VFRness no longer available

From WireMyBike, Joshua,
“I am sorry but due to a fire in my shop I am no longer producing the VFRness at this time. I don't know for sure if/when I will resume production as most of my tools and supplies were lost in the fire.
The biggest issue the VFR has is piss poor grounding. If you add additional ground wires from the R/R to the frame it should help.
Most of the wiring, if damaged, can be replaced with off the shelf products, including the Main Fuse B holder.”

 

Is anyone else out there making something similar?

 

Hi Vroom... I have an '06 Gen6. Historically, my bike had fried the stator previously and I had my Honda dealer replace the stator and rectifier about 3 years ago. This time I needed the small wiring harness that is visible under the seat holding the fuel pump fuse - had historically been problematic frying the connector - and I was able to get it from my Honda dealer. For the VFRness work-around, I had to go with the alternate recommended fix which is soldering the 3 stator wires direct to the rectifier wires. And for peace of mind I replaced the rectifier with the one the forums have been recommending. This latest fix was about 1500 miles ago - so far, so good! I also added a digital voltmeter for peace of mind (I did it with a relay so it displays constantly while riding, or displays via a push button if just in the garage). Good luck!

 

I have a VFRness in one VFR, but many have said it is outdated and that the new solution is better. I did that to my other VFR.

 

Hi Vroom 2559 - welcome to the Madhouse.

When you get a chance please add a post in the Introductions section of the forum and tell us a bit about you and your VFR. You may want to update your forum profile to include an approximate location - city/state is ample - that way if you need help you may find someone living nearby may offer to swing by and offer advice or even pick up a wrench especially if you have a well stocked beer fridge.

I can see your earlier posts suggests that you may have wider charging system issue. If you have not spotted it yet please consider browsing through some of the following enormous thread which if nothing else shows you are not alone and especially read post#9.

https://vfrworld.com/threads/how-to-fix-common-regulator-stator-failures.39277/

Sadly the charging system on your 6th Gen was one of the few bits not made by Honda - it was bought in to a specification and a price. Inherently the wiring gauge should therefore be adequate (not brilliant) for all normal operating scenarios. However diodes in the awful OEM RR which was fitted as part of that original system can fail - often damaging your battery or stator in the process. Depending on what diode fails in the RR, you could see the volts drop or rocket if the Regulator fails. Don't forget your stator could be putting out up to 60 volts AC at times. If the rectifier bridge in the RR fails then sending AC into a system designed for a nominal 12v DC can damage expensive digital components like the PGMFI ECU.

That is why it is worth considering fitting a cheapo volt meter which you can pick up for a few dollars on theBay - the sort showing the actual voltage as a number - not a row of pretty lights. This won't prevent failures but you should quickly know what is normal and gives you a chance to head for a safe place if the voltage goes haywire - before the energy left in your battery is drained and you end up stranded.

Beefing up the cabling won't hurt - (which is basically what VFRNess was designed to do), but sadly it won't prevent potential damage to other components if(when) your RR goes bad. Sadly even if you identify a faulty charging system component people forget to do the drill tests twice after replacing an RR - as it could have already taken out one or more legs of the stator.

Time and again the real answer has been covered on here - buy and fit a decent Shindegen RR such as those fitted on many Yamaha models and who thereby avoided the plague of electrical failures which afflicted several similar vintage Honda models and indeed motorbikes from several other manufacturers who opted for bought in charging systems.

Beware there are plenty of chinese clones on TheBay which I would avoid. Years back I bought a kit from Roadstercycle.com after the OEM RR failed at just over 65,000km, (NB they make a kit for a 6th gen but definitely ask for the extra length of cabling). Suffice to say the RR they supplied was still going strong at well over 250,000 km when I sold the bike when I upgraded to an 8th Gen VFR which have pretty much avoided all the charging system dramas which afflicted 6th gen and many earlier models.

This does however remind me that you could also consider replacing the OEM 6th Gen VFR RR with a brand new 8th Gen VFR RR.

Good luck - let us know how you get on - your feed back is important!

SkiMad

 

I'd have to dig around for a while, but I did something similar to my bike manually before the VFRness was available. I wrote a pretty detailed howto and included some rudimentary diagrams, but it was YEARS ago now. I know it's somewhere on this site, but the question is where...

***EDIT***
found it!

https://vfrworld.com/threads/charging-system-upgrade-explained.17895/

 

Nice write-up. Is the 8th generation R/R a direct plug in to the 6th generation, do you know?

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

 

A definite No