1984 VF500F Track Day

I posted in my long-running thread on the 1st gen boards that I took my VF500F to a track day, but I thought it would make sense to post about the experience in a new one. Maybe it’ll convince someone else to give it a shot as well. And let me know if I’m off the mark.

Or just skip to the bottom for the pictures to skip my ramblings.

Summary
I’ve had this bike for quite a while, but only a few years ago I really started to tear into it to learn how it works. Without this forum and all the help I’ve gotten here, I doubt the bike is even running now. It sure as hell wouldn’t have made it to a track, so thank you all for that, sincerely.

I did my first track day at the end of 2020 and learned that riding motorcycles on a track is about the most fun thing you can do. I’m not a naturally gifted rider, so everything has to be learned the hard way. I’m pretty sure they bumped me out of novice after 8-9 track days because they were sick of seeing me and my SV650. Moved into the lower intermediate group in 2021. Decided, screw it, got my race license at the end of 2022 and did my first race then. I’ve done most of the rounds for 2023 in ASRA Midwest and I’m competitive with the amateurs. Well off of the experts.

I knew I wanted to take this VF500F to the track once though just for the experience and because I thought it would be something I’d regret not doing if I looked back and wished I had done it. I had no idea what to expect on track and whether or not both me and the bike were up to the challenge.


Motorcycle Prep
Well, basically that’s all documented in the other thread. Major things are that the suspension was redone with a YSS emulsion shock lifted as high up as I could, 0.85kg/mm racetech springs and emulators up front, stock gearing w/ 530 chain, Bridgestone BT-45’s, EBC HH pads, Galfer stainless brake lines, Vance and Hines exhaust and some kind of jet/needle kit in the carburetor (never been able to really figure out what they are exactly). I safety wired most everything required for ASRA+more just because I’ve learned I feel a lot more comfortable when things are wired. I brought the clipons out to a much wider stance than stock to more closely match my SV’s configuration. Some Rotella T4 and a trip to the one station I know that sells non-ethanol “recreational” gasoline, and that’s pretty much it. I set the tires to 32psi front, 30psi rear just guessing.


Track
Blackhawk Farms in South Beloit, IL is the track I know better than any other since most of my on-track time has been there. It was already warm in the morning and didn’t take long to get into the 90F’s. The track is ~1.9mi, mainly right hand corners with a fairly long straight, and some interesting “characteristics” with bumps and seams you want to avoid or hit at a certain direction or suspension load.


First Session
I signed up for the green group which is the upper intermediate group. I’m parked next to my track buddy who’s riding a 2021 ZX6R. He’s rather excited about being potentially being faster than me at this track—he’s also celebrating his 59th birthday in a few weeks, but I don’t want to make it easy on him. I get to the track entrance line and pick the slow lane. I’m lined up behind a BMW S1000RR and just thinking to myself “wtf have I signed up for…?”.

The first at-speed lap I’m thinking “holy shit I can feel the front wheel skidding around”. I’m realizing I have way way way less front weight over the front wheel because you sit so much lower on this bike and the clip-ons are so much higher. The 16” front wheel and overall setup just felt so much “twitchier” than I was expecting, and I didn’t feel like I was getting nearly enough weight up front to trail brake as long as I wanted to.

Mercifully (said in jest), the session got red-flagged after the third lap, and I returned back to the pits. I talked to the lead Control Rider of the green group and told him I wouldn’t take any offense if they wanted to push me back to a slower group for today. He asked me if I could keep my lines, I said yes, and he said just go do that, and you’ll be fine.

So I took out almost all the pre-load I had up front and tried to re-wire my brain to try to keep my upper body up front and not get lazy and sit back in turns.


