VFR800 Custom/Aftermarket Rear Wheel Modification

Discussion in 'Mechanics Garage' started by Neo2122, May 27, 2018.

  1. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    Hello all!

    I made this thread originally over in VFRD but was told some of you guys may want in on it too so here it is!

    So I did this mod a couple years ago and I've absolutely loved it! I originally did it to my first vfr800 which was a silver 2003 non-abs model. I put about 17,000 miles on that bike with about 8,000 - 10,000 of those miles after I did this mod. Unfortunately I was in an accident and the bike got totaled. I skipped between a couple other bikes but eventually bought myself another vfr! My lovely white 2006 abs viffer I currently ride. I swapped the aftermarket rear wheel from my old bike onto the new one right away and I've put 3,000 miles on it since then!
    IMG_20180428_200612_073.jpg
    If done right this mod works amazingly! I trust my bike any distance on any road, from the city to highway, and even the mountains to the canyons! Rain or shine!

    When it comes down to performance, I've never noticed any less after the mod was done as compared to stock. With the new rim I went with and the wider tire, the rear wheel for me weighs about 3 pounds or so more than the stock one did, sure That may make an incremental difference to a very experienced track rider but these bikes aren't designed for track only use and they are far from the fastest bikes out there, so to me, the extra weight is well worth the look! And again all that being said I've never noticed any kind of performance loss, I've burned trough my chicken strips with easy and the bike seems to have all of the get up and go that it did before. So I definitely recommend this mod!

    Before doing this mod I referred to many of the other forums where people have discussed this. And I took a little bit from each of them to get it done. I still recommend reading through all of those as well as this one to get as much of an understanding of it as possible. The biggest problem for most people was finding a good rim that worked well with a motorcycle tire. I don't remember exactly what brands, but there are some brands that you definitely want to avoid and others that are very safe to use. I found that out from reading those other forums and hearing how some people struggled while others did not. This issue comes from the fact that you are using a car rim with a motorcycle tire and they aren't exactly designed for one another. That being said each rim manufacturer varies somewhat from one another so some rim work great while other not at all to mount the tire to.

    The rim brand I went with is NinjaWheels, and the exact rim I bought was the Ninja NJ11. My tire guy had to use a little extra elbow grease to get that tire on there but it went on without any problems and hasn't caused me a single issue since!

    Now the rim I bought was a 17"x7" rim with a 40mm offset. This offset was too large to fit center when mounted to the hub. So in order to correct the offset, a spacer was necessary. I took a spacer I already had and had it machined to fit my application. I drew up some specs for it in the picture below. Its a 20mm spacer with the 4x100mm holes drilled for the studs to go through and the center cut out in a way to maintain strength and cut weight. (This particular spacer also had 4x114.3mm holes drilled in it that are unnecessary).

    It may be worth noting that this 20mm spacer was required since the rim used was a 40mm offset. If you choose a different rim with a different offset, the spacer and stud length will need to be adjusted accordingly.

    IMG_20180527_191852648.jpg

    IMG_20180527_191858571.jpg
    IMG_20180527_193240936.jpg

    With the VFR, I wanted a good sport touring tire, and with the rim being a 7 inch wide rim, my options were limited. That being said I found an amazing tire (that I've bought again for the rear and the front) which is surprisingly, the Shinko Verge 011. Now yes, you dont got to tell me twice about the general perception of shinko's, I know that alot of them are just trash, BUT NOT THE 011 VERGE!!! Haha Since I was searching for a 200/50r17 tire, the Verge kept popping up as one of the few sport touring tires offered in this size, and after reading countless reviews almost entirely 5 star rating, I was sold enough to give it a shot. Now I've used dunlop Q3's and Pilot Road 4's before and they are both amazing tires, but the Verge is honestly just as good! It's a dual compound tire so it's center offers incredible longevity while the sides are very soft and sticky allowing for excellent cornering in the twisties! Plus it does absolutely amazing in the rain! And on top of all that, you just cannot beat its price point of ~$140!

