1994 RVF400R Build Project

Thing sounds snappy as shit to me. And settles down perfectly into idle. I would be doing happy dances.

 

I couldn't figure out what the other guy was even talking about A little dyno time will make sure it's absolutely perfect, but for right now, it's pretty decent right out of the box. Plenty good enough to ride, the dyno will just be a confirmation and I'm sure Evan will let me know after it does a couple pulls. I have to swing by and see them Tuesday, they got a hat set aside for me, lol. Hoping the short week doesn't dick up my brake part delivery.

The carbon fender was a pretty nice disappointment, typical carbon bullshit...you think I would have learned by now. Can't help myself, lol. Mr. Tromble will work his usual magic on the oem piece and that will solve that issue. I have a carbon inner panel, I hope it doesn't take a bunch of effing around to get it to fit, I really want to use it. I have some other carbon pieces, but I've already checked them out and they won't be a problem to get mounted.

 

Always a little pucker factor after you put something back together. Congrats, you did your due diligence. Nice to see it coming back together and back to life. And, as usual, a great job of posting your progress. Bet you can’t wait to go for that first ride.

 

It's in the back of your mind the entire time. You just have to trust that you took your time and didn't miss anything.

I have disassembled plenty of carbs over time, but this was my first set of V4 carbs. I had read the countless horror stories and been warned "don't separate the carbs", which made absolutely no sense to me, somebody had to put them together in the first place....but then again, I didn't have any personal experience. It was really the only thing I had any apprehension towards, but I knew I had put more effort into those carbs than anything else. It was a good feeling when the efforts were validated with a little success.

Just waiting on a few brake parts to finish up the mechanical stuff and assembling the fuel tank bits and the plastics were pretty much done last week. I could have taken a few of the pieces, but I just decided to wait until they had finished everything. Gonna go over to the shop this morning and talk to them about getting it into the dyno scheduling que. Maybe next week we can do a few pulls to confirm everything with the jetting and the ignition timing, they have already double checked the cam and valve settings I did before I put it back in the frame. It will feel pretty good to let out the clutch and do a little putt up the street.

 

Today was a really good day, the last of the outstanding bits and pieces arrived.

Started the day hanging out with my fabrication guru, Robb at EFabEx, here in Tucson. I had decided to switch from the nasty stock front master cylinder reservoir to something more fitting. I decided to use the Brembo smoke res from the RCS17, and just like everything else, it was not a straight bolt up. Robb drew up a little program for his Haas CNC machine and got to work setting it up to mill a new res mount from 1/8" 7075 aluminum.

Getting the X, Y, Z axis setup



Material chucked up and ready to make chips



Press the go button and the machine gets the heck after it



literally 30 seconds later, the piece is done and this is what's left



Robb manually put the bends in the right places and machined a trick little shim to replace the Brembo washer setup. Brembo on Top, OEM Honda in the center, and Robb's trick piece on the bottom



He also helped me out with the rear brake line guide that mounts to the pinch bolt. I had purchased a new one, but it fell apart the first time I tried to install it. Robb did a quick tig braze to make sure this one wasn't going to blow up. I'll give it a couple coats of engine enamel tomorrow and finish that up and get it installed.



Robb is pretty amazing, and quick....took him about 30 minutes to do the whole job. Great guy, and a gearhead to the extreme. I expect to see quite a bit of Robb, as we've become quick friends and I dig hanging out with him. Very interesting guy and super chill. Hanging out with him is like two 50+ year olds, acting like we're 15. He is retired and basically just does whatever he wants, and it's 99% custom bike and race car stuff. Always has something crazy going on.

The biggest thing was my painter Don Tromble gave me a shout this morning and told me to come pick up the tank and bodywork. He had already prepped the OEM fender and had a couple coats of the matching white sprayed down and that should be done next week. He really did an amazing job reconstructing all of the broken bits and pieces, applying the decal set and the paint with clear coat. The graphics look almost sublimated into the plastic. So much nicer than the "other Asian country" mess that was hanging on the machine when it got delivered.



