Well I started to do my front end swap this weekend. I got the bike all tore down and got the front end taken off. I started by taking the tank off followed by the front fairings.

One word of advice when you remove the front body work, just remove both sides in one piece so that you do not have to mess with the small phillips head fasteners up front.

When I got to the triples I discovered that my steering head bearings were shot. When you turned the thing it had some definite clunking so it was a good thing that I already had the allballs stuff ready to put on and on the new steering stem.

I could not believe the difference in the upper and lower triples between the hawk and the 929 lower that I am going to be using. Even the stem is amazingly different. The one on the VTR looks like they used a piece of pipe from Home Depot and the 954 piece is all nice and machined.

I got some aluminum bar stock so that I can build some radiator brackets to slide the rads bike like Icebud did on his swap. As far as a parts list goes I am going to using the following parts for the swap.

RC-51 forks, axle, brakes, master cyl, front fender, upper triple.
929 front wheel with RC wheel bearings, 929 lower triple.
TL-1000 heli bars. EBC Pro lite rotors, and HH brakes pads.
All ***** racing steering head bearings and cups.

To the people that have been using the TL bars what did you do with the index pins?? Did you drill the helis or grind off the pins?? Just want to know.

I am going to flush the radiator while I am at it becasue it needs to be changed and I am going to have to cut the rt side radiator hose.

All in all the dis-assy went really easy. Now lets just hope that the assy part will not be so bad. I will keep everyone up to date as I progress. I forgot to take the digital camera over to my buddies shop that day but I will take it the next day I go over for some shots.

We also worked on the RD 400 that he has, sweet bike!

Later Dennis

 

sounds great. One easy thing I overlooked was how much wider the triples are as you pointed out. That requires cutting the bottom edge of the fairing quite a bit to have adequate clearance for the beefier lower triple and upside down design. It takes some trial and error to get enough clearance, but is much easier to do off the bike - so set it on, mark, off to cut etc.

 

I can send you some pics of my Rads moved back, I did the same thing with some aluminum bar stock.... it will really help with the turning radius.... the limiting factor is the upper rad hose... you'll need to rotate it and shove it back as far as possible.... there are also a bunch of "little" things that make it a bit more involved then just sliding them back.... (lower mount for rad and fairing no longer will work, fan could touch oil lines, the thermostat connector will need to be bent to clear the water pump... in otherwords 10 little thigns that are annoying as hell!!!)

J.

BTW... also measure each rad individually.... I found the space between the mounts on the right and left to be like .125" different in distance apart.

 

Well i sure like very much to see some pics after you have finish good luck!!!

 

Hey SlowHawk,

Some pics would be great. You can send all that you have to dennisjohnson17@hotmail.com Can you send me a list of the top ten or post them so that I do not have to discover them myself! HEHE Kind of like the David Letterman of radiator movement top ten!

Thanks Dennis

 

Well here are some pics that I took with my phone of the triple clamp and some of the parts that I am going to be using for the swap. Enjoy


Dennis

 

I am planning on doin the same this winter to my '01. Other than moving the rad's and a few other small things, is there any machining involved with the triple clampes? Or is it just a matter of changing the bearings?

 

The bearings on the allballs site for the 929 and the VTR are the same ones. But while you have it all apart you might as well change them. other than that they are the same with no machining.

Later Dennis

 

Thanks. I recently replaced my head set bearings with all ***** but wouldn't think of re-using them. they are cheap. Also, why use a 929 lower and a RC upper? I was planning on using a whole 929 front end. never thought about using a RC front end.

 

By the way, I recently moved to KY from Sacramento. I grew up by Bodega bay. We probly saw eachother out around Berryessa.

 

I didn't have to cut any of my fairings for my swap and I used 929 triples as well.

 

Is that right? I mispoke then, I just assumed the dimensions were the same with the RC51 and other swaps but must be different enough. Nice to know.

