell are the aiming adjustments on this thing?

2. Second thing I noticed was the speedometer was off about 10mph. Possibility of the front being lowered or something else? And is that an easy fix or just suck it up and deal with it? Where I live the police LOVE to screw with bikers so I am not giving those chumptards any reason to stop me.

Hope to meet a few people here, and get to learn my new "midlife crisis" LOL


Shea

 

Hey 1stcavarmyvet, welcome to the forum & congrats on the VFR. Sorry I can't help with the headlights issue but for the speedo, maybe the previous owner changed the rear sprocket for one with more teeth ? And good job on posting a picture on your 1st post. Nice custom paint job.

 

Welcome to The World! and thanks for your service to our country!

Hopefully someone in the know can point you to the download of the Honda service manual. These are priceless for any DIY mechanic. This may help you with your lighting issue.

Regarding your speedometer issue, the sensor is actually attached to the front sprocket nut and as stated by nookiaz, it may be thrown off by a sprocket change, if I am not mistaken the stock tooth count is 17 front and 43 rear. However, these bikes have been known to have electrical gremlins, so do a search on the forum for r/r and stator woes, as sometimes this can affect the speedometer reading, but that symptom shows up as an oscilating needle. Other than that, this bike should last you a while so go out and enjoy!

 

welcome to the world with crazy biker guys and gals who love to ride vfrs :vtr2: ya i would say for the speedo look that horse in the mouth and count the teeth. no clue on the head light i have yet to get an 800 yet but one day i will

 

Here is the PDF manual that I made over at VFRD:
http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/...onda-vfr-service-manual-optimized-bookmarked/

Please comment and rate!

 

:welcome: to the madness
All bikes are off about 8 to 10 % of the actual speed.
As for head light there are adjust screw on the light housing you can find the info from marriedman link above.

 

Thanks for the tips and the welcome. I did get out on it last night with the GPS. I'm about 10MPH over so at least I know where to put the needle when I am creeping past the poooooooooooolice LOL. Still fighting with the headlights but I am patient LOL. While I am thinking about it, I noticed it will get up to about 205 or so after I get back into town off the interstate. Only while at a light of course. I am used to the Goldwing where you can "hear" that fan kick in. So are the fans quiet on these? And what would be the max op temp to watch for before getting worried?

 

800's run warm, mine will bet 175-190 on the road and then when I get into town and sitting at stop lights and so forth it will creep to 224 and then the fan kicks on and will bring it down to around 200 before turning (fan) off. I know this seems hot but that's how it works. I read somewhere hear that the engine will shut off if it gets to the 240-250 range, can't remember the exact number. Just know they're all like that.
Cool paint job, how is the quality? And welcome.

 

I wouldn't worry to much about the 205 temp. Ive had mine up in the 230s' on 95 f + days so that seems normal. I rode in this morning in 40 f and it peaked at 187. Welcome to the funny farm.

 

Welcome Shea to the forum, as you have seen you will meet allot of nice fellow riders here. :smile-new:

About the mid-life crisis...brother I am right there with ya! enJoy your new ride! :chaingun:

 

Thanks for the info there. As for the paint? It needs some help. It's faded in some places, chipped in others. I'm going to be redoing it and recoating it. It's kind of an abstract art deal. Looks good but needs help. LOL

 

You can correct the speedo with a Healtech speedo healer http://www.healtech-electronics.com It plugs into the wiring harness between the speedo sensor on the gear box and the speedo. You can then apply a correction factor to make the speedo read spot on.

 

I'll get that speedo healer this week. I finally broke down and removed the front of the bike more or less LOL. Turns out the previous owner put the bulbs in upside down. So I spent some time cleaning the fairing, polished out the lens, reinstalled the bulbs (even though I may go with the LED upgrade Zoom Zoom has on here), painted the inner fairing, etc. So now the lights are where they should be. I do have an odd question, when I stop at lights, I hear some random noise near the instrument cluster (I think). It almost sounds like pipes heating up, or a piece of tape slapping against the fan. It's intermittent and random, and I can't reproduce it at home LOL. Anyone have that happen before that knows what it "could" be?

 

Before you do the speedo healer, make sure you have the correct sprockets installed as already mentioned.

That flapping noise is probably the flapper valve on your air box. It is quite common and one of the reasons we remove the Flapper and PAIR systems from our bikes.

