VFR1200 FD Swapping throttle to left hand bar?

Hey there,

I'm a disabled rider. I lost my right arm in a motorcycle accident (not my fault got hit by a car - the usual story), but as most of you know once its in your blood its almost impossible to stop. Anyways, I've been riding for a few years on an modified Aprilia Mana and now feel pretty confident about stepping up to a bigger bike (Yamaha FJR-1300AE or the VFR-1200 FD - The VFR is my 1st choice as I owned a RC-30 many years ago and loved the power delivery of the V-four engine). I've over 20 years riding experience including racing in the NZ F2 and Superbike series and my come back to road riding has been pretty methodical and measured. I'm comfortable where I am and feel its time to step up.

My question is:

How hard would it be to swap over the right hand throttle to the left bar? The Aprilia was fairly straight forward as all I had to do was reverse the push/pull cable; but I understand the VFR has a Fly by Wire throttle. Could it just be an easy case of swapping the polarity of the throttle output? I don't fancy riding a reverse throttle as its just seems weird and transposing throttle to the left (without turning it over) could leave me with less leverage on the bars which I'd prefer not to loose.

Any ideas or suggestions very welcome.

Cheers,


Sean

 

Hi Sean and welcome to the MadHouse:welcome:

When you get a chance please drop by the Introductions part of the forum - to say Hi to the rest of the folks and if nothing else post up a photo of your Aprilia - as you will quickly discover the folks on here really do like pictures and if you update your forum profile (Forum Actions/Edit Profile) to include a rough location city/town you may find people nearby willing to assist with this fascinating project.

:focus:

Whilst we try to avoid duplicate threads, in this instance I suggest you create a similar thread on the 1200 (7th gen) part of the forum - as that should ensure it is spotted by 1200 owners - who will probably be best placed to comment. I will leave it to the 1200 owners on here to respond to your specific question and hopefully someone will go out and look at the bike and give you some indication of how feasible / simple it is.

I have a feeling that it will be quite a challenge - but as they say nothing is insurmountable if you are really determined. Inevitably it will entail some custom parts as the bar fitted with the throttle mechanism normally has a smaller diameter to allow the throttle grip to rotate, and probably the left side on the DCT won't have mounts for the brake lever or indeed much room left to squeeze in the kill switch and start button from the right bar. I guess you may be able to make a hybrid left side bar possibly using parts borrowed from the manual 1200 - so fitting the brake reservoir and lever where the clutch would go. The fun bit would be working out how to mill down the diameter of the rest of the bar to take the right side throttle stuff and make it work sensibly as I fear a straight swap of the mechanism would mean the rotation would be the wrong way around - complicated or what?

Good luck.



SkiMad

 

Looking at the parts break down, the VFR1200D still uses 2 conventional push pull cables at the actual hand grip. they run to the throttle position sensor where it becomes fly-by-wire. Which makes sense, as I don't think packing the actual sensor in the grip would be very safe (sealing out moisture and debris etc..) In theory you should still be able to just swap the two push - pull cables.

the "fly-by-wire" in this case simply means the push pull cables aren't directly connected to the throttle body butterflys

 

Not sure of your research but maybe try these guys to see if they can help

http://freebirdcustommotorcycles.com/shopfreebird/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=270

 

I have seen a GS1200 with throttle swap on FB
Let me search
And welcome to the world of madness :wave:
Sorry about your arm mate

 

I'm also thinking that clutch and brake levers would need to be swapped as well, I'm thinking trying to use clutch and throttle with the one hand at the same time would be too difficult

 

The FD does not have a clutch lever. it's a dual clutch transmission with mini paddle shifters on the left grip with full auto modes as well.

 

Well there you go, I knew there was a reason for me to get out of bed today

 

Thanks for that. I'll Pop on over to the intro section to put in some details. i'm lucky enough to have a few engineer friends who can help me out with machining up parts for my customizations. I'll drop a few pics on the forum so you can see how it was done. I'm popping over to a dealer to see the standard 1200 F control configurations to see what we'll need to do.

 

Cheers. I'm not too bothered about it as I still have one left. P.S. its great for readjusting your priorities; I broke a collar bone a couple of years back which meant I had very little use of my left arm as well as a missing right. The lesson from that way "Any day you can wipe your bum is a good day".

 

"Great stuff. That opens the whole thing up to me. I'll probably import one to NZ from the states. They're hard to come by here and also very expensive. I've asked imotorsports if they can pack up the one they have and send it down" "

 

dealers can't get rid of them over here. I'm sure you'll find one willing to pack one up.