Remainder of the Sessions
After the third session, things were starting to come together. I was starting to ride the bike instead of holding on for dear life. I realized I could run most of the same gears as I do on my SV while adding a few extra shift points. Through the little “chicaney” part of the track, the bike was honestly better than my SV because of how much lower you sit. By the afternoon I was getting comfortable and starting to take some of the turns a little quicker. That’s when it really hit home that I’m going to have to be a lot better with body position if I’m going to start picking up the pace. On a few occasions I’d catch my foot on the ground. There’s a few scrapes on the footpeg where I caught the raised curbs—so I just tried to stay a bit away from them.

You can definitely tell you’re both underpowered and overweight to most of the bikes there. I had a few people mention they saw how deep I was driving it into turn one before I was catching the brakes. They probably didn’t notice I had a whole lot less speed than others to shave off though!

The last session I decided to toss my AIM Solo under the seat with some rags to get some telemetry. I was a fair bit slower than I thought the laps seemed. While I could feel some sections felt noticeably slower (especially coming out of a turn in 3rd gear), it didn’t feel that much slower than the SV650. Nowhere near the torque, but I probably was also riding the rev ranges wrong as my brain is wired for that V2.

The most annoying thing about riding the bike on track is that I was constantly flipping the folding footpegs up on accident and having to push them back down.

My best lap was a 1:31.62, and my top speed was 98.0mph. Best lap on an SV so far this year has been a 1:20.57 at ~112mph. At the AHRMA races (as a spectator) there was a VFR750 out there running 1:27’s. If I’m not mistaken, there is a guy from Wisconsin that normally runs a VF500F and I believe set a fast lap in 2021 of 1:26. Unfortunately, I had heard that bike blew its motor earlier this year. I was really hoping to see it and talk to the owner.



Ergonomics
They’re awesome for the street. They’re tricky for the track. I think I’d want to figure out a way to get the seat higher, drop the clip-ons lower, and raise the pegs and move them back about an inch. I’d be hesitant to drop the forks too much given it’s already pretty “twitchy”, but if you could pair it with moving the rear footpeg position back and up a bit, I think It’d give a lot more track comfort and confidence with putting more weight over the front.


Suspension
The rear felt awesome. Absolutely planted. Not like I was giving it enough to break traction, but I had full confidence in the rear. The front I’ve mentioned it felt pretty stiff—even after removing all the pre-load. I’m hesitant to say I’m oversprung though because it’s possible that ergonomic changes and higher speed would actually put me in the right zone. There was a lot of unused travel going by the not-so-scientific-ziptie-method-of-checking. I never felt the “skipping” feeling I felt that first session after removing the pre-load though. It may just be a bike style thing, and I’d never experienced it before. Or it was just placebo.


Brakes
The brakes were honestly decent. Not as good as my SV, but they also had a fair bit more weight to slow down. I was getting no brake fade which is good because I’ve dealt with that on the SV this year. The bite on the Vesrah RJL pads on the SV I prefer. I had to pull pretty hard to get good braking though, and I have a feeling that a better master cylinder would be the best way to shaving more time off a lap.

 

(apparently there's a 10,000 character limit)

Tires
I seriously had no idea what to expect from the BT-45’s. Especially when the temperature started to get into the 90F’s. I set the pressures to 30R 32F in the morning and never touched it again because they never felt bad to me. I knew I didn’t want to go down because I didn’t want to potentially overheat them more with more flex on this hot day.

What had me a bit spooked was the wear on the front. The sidewalls on the 100/90 is so damn tall and different than a 120/70 radial. On the SV I’ll wear to the end of the rear and I’ll still have 1cm of unused tire up front. On the VF the front was worn to the edges and there were “smoothed” spots where all the marbles got knocked off. In my head this told me I was nearing the edge of the tire. And that if I was going to actually get faster, I was going to need to prioritize body position and really get off the bike a lot more than I’m used to. This may not actually be true, but it’s not like I could go ask the Pirelli vendor what he though about my Bridgestone bias ply 16” front.


Motor
Best sounding bike at the track (I might be biased). The engine didn’t have the power that felt like it could get you into any trouble, but it was quite fun to try to keep it revved up because having to slow down a bunch meant you were about to get swallowed by a gaggle of R6’s pretty immediately.