    Lastly, since you are using a spacer for the rear rim you will need longer wheel studs to account for that. I went with ARP Extended Wheel Studs. Now I used 12.5*1.5 wheel studs that were 2.5 inches long but I ended up having the cut just a little bit off of the tips so that my lug nuts could secure all the way tight. If you can find 2 inch long wheel studs those would probably work, but for the peace of mind that you have as much threads in there making contact with the lug nuts, you can do what I did and just remove any extra as necessary with a hack saw.
    IMG_20180527_211814431_LL.jpg

    IMG_20180527_211719265_LL.jpg



    Also, With this specific rim, there was not enough space for normal lug nuts to fit so i bought a 4 pack of splined lug nuts with the special splined socket that came with it. These are slimmer in profile and fit into the lugnut holes into the rim perfectly. This may or may not be a problem for you depending if you bought the same brand rim as me.
    IMG_20180527_212151622.jpg
    IMG_20180527_211415584_LL.jpg

    One thing worth noting here is that the rear wheel studs are pressed in and will require you to take the hub (once its removed from the bike) to a shop where they can then use a hydraulic press to press out the old studs and press in the new ones. There are ways to do this at home but with this sort of thing I didn't want to risk messing up anything or damaging my hub, so I had a friend at a shop do it for me.

    After all of that the final thing you need is to slightly modify you chain guard by cutting off on small part of it so it will not rub on your rear wheel. The wheel will have about 1/4 inch of clearance between it and your swing arm when its all done and tight. The slight modification done to the chain guard can be seen in the picture below.
    IMG_20180527_211856246.jpg

    Summary List of Parts Used:

    Ninja NJ11 Rim, 17"x7" size, 40mm Offset, 4*100mm bolt pattern
    200/50r17 rear tire, Shinko Verge 011
    Custom made, 20mm thick, aluminum wheel spacer (as seen in pictures above)
    Extend ARP Wheel Studs, 12.5*1.5, 2.5 inches long (with some of the tip of the bolts removed for secure fit)
    Slight modification to the chain guard (to eliminate any wheel rubbing)

    IMG_20180326_225458_687.jpg

    The exact process of doing this mod consists of:

    1) With the bike on its center stand and in first gear (and possibly with the help of a friend holding the rear brake) brake loose the large hub nut on the left hand side of the swing arm

    2) Remove the rear wheel and real break caliper

    3) Remove the large hub nut on the left hand side of the bike

    4) Loosen the chain bolt and then put all of the slack in the chain

    5) Pull the chain off of the rear sprocket and let it hang down onto the ground

    6) Pull off the left hand side of the rear hub assembly (the big bowl like piece the sprocket is bolted to)

    7) Slide out the rear axle/hub out the right side of the swing arm

    8) Replace the wheel studs as described above

    9) Reassemble in reverse order of the steps described above with the new wheel
     
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  2. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    And here's Just a bunch of pics of the bike with the wheel! Please wheel free to ask any questions or comment below! IMG_20180527_212905120.jpg IMG_20180527_212908862.jpg IMG_20180527_212901276.jpg IMG_20180327_133230_116.jpg IMG_20180410_200912_213.jpg IMG_20180520_191621_373.jpg IMG_20180521_123805_986.jpg IMG_20180523_180411_893.jpg
     
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  3. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    Last edited: May 27, 2018
  4. Trakrat

    Trakrat New Member

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    Great info to have! Thanks for sharing! I'm actually interested in the exhaust mod you have. Is that a cut out of the stock cans or just removal of the baffles?
     