 

The reason for the different triples is that the lower 929 triple is not a gull wing and the RC-51 is so you will have better clearance on the lower part of the fairing. The reason for the RC upper is that the 929 triple has a 3/4" drop with the gullwing and the RC one is flat. My thinking is that when you move the clipons from above the triple to below the triple you will be keeping the same steering geometry with this set up. Also the clipons will be 3/4 of an inch closer to me with this set up also.

Well I made a lot of progress last night I got the radiator brackets made and got the radiators re-mounted temporarily and they look pretty good. I got the Helis all drilled up so that all of the pins on the throttle, kill shitch, and turn signals mount just like on the factroy cliplons. This was really tedious but I think that it was well worth the effort. The Forks are on and I installed a new set of brake pads in the RC calipers.

I also mounted the ignition and used some small washers to shim it down so that I still have the steering lock.

Here are some pics of the fork legs side by side and pics of clip-ons. Those are heli TL-1000 bars.

I will update when I have some pics and new news. Happy 4th to everone

Dennis

 

makes sense, very clever using the two triples that way. Just a note, where you place the clipons won't affect the geometry, but getting the geomtry right and fork height/frame stem height right will affect where you can mount the clipons. Did you take accurate measurements before disassembling the stock? I tried to match the frame height at the stem with the RC forks, and then lower the front 5 mm to compensate for the trail increase, and came out with 17mm of fork tube above the RC triple. What are you finding? I'm curious because I can no longer find all my notes and want to be close to stock geometry.

bill

 

I got in a hurry and had good intentions of taking a lot of meaurements and did not take any. Yeah I know not very smart! on my part. How did you come up with the 17mm? The RC forks are a lot shorter than the VTR ones? I think that I am going to take my back up to the local computrack place and just have them adjust the bike close to stock for me or have a nice street set up tuned in.

Hey Westcoast welcome back to the area, I have been trolling around Berryesa since 1994 when I had my F2. I try just to transit the area on longer rides do to all of the police that patrol up there now.

Dennis

 

Funny, I used the 929 upper thinking that since it had the gull wing it would make up for some of the effect of the shorter forks. IMO I prefer the way it handles now compared to stock, much quicker turn in but still very stable. I've hit 120mph in turn 2 at the track I go to with almost no wiggle and on the straight 140 is smooth as glass.

 

It just occured to me. Are those SP1 or SP2 forks? I thought I remembered mine being the same height actually ( I have SP1 forks). The SP2 forks unladened would measure slightly shorter (12-14mm) because they made some other changes like overlong topout spring. It changes the way sag is set (since the topout system prevents full exension of the fork) but in the end though, on the bike with rider and properly set up, both sp1 and sp2 would be the same measured length, and so to maintain geometry you'd still have to have them mounted in the same place. That is my understanding of it at least, very crude, but I believe correct. I know for sure it will affect the measured length of the forks.

bill

 

Remember to measure the fork length between the center of the axle and the top of the fork tube, not including the fork cap.

 

These forks are off of an 04 so they are SP2 from what I was told when I bought them. You can see how much shorter they are in the pics that I posted above.

Super22 If you think about it at least this is my thinking, since you are mounting the clipons below the triple instead of above like stock you are actually getting some of that length back. If you used the 929 triple you would get even more length back because of the gull wing.

Dennis

 

Exactly my thinking and exactly why I did it but you still don't get it all back,(at least with my GSXR1k forks anyway), but like I said I'm very happy with my results. I used 954 heli's but they are a little lower than the tl's so I had to do some rearranging of cables so they didn't hit the fairing.

 

I'm sure that explains the differences in length. I'm quite sure they are nearly the same. So if you figure the SH has clipons above, then when you mount the new forks you could leave the length of the SH clipon above the striaght RC51 upper triple and you'd be in the ballpark I believe. I agree that if you went with the gull wing design on top you'd have enough room for a clipon above the triple.

 

Just chiming in...

My RC forks are about 1" shorter than my VTR's... I can measure again to get exacts.. but it's in that ball park.