It never skipped a beat. Not a single hiccup nor stutter. It was awesome. A couple times I brought it to redline and thought “don’t you dare!”. Not interested in floating a valve, but if I need to do it somewhere…


Miscellaneous
Something I found super weird was how much the engine temperature fluctuated. I always thought these things ran hot. And when you’re driving around in traffic, sitting at a stoplight or something… the fan will come on and you can just see the engine temperature sitting there at the full hot indicator. On the track, I’d peak down on the front straightaway at full song, and I’d see the temperature indicator sitting right there on the far left cold side of the gauge. I thought it quit working. As soon as I’d get off track and down into first gear putting to my paddock spot, it will have already been rising enough toward the hot-side of the indicator, and the fan was on as I shut the bike off.


The Experience
I realize I’m very lucky and not everybody gets to do something like this—so I just tried to enjoy it as much as I could. On track it was obviously super fun once I was able to get comfortable with the bike’s behavior. Off track was fun as well when I wasn’t anxiously fidgeting with things. I had several people come by asking “what is that thing!?”. I also had several people come by commenting, “holy shit is that an old interceptor!? I used to have one of those bikes!”. Even got some compliments on the paint job, and I had to make sure to tell them not to look too close or they may have to take that statement back!

We’ll see if another track adventure is in the cards for the bike in the future. I’m not in a hurry to do it since it was pretty mentally draining, and I worry about finding out where that limit is. I won’t do it again until I make some pretty serious improvements on body positioning and talk to more people with track experience on similar bikes. I also would want to address the folding footpegs. Or I could always just sign up for a slower group and limit the things I’m worrying about.

Either way. Awesome bike. Awesome day. Awesome community at VFRW for helping me get this thing out there.

 

Congrats.
Awesome.
Loved reading the report.
Super pics from a great memory.

.85 in the front seems very light unless you're tiny.

How is the gearing compared to the SV? Stock gearing is usually pretty tall on everything.

Vesrah RJLs are gold. EBC HH are total crap...so you're right to pick up on that!

Your body position doesn't look dreadful. High, wide bars don't help with that. You get a lot of easy leverage that can be harder to make fine adjustments with. My $.02 on that is the bars are primarily used for that initial input, then you have to be holding them for the rest of the turn. That means that you (me/I?) am in an unnatural position for most of the time using them. It can be done, as there are many MT09/10 bikes at track days too, but their tire wear looks like they're forcing the front a lot.

BT-45s are pretty excellent...to a point. It is a compound issue as you get fast, but also a shape issue where you can run off of the edge of the tire. Do you have other choices for strange tire sizes? Is there an option for a different wheel in 17" that you could modify/use for current rubber options?

Really nice write up. Thank you!

 

Thanks for the feedback bmart!

Springs--I am about 160lb without gear. RaceTech's calculator suggested 0.76kg/mm. I emailed them on 1/25/22 asking for their input prior to purchasing, but I never got any response. The recommendations I received here and everywhere else I could find online indicated most people running higher. Since I had 0.90kg/mm in my SV, I figured 0.85 would be the play. I'm learning that I actually prefer a bit softer on the SV (just switched from 0.90 -> 0.85 for a track day). The 0.85 inside of the VF may be bang on if I rode it faster and stopped it quicker.

Gearing--I think you're right on being tall. I'd wager that going +1 or +2 tooth on the rear would have helped quite a bit on a track like Blackhawk. I don't think I'd go any more than that though, but I can't be certain without trying it. Unfortunately it's not a just a 10 minute job to switch the rear on the VF, hah.

I'll try to pay attention to and ask riders of the MT09/10 bikes what their experience is like. It's funny because those are the same riders I was thinking of when I was thinking "holy shit this is so weird sitting like this". Dudes on Yamaha MT's and KTM 6-890s go flying by all the time. They certainly know how to deal with it.