It really is a top notch job. Couldn't be more pleased. Got home and fit up the new Tyga single seat cowl, just to have a look and to get my blood pumping to finish up the project.



The hand work on the rear number plates is fantastic. I let Don do his own design and didn't go with what I had seen in other photo's on the Tyga site and elsewhere on the web. Glad I left him alone and just let him do his thing. Have a bump pad that needs to get stuck, but I'll do that as one of the last things.

Mocked up the hybrid OEM/aftermarket front res assembly. The PSR shorty roll and click lever had shown up during the day when I was out. My man Cass at Mussleman's Honda Center called me and told me all of the rebuild parts and hardware had arrived this afternoon. Really quick delivery...as I ordered the stuff last Thursday. Ordering from other suppliers would have taken 2-3 weeks of waiting. I'm really glad to have a business relationship going with these folks now, it's really going to pay off in the future.



I think that setup is going to work out pretty decent, at least until I decide to buy some longer clip ons, cables, and brake lines, so I can mount the Brembo RCS radial master. It will probably be awhile before I screw around with that.

The bike should be done in the next day, or so, depending on how it goes. It is scheduled to be on the dyno next week when Evan Steele gets back from his crew chief duties at the MotoAmerica race at Road America this weekend. He gets back to the shop on Tuesday, so I want to have it ready for when he calls me up. Getting so close I can almost taste the victory....but I won't put my guns down until the last round is fired.

 

Knowing a good machinist is gold.

 

So much awesomeness. Nice little details. I wish I could see it in person.

Great job. And knowing a good machinist that gets excited as you is awesome.

 

Made some decent progress yesterday

Front master refurbishing kit was retrieved from the Musselman's Honda folks.



Got the tools out and got the body assembled





Added all the bits and bobs to make it a complete assembly



Now that is a little more along the lines of what I was expecting as being acceptable. Ti hardware from ProBolt, Brembo smoke master cylinder, PSR Roll and Click shorty brake lever, with the Robb Kerr custom res mount.

Got it all in place and got the brake lines oriented. I had figured I would need to do a little "adjustment" on the res mount to get it to sit nice, but it was nothing a soft jawed vice and smooth jawed channel lock's couldn't deal with.



In future photos it will become obvious as to why the res mount needs to be so long...it's all about the clearance, Clarence.

Got the brake bleeding completed. Had to press the "from another Asian country" front fender into service, as the OEM fender is still in the painting process. Did a little bit of rotary tool massaging and got it fitting nicely. OEM style ti mounting bolts from Titan Classics UK, P Clamps and etched aluminum hardware from ProBolt. Much cleaner than the original Honda mounting style. This was a test of my idea, I will be using it on the OEM fender when it comes back from paint.



Next up, it was time to suck it up and start dealing with getting the tank, front, and seat cowls assembled. I was a little apprehensive, due to the use of the aftermarket aluminum meter stay and upper cowl stay. This stuff generally requires a little bit of adjusting to get everything to fit. after a couple hours of test fitting and alignment of all the bits, I finally got the front cowl in place.

Rick Oliver aluminum upper cowl stay, powdercoated glacier white to match the tank and the meter stay



Everything aligned like it should be



New repro mirrors attached, wiring all connected, just need to install the new turn indicators



Spent the rest of the day working on the tank assembly and fitting of the fuel line with dry break disconnect, vent and overflow hoses and confirming the placement and mounting of the new tank rubbers. There are some carbon trim pieces that had to be massaged to fit right. Finally got everything massaged and fitting like it should, just need to wrap up the little details. I'll get to work on that this morning and hopefully I can have this thing wrapped up this afternoon.

 

Tasty!!!

 

Wheelie pics please!

 

Need extra large bag for this!!!! Hurry up - we are waiting - LOL

 

Gourmet!

Very nice work.