Read,
http://vfrworld.com/forums/showthread.php/43354-Popping-sound-from-air-box

http://vfrworld.com/forums/showthread.php/43033-PAIR-Valve-Delete?highlight=PAIR+Valve+removal

http://vfrworld.com/forums/showthre...en-releasing-the-clutch?highlight=Flapper+mod

That should get you all sorted out.

 

It doesn't matter whether you have stock gearing, or not, speedo is very unlikely to be accurate regardless as they set them to read fast to meet safety Standards.

'99 the stock is 17 F / 43 R. VTEC went to 16 F / 43R.

If you gear it up to say 18 F/ 43 R you will probably get an accurate speedo, if you gear it down to say 16 F / 43 R the speedo will be way out, will read 60mph and you will probably be doing 50mph on the GPS. Stock gearing is generally 10% out on the speedo, i.e. reads 60mph, actual 54mph, but remember that the difference in tread depth of the rear tire from new to worn out will give you about 2% error.

Take it for a run, get a reading of 60mph from a GPS, or iPhone app, etc, and check the reading on the speedo, then apply the correction to the speedo healer.

 

I agree with Jethro, the flapping sound is likely the flapper valve opening and closing.

When it comes to the LED headlight upgrade I feel it only fair to warn you that the eBay seller I purchase my kit from has increased his Cree LED kit price from $75 on Dec 27th to a whopping $175 as of yesterday. There are other companies out there that sell the same or similar kits and I posted up a few options in my thread. Post #55

I would also like to thank you for the service to your country, hope you enjoy the bike and Welcome to the WORLD.

All the best and don't forget to keep her shiny side up.

 

Thanks for that update Zoom. I haven't been on a sport bike since I had my Katana back in 89. I have been on big cruisers. But I tell ya, I am totally infatuated with this bike. Of course being a 2001, I am always worried about something being wrong. It's only got about 22K on it, but with Honda? you never know. I did put a new battery in it today. The old one was crap (or so Autozone's meter said...hmm). As for the bike itself? The speed this girl has is just unreal LOL

 

My bike has the equivalent of 35,000 km's and still rides biter than newer machines that I have tried. The bike will probably outlast me. A number of members on this forum have bikes with well over 100,000 miles (34468Randy for example has over 120,000 miles now IIRC) and many more are well above 50K miles. The engine on the VFR is just amazing and the sound incredible. The only real weak link would likely be considered the charging system (R/R in particular) but there are a number of suggestions on this site to help rectify this. Another thing that helps out in long term comfort is the addition of a Sargent seat or a custom fit seat. Both would greatly increase the long distance comfort of the bike.

 

I did read about the R/R earlier today on here. I think I may just go and replace it now anyway just to be sure. Which brings up something that I NOW need. Does anyone have or know where I can get, the small plastic upright cover on the left inside of the windscreen? Apparantly mine took a flight today while going down I-75. Looks like the bolt AND the threaded sink took off...and sadly took the cover with it. As for the R/R if anyone has a decent link to one let me know. I would like to replace that ASAP. I know I had to replace the 3-plug wire on my Goldwing as well. Was worried about it doing the same thing. Better safe than broke LOL

 

You could try www.wiremybike.com. The owner of the site is a member of VFRDiscussion.com and though I'm not sure if he is a member here, he sells an R/R replacement kit for almost all years of VFR's. I have purchased a kit form him in the past and it worked like a charm. Never had an issue again. Here is a link to the site if you are interested. Check it out. He also sells a product called the VFRNess which beefs up the charging circuit wiring to help prevent the aforementioned plug failure from occurring.

http://www.wiremybike.com

I too had issues with one of those little inner wings. I got mine from www.hondapartsnation.com. There are a number of other places you could try as well such as www.bikebandit.com, or www.ronayers.com, or your local dealer even perhaps. One nice thing about your local dealer is, though the price might be higher, you won't have to pay extra for shipping. Some of the sites offer free shipping in the US if your order is more than (so many dollars) so keep the shipping costs in mind. When I checked mine I had broken the threaded insert piece off the inner part of the upper fairing. I had a local body shop re-attach the insert with some ABS fuser and it worked great. Not sure how you would re-attach the piece if you have lost the threaded insert and the plastic tab it attaches to but I think you can purchase the threaded insert and screw from the dealer (other places may offer it as well but the cost of the part plus shipping will likely be higher) and then see if a local body shop can attach the insert to the fairing for you. When I did this, I had the screw in the insert as the insert had slots in the side that would allow the fuser into the cavity of insert. By threading in the screw it allowed the fuser to bond and harden to the part but I was easily able to back the screw out once it had hardened.