Regarding the wheels--Could you change it... probably. I know that there are sticky threads about swaps on the 750 to accommodate 17's. I'm sure someone has done a 500. I have seen a Katana front end swap into the VF500F for a 17" front. I'm not sure I'd want to do it though. Not on this bike. I see it is legal for AHRMA to do a wheel swap on "lightweight nextgen superbike", but I think if I actually wanted to seriously compete in that someday, I'd need to buy a separate VF500F to hack up. I like this one too much the way it is right now since it's the only real interesting street bike I have.

 

Great write up!

Dry weight is 407 lbs. The bike came with 0.61 stock, that is a 40% increase.

 

The Avon AM22/23 Sprint Compound tires are absolutely ridiculous. Designed to have a proper, wide racing profile on narrow, odd size rims. I never felt like I was on an edge even when I was using ALL the tire. Simply the best bias ply tires I have ever ridden on. I ran the 130/650-18 and a 120/70-16.

AM23 Cantilever

1. Race-bred contour
   Ensures a large footprint at all angles.
2. Available in a number of sizes
   To fit most classic racers from the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s.
3. 130/650 VB18 cantilever tyre designed specifically to give a 130 section tyre on a narrow rim.
   135/70 R18 AV23R combines AM23 pattern with radial construction (dimensions are identical to the 130/70VB18).

 

Excellent write-up Matt !

as I have said before im envious of your track skills and courage to give it a go, you look like a pro out there, pictures are awesome ! that VF looks all the business.

I watch all your vid's and every time im thinking 'Damn, gotta try that'. Good for you ! love it!

 

I'm not an Avon fan, but the profile is certainly better for leaning!

 

The profile on those tires look sooo much better for track use. I can't really tell if they're even in production anymore though. You had mentioned these before and I actually asked about them around the track at the AHRMA event. The little bit of hearsay I got was that the two people that had heard of them that I asked had not seen them in quite a while. And one of them thought that Cooper tire intended to simply dissolve Avon. I'm basing that off of very little evidence, but it was disappointing to hear to say the least. I saw quite a few of the Bridgestones though. My favorite thing I saw was an FZR600 with half a VP fuel can cut in half and zipped to the underside as a fluid catch, lol.

Yep--looking at the profile of that tire again.... that's what I'd want.

Thanks man. I'm still very green, but it's fun to share the experience. Selfishly I'm hoping it can help more people to sign up and give it a go. If I get a couple it'll be worth it. The best part about being at a track or race day is that you have something in common with every other person there. Shit I went to go spectate earlier this year and talk to people at a track day, and I'm one of the more anti-social people you'd ever bump into. Not sure if there's a track close to you, but if there is, maybe see about just heading there as a spectator to check it out if you're on the fence.

I've got my last time on track this year coming up this weekend. I know I can put in laps quick enough to compete for a win in amateur lightweight, but from AIM telemetry there are some clear spots I'm giving up huge time. Two of them due to having to stand the bike up to shift. I spent Monday in the rain at Road America trying to learn GP Shift on the SV. First session I dropped it into 5th twice trying to get to 3rd... but it got easier as the day went on. I've got a full day of practice on Friday to try to get it down and a couple races this weekend to hopefully snag one. We'll see.

 

They do still list that tyre on the UK website. The last time I saw prices in the US they were stupid expensive.

Maybe consider some 86/87 VFR handlebars. Still 37mm but def a sportier angle/height. Might not be so low to interfere with cowlings or gauges?

Anyway, again, great write up. Really appreciate you taking the time. And looking good!

 

On my 86 VFR700FII I did a little experiment. I came across a Kenda tire that is somewhat of a BT45 knockoff. What struck me was the profile though.



In some literature they even mention the "wide contact patch" profile. I wouldn't normally buy Kenda but I thought, wtf? I don't push this bike, let's see.

Well, I'll have to say, they are pretty good. And the profile really does look different than the other bias tires. If I had another set of wheels to take to the track, I would be very tempted to give them a session. I just wouldn't want to be stuck with them all day if they didn't really work out. The price was attractive as an experiment too. I will probably buy another set for a 500 that needs rubber and push them a bit harder.