As for clipons.... I am going to use a set of Ducati 900SS helis.... they have a HUGE amount of rise to them.... I acutally have the top edge of the pinch clamp about 13mm lower than the bottom of the RC triple inorder to clear the fairings and make the cables work nicely.... I believe this setup puts the bars in a "VFR" like height (VFR's on a VTR that is... maybe a tad lower) but they are out wider becuase of the wider forks/triple... I have pics, i'll try to post up over the next day or so.

J.

 

Here's the pics of my Ducati Helis.... the forks aren't in the right place yet, but that doesn't effect the bar placement, which is what I was checking. Everything "clears" at the stops...

 

Well I finished the swap last night and then went for a few short rides just to check everything out. I had to return to the shop once to re-tighten the steering head but other than that the bike is flawless. I also did the snorkle mod while I had the bike apart and cleaned the K&N while I was at it.

Hope you all enjoy the pics! I also threw in one of the Rupp minibike that I restored last year. I am all done but the wheels!

Later Dennis

 

Looks great..... how did the front feel?

J.

 

It feels really good. I will know more tomorrow I have a 300-400 mile ride planned so it will be a good try out for it. The bars are great, brakes are unbelievable!! I just have the front end set up with some base settings, and I am sure that it will get better once I have some time to adjust it. It feels really planted for the most part and a lot of the wiggly feeling you get in the stock bike is gone.

Overall I think this is how the bike should have come from the factory. If not it should have been upgraded some time in its lifetime by honda. I have some more pics if you guys want. Or request a view that you want.

Later Dennis

 

Well just an update on the bike and how it rides. I put a 929 wheel on the bike with RC bearings, dust seals, center bearing support, and spacers and that combo does not work. The center bearing support for the RC is to short or not long enough to support the bearings on the inner races. So I gently removed the one of the bearings last night and re-used the 929 center piece and that seemed to work but the calipers do not line up right with the rotors with out using some washers. So if you use this combo you will have to make custom wheel spacers!

So I am now on the hunt for a RC wheel! So if anyone has one I will be glad to take it off of your hands!



Thanks Dennis

 

Expect to pay around $200 for one.

 

Hey Guys

Well I made one more attempt to salvage the wheel and it seems like it is going to work. When you use the 929/954 on the RC front end you need to use the inside spacer from the 929/954 so that it is the proper length so that it will support the inner bearing races.

Then you need to have .112" machined off of the right wheel spacer so that the calipers and rotors will properly line up in the forks. If you do not have the bearing machined the wheel is off set to the left in the forks and the axle will not be able to be fully inserted.

After I got most of this figured out I took the bike to the MotoGP this last weekend and it ended up tipping over inthe campground in the soft asphalt which used to be the old track surface and scratchind the crap out of the left fairing, the inner cowl fairing was ripped and bending the clutch lever. So I have all of that stuff already on order. SO if someone needs a left fairing that is in decent shape for repainting or race plastic I have one.

Other than that the front end and brakes work fantastic! I put some base settings in the forks that I found on the internet.
http://www.sportrider.com/bikes/146_...gs/index4.html
The only thing that I have to changed was 1 more turn of preload because the front end was to soft. I will report more was I have put in some more saddle time!

Thanks to everyone on the forum that has helped me doing the swap!

Later Dennis

 

2 suggestions. Be sure to check the ride height. When I first set mine up, I didn't have the fork tubes high enough in the triples, raising the front end. Additionally, I'd raised the rear slightly. the combination made the whole bike higher and with the short side stand it was very prone to tipping. Maybe someone with a stock VTR and proper sag set up can measure from floor to bottom of oil filter mount to get an idea of stock height for you. I can measure mine if you like.

Second, I found this the most complete linked source I have ever seen for RC51 fork mods. And its for the older forks so very useful to us. Lots of info on each sheet and the tabs at the bottom go between users experience to commercial expert's advice for setup. Obviously there will be some differences on a different bike than stock, but good info and ballpark info. From what I always understood, with stock spring alone, sag was difficult to get right. Most go with a different, lighter spring and either longer springs or a 10mm spacer. Using 0.95 springs and 10mm spacer I was able to set sag about anywhere needed.

http://www.motophotos.com/rc51online...uspension4.xls

good luck

bill