Re: R/R failure warning time (and conversion to a R1's RR)

Daniel, it seems to me that the Honda RRs are simply crap and for some unknown reason they periodically and randomly simply refuse to pass any dc current to the bike's system. When this happens, it creates a huge amount of resistance on the stator side and sometimes this cooks the connectors/wires. While I have never had any wires or connectors burn, I have seen this intermittent "shut down" several times before. The last time this happened to me, my voltmeter warned me that there was a problem when I noticed the downward march of my battery's charge... 13.2, 12.9, 12.5, 12.3, etc. I stopped, pulled the seat and the RR was so hot you could not touch it. Even my subframe was uncomfortably hot. The interesting thing is that after stopping and doing this, everything started working fine again. Several others have reported this same phenomenon.

Honda RRs also do another weird thing.... they produce max charge at around 1800 rpms (13.9 or so) and then as rpms go up, dc output goes down to 13.2 or so at around 5,000 rpms. The exact #s seem to vary from RR to RR but this pattern is clearly present. I called Yuasa and they said that ideally they look for a charge of 14.2 to 14.5 to their batteries. Anything below that is not giving a full charge and anything over that will damage a battery over time, especially when the ambient temp is high.

Sometime back I came across a site where a guy named Jason in Australia had changed out his Blackbird's RR for one from a Yamaha R1 with great success. http://www.vlc.com.au/~justin/about/...g_replace.html This was done 3-4 years ago. I wrote him recently and he said that the change out had solved all of his electrical problems every since and that he has now done this same conversion to several hondas. Recently on VFRD a contributor named Chris did the same conversion and his initial results were very positive as well. http://www.vfrdiscussion.com/forum/i...howtopic=32021.

A couple of weeks ago I did this same conversion. I found an 05 R1 RR on ebay for $35 including shipping and proceeded to make up a wiring harness that would allow me to patch the R1 RR into my standard wiring harness connectors. This allowed me to make the conversion and carry my Honda RR as a spare. Should I have a problem, I could swap out on the side or the road very easily. After I wired everything up and before I taped over all the connectors, Tom Blooming (a fellow list member, VFR owner and electrical engineer) came over with some sophisticated test equipment and tested my entire electrical system. Stator output was great, the R1 RR was converting the ac to dc and was clipping the charge at just the right point. Everything looked great so I taped over my connectors, added a heat probe to the top of the RR (I use a Voltmeter from Radio Shack that is no longer available that has a secondary heat probe that was intended to measure outside temp. I put it on top
of the RR to watch its temp while measuring what the charging system is doing.) and went for a ride. At idle it charges about 13V and as rpms increase, charging goes up in a very linear fashion until it hits about 14.3 at 4,000 rpms and it stops there. For the first 20 miles of a 40 mile ride, at speed the charge was a rock solid 142 - 14.3 and the temp of the RR never got over 106F. Ambient temp was 58F. After the first 20 miles I hooked up my widder vest and ran it wide open for 20 miles and at speed the charging system showed 14.0-14.2 and the RR temp never reached 100F. I now have several hundred miles on the bike since the conversion and I am convinced this conversion is the answer to the continuuing saga of electrical woes on our beloved VFRs. Only time will tell but I am very encouraged at this point. It is also great to be able to run an electric vest without worrying that the vest was bringing the charging system down below an acceptable maintenance charge.
With the old Honda RR and my widder running wide open, the output to the battery dropped to about 12.7.

Incidentally, someone else on VFRD swapped his RR out for one from a Gixxer and was reporting 15V charge at speed. This may be unique to this guy's RR but I chose to go with the R1 RR rather than chance overcharging. YMMV.

Hope this helps some of you!

Cheers,
Vic




< rain-ride
and smell something like a bug caught in the radiator, you may want to
check your R/R connections.

http://dfsmith.net/vfr-connector.jpg>>



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"Honda RRs also do another weird thing.... they produce max charge at around 1800 rpms (13.9 or so) and then as rpms go up, dc output goes down to 13.2 or so at around 5,000 rpms. The exact #s seem to vary from RR to RR but this pattern is clearly present."

This is precisely what mine did when it went south. Replaced with a Honda CBR600RR unit in about 20 min - tested exactly to spec and never looked back since.


Rick
'99 VFR800 'Murphy'
Edmonton
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