Oh... but the name. "CRUISER S/T". Cruiser. That's a turn off. But they are a "Sport/Tour" tire. Just like every other bias tire in our sizes is labeled.

 

In some cases...we aren't as fast as we think that we are. LOL I'm certainly not.

I learned this on the dual sports (or duel sports..as crack's list likes to call them). My KLX250 came with IRC tires. I'd never heard of them. Still, they never moved a mm, even in SuperMoto mode. Even the DS Dunlops I put on after were quite excellent on road. Both are super cheap.

 

I’m wondering if going that wide on stock VF500f wheels (2.50 front and 2.75 rear) will create geometry or suspension problems. The tire bulging and what not. OEM specs are 100/90/16 front and 110/90/18 rear.

I looked at the Avon website under AM22 tire spec and states that it would fit even narrower rims!

It seems to me that the consensus on this board is that you should ALWAYS go OEM tire spec. It’s hard to find OEM tire spec already and would love to pull the trigger on those Avons and get me a pair as I found a supplier that can deliver.

Did you experience any issues running them on OEM rims? Any issues I am not seeing here?

 

Those Avons were specifically designed to run on these rim widths. ZERO issues. As I stated, the BEST bias ply tires I have ever ridden on. I could lay that VF500F OVER without a hint of any protest.

 

Oh damn, looking at that picture of you leaned over, the stock chin fairing will 100% get destroyed. I was scraping mine a bit even after deciding to stay away from the curbs after clipping the foot pegs a few times.

I've been on the fence of taking a gamble and ordering the Tarozzi rearsets from overseas. Something to lift the footpegs up higher. There's not a whole lot of options, unfortunately. I've seen your setup on the other site, but I would need something turnkey. I have no fabrication abilities.

The other thing I was looking at was lower clipons. If the fuse cover wasn't so tight to the fork tube, I think I could pretty easily get a set of woodcraft 37mm clipons installed. I still may be able to find something, but the 2-piece ones are probably a no-go given the limited space there.


The clipons aren't that big of a deal to me compared to lifting the rear pegs up though.

 

I started making a oil catch pan out of a stock chin fairing, but luckily so many people were so fucking terrible at cobbling together contraptions they decided it was more dangerous having people dragging them and coming off at speed.


So they didn't require it on bikes that didn't come stock with full lowers.


Oh and there are other Hondas that have the same fuse box configuration and plug, but are in a self contained unit you could relocate. Not saying this example is a plug-n-play version, but it's probably very close. And the wires at the plug can be relocated to match the bike. I've done it.

 

The easiest path for "rear sets" would probably be to buy some Chinesium Honda rearsets and make some flat adapter plates to go from frame to brackets. Then come down from the subframe with some muffler stays.

When I built the race bike I made two versions of the stock brackets, one with muffler mounts and one set with that section removed in case I did something different with the exhaust. You could eliminate the rear section, move the abbreviated brackets up and back and then come down from the subframe with muffler stays.

Or relocate the whole stock brackets with some flat plates and make a small bracket to meet the new muffler mount location.

Might be time to start trying to to improve your fab skills when tracking something Classic / Vintage.

As you know, the brake pedal / master cyl configuration is the killer trying to mod these.

 

Oh... that's a great idea on relocating the fuse box. I didn't even consider that. I actually have a spare one to play with that I bought from when I was troubleshooting my buddy's '500 and thought it was a bad fuse box on his bike.

Thanks for the explanation. I'm going to keep toying with and game planning some ideas. I just know it's going to involve a lot of failure first and a lot of parts messed up. Or I'll just decide to leave it be and just enjoy it for what it is--which, luckily, is pretty easy.

My favorite oil catch pan I saw this year was a Yamaha FZR running a VP fuel can cut in half safety tied around the bottom of the engine, hah. I wish I would have taken a picture.