  5. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    what did that cost ??:eek:
     
  6. sfdownhill

    sfdownhill New Member

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    Pretty slick hoop
     
  7. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    Trakrat likes this.
  8. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    The cost of this mod was cheaper than buying another stock rear rim haha thats why I did it in the first place, but if I remember right it was about:
    ~$100 for the rim
    ~$140 for the tire
    ~$20 for mount and balance of tire (local motorcycle shop is awesome!)
    ~$35 for the ARP extended studs
    ~$20 for the spacer (although the spacer may be more or less based on how you get it or who makes it for you, since it may need to be machined)
    ~$0 for getting the studs pressed in and out for me, since I have a buddy that works in a shop, this may cost $10-$40 if I had to guess from any local shop to do
    ~$20 for set of 4 splined lug nuts with splined socket tool

    So in total about $335 including the price of the tire plus maybe a little more if you have to pay someone to press in your studs, and this is just a best guess, I did all this 2 and a half years ago so my memory may be foggy or prices may have changed. But hope this helps!
     
  9. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    sometimes, with all those changes and re-engineered.......... things can happen, so you'll need to re-check the torque on the lugnuts periodically for safety.

    If the wheel was made in China, best of luck and have it crack-tested anytime you hit a big pothole. :Gossip:
     
    Last edited: May 28, 2018
  10. NorcalBoy

    NorcalBoy Member

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    I've always looked at it this way, if you trust your shit, it's nobody's business but yours. It doesn't have to pass tech for MotoAmerica, it just has to pass the hospital, lol. It has been tested with 10's of thousands of miles. My guess is that the bugs are worked out. I would be interested to see it GMD Computrack'd.
     
  11. squirrelman

    squirrelman Member

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    so you guess maybe there's a possibility the front and rear wheels might not line up precisely ?????
     
  12. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    The rear wheel is lined dead center, I made absolute sure of that when making the spacer and correcting the offset, and this rear wheel and tire have been on two different vfr's now with a sum total of about 11-13 thousand miles on them with zero issues.

    Also my first vfr was in a rather nasty wreck completely totaling the bike, the rear end made it out pretty well tho and after a thorough inspection, I put it on my new vfr, I've had 3 thousand happy problem free miles so far on it since then, 1,300 of which consisted of a 3 day road trip, up to the black hills, through the canyons, and back. I very much trust the quality of this rim and this tire under any circumstance I could put it through. You can think what ever you like like but you're not the one who's put the miles on it like I have...;)

    And any time you re-mount your rear wheel, you always want to check your lug nut torque at least a couple more times some time following the initial installation, just to be sure the torque values are still met, that's just common sense, same rule applies for any car or truck. And this rim isn't some cheap china knock off, trust me I looked into that before buying.
     
  13. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    Just a refresher for you guys, I did this mod initially about two and a half years ago and I've put down 11,000-13,000 miles on it. It already has stood the test of time, and has been used frequently in the city, on the highway and interstate, and in the mountains and canyons. I trust it every single bit as much as the stock wheel and I don't intend on ever going back to stock. This wheel is here to stay and that's no gamble, cause I'm certain of its capabilities.
     
  14. Samuel

    Samuel Member

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    Looks pretty cool! Confirming you installed a motorcycle tire on a car wheel? Would that be like reverse darksiding or ? :D

    DaHose linked an article http://goldwingdocs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=15560#p80927 on the anyone darksiding thread. Seems like the differences in tire bead/wheel design/construction has been a non-issue for you?
     
  15. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    Yes I did
     
  16. Neo2122

    Neo2122 New Member

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    And yes it has been a non issue, I am very very very familiar with the whole "car rim/motorcycle tire" debacle. This can be a really big deal or hardly any trouble at all. Just depends on the brand of rim you buy, each brand varies ever so slightly. I've read up on some that absolutely couldn't even hold a bead and then there's others, like the one I used, which require just a tad more elbow grease to install, but after that are as good as any other rim/tire combo. Main point being, if you're going to do this mod, do your research, see what brands worked for other people and what brands did not, and then buy. This brand, NinjaWheels, offers 12 different rim designs each of which comes in 2 to 3 paint schemes, worth a look see!
     
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