 

Do you have the details of the dry break?

 

Motion Pro:

https://www.motionpro.com/product/12-0038

They are made by another company, but can't recall the name off the top of my head. The manufactuer does them in metal, but they are 5x the cost.

It's not a "dry break" for the filler neck, ala Baja 1000. I prolly should have called it something different, lol. It's a double shut off, quick disconnect for the fuel line to the carbs to make future maintenance easier, Put it in because I knew it was very tight under the tank, and also, dyno tuning was coming and wanted to be able to easily extract the tank if necessary for a jetting change, or needle shimming. I have the same setup on my aux bottle so it just plugs into that easily, as well.

 

Taking a little break to grab something to eat and sit down for a minute. A couple photos of progress. I'll post up some more detailed stuff later. It took a metric fuckton of work to get the upper cowl, wind screen, mirrors, and the carbon pieces installed and aligned so it wasn't stressed. Glad it's over. Hopefully it will all settle in over time and it won't be such a pain next time...still have the lowers to go tonight, really could use a break and have that stuff clear the rads without too much monkey humpin'

 

Shut down the garage for the night. Time for some MotoGP from Mugello and put my feet up, lol. I'll do a more though update tomorrow



Fingers crossed the last few pieces bolt up without too many tears, lol.

 

A few quick photos from yesterdays mud wrestling

The RVF has a faux ram air system. Air from the upper cowl is ducted into a cover mounted on the front of the tank. It doesn't dump air directly in the air box, more for the aesthetic than being actually functional. The ducts and the front tank cover were switched out from the OEM plastic to Tyga Performance carbon pieces. This was going to be a war, as carbon is incredibly rigid and unforgiving, thus, no flexibility in installation, it just has to fit, you can't tweak it at all.

Fit the front tank cover and did some massaging and got it fitting like it should. Not too bad. Installed some helicopter tape on the inside edge of the cover, didn't want it roughing up the paint on the tank.



Peeled off the rubber trim from the OEM tank cover and went about gluing in on to the carbon piece



Got the cowl roughed in, indicators installed and wired up, and checked all the functions of the lighting...everything OK.



Got a call from my painter telling me he had knocked out the fender. Jumped in the Taco' and headed over to grab it.

Went with white to break up all the red on the front. Had Don add an HRC graphic to the front before clear coating.



Got it mounted up



Installed the P-clips and got the brake lines finalized



It's going to need the side panels to pull it all together. Continued working on the carbon ducts. After a lot of adjusting and tweaking of the meter and upper cowl stay, finally got everything adjusted so that all of the attaching pieces fit together and weren't stressed and jammed together. I knew this was going to be a bit of an exercise as the stays were aftermarket pieces, just like the duct and tank cover. Had to do a little work to get the mirror bolts shortened up enough to fit the ducts in and fitting nicely.

I feel the look was worth the effort, it looks pretty decent, and the front res mount worked out good and there is no contact from lock to lock.



Had to remove everything and mount up the new double bubble windscreen. Two of the screen bolts had to be cut down and cleaned up, after being installed to work with the air ducts.

After about 4 hours of fitting and massaging, everything fit together like it should and nothing was rubbing. This means that everything can be easily disassembled, should any maintenance ever be required down the road. I'm only hoping that it all ties together with the mid and lower fairing pieces. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, as it was the first time for all of the mounts and all the pieces and mounts need to be adjusted and set. Do it once and that's the end of it.



Installed the rear taillight assembly and mounted the OEM foam matting to the inside of the rear seat cowl



Got it all connected up and fitting like it should, installed the seat and got that part done.



I had pre-fit this piece before paint, so all of the monkey humping was done earlier, didn't want to be massaging newly painted pieces.

Mocked up the mid panels to get an idea of how much pain I was in for to finish mounting the bodywork





Called it a day. Back at it tomorrow.

 

Now that's just looking excellent..

Remarkably I'm in almost exactly the same position with mine - LOL