1994 RVF400R Build Project

When I was doing the initial tear down and removed the swingarm, I heard something rattling inside, shook it on end, and out popped a 14 mm deep socket....no idea how long it had been shot peening the inside of the swingarm, but some dude in Tokyo is prolly still lookin' for it.

 

When I went to reinstall the chain, ran into some issues that I didn't exactly like.....the monkeys had installed a 42 tooth rear sprocket on it when they did the 520 conversion install, stock is a 38. Pretty sure they ordered a kit for an NSR250, which shares the same rear sprocket dimensions, just much lower gearing. Been thinking about it since yesterday and I couldn't leave it that way, the wheel was all jacked up and jammed as far forward as possible, which also dicks up the ride height. Had a hell of a time getting the chain pulled together, just to get the rivet link in place. Everything those guys touched has been a complete joke.

So, tonight I split the difference and ordered a 40. I figure the 40 will be a little lower gearing to help acceleration, but not so crazy that it will be revving out in top gear on the highway. So it looks like I'll be tearing into the sprocket again, luckily it can be swapped without pulling the hub...might be a bitch to get the old one out, but it has to happen. I just couldn't leave it like that, especially after coming this far.

 

I think we agreed on 1 of the 24's.... lol Hopefully I can get the Rothmans version up this year.

 

This go's to show that so little is known about these bikes in the US.. - (the V4 400's) I would love to have seen your face at that point however, It just shows the lack of knowledge that some experts have - EVEN WHEN YOU GIVE THEM THE MANUAL !!!

 

They don’t have the vision in their head of what you are creating. Your bike, your choices. That is what will make this build a one of a kind.

I knew you wouldn’t leave the chain alone. Never expected the wrong sprocket. You are doing the right thing. Get the rpm closer to what Honda intended.
Can’t wait to see her dressed. Wait, can’t believe I said that.

 

Hahahahahahaha, it's funny that would only apply to moto's....

It was in the back of my head wearing on me, but I needed to get the chain riveted together so that the project could keep moving, I was careful to make sure the sprocket could be removed without tearing the hub apart, otherwise I would have just stopped. To get it off, I'll probably end up taking what little slack is available and unbolting the sprocket off the hub with the chain on it, it is so tight, you can't spin the chain off the sprocket. Gonna work on that today and get it ready, the sprocket will be here Monday or Tuesday.

Ordered the last two items I needed this morning, reproduction OEM mirrors and bar ends, now it's just sit and wait time again. Need to start a rat hole account now to get myself a 5g down the road, have some ideas for doing something with one of those....

 

Probably using a Haynes manual....where they actually show you how to adjust the chain by pounding on the eccentric adjusting ring with a punch and hammer . I have learned a lot about this machine, some of it easily, some of it bludgeoning me in the head. Whether or not you have a manual, if you're too fucking stoopid to use basic common sense, nothing is gonna help you.

 

When I see jugs of oil I know your close, fun times soon.

 

The oil, coolant, and rear brake fluid are in their proper places, just been using a flashlight and an inspection mirror to keep an eye on the nooks and crannies for signs of weeps or drips. So far, everything is bone dry. Initially that's good, but the real test will be once the engine heat cycles a couple times and the fluids all get topped off.

Yanked the 42 tooth sprocket off, 40T will be going on Tuesday. Noticed the side stand just barely touches part of the exhaust when it's up, so I have a simple solution for that and I'm just waiting for a little bit of material to arrive to resolve that. Don't want it rattling around on the cerakote.



Just doing some fine tuning after the initial assembly, pulled the meter stay back off and did some massaging of the mounting holes to allow a little bit of adjustment in case it needs to move a bit to get the upper cowl and midpanels aligned correctly. Going to meet with my CNC guy to discuss a new rear brake clevis, with the Tyga rear sets and the shortish rod for the rear master cylinder, might need a bit more length in the clevis to get the brake pedal height where I like it. The new repro mirrors shipped from the UK and the bar ends are on the way, other than that, it's the waiting game for the forks and the bodywork.

 

why no brake line through swinger ?

 

Makes maintenance a bitch. Taking the entire brake system apart to lube the swingarm pivot isn't my idea of a good idea. I'll just leave it at that.

 

Because I'm in a little bit of a lull waiting for parts (the story of this project) I decided to address a couple more of the details that I wanted to clean up.

As I mentioned above, the Tyga rear set and stock master rod didn't exactly play well with each other when it came to adjustability.

Problem of clevis maxed out on adjustment



As you can see, there aren't a lot of threads engaged with the clevis. I didn't want to have an issue with this down the road where the rod could potentially strip out of the clevis, necessitating another rod assembly to be purchased and installed.

That was one of the issues, the other was this



That was the maximum pedal height that could be attained with the current setup....definitely too steep and reaching for that all the time would require effort and thought while hustling. No can do, Batman. Needs to be exactly where your foot would be able to operate it naturally and easily. No thinking, just an extension of the foot.

So, off I went to meet up with a local machinist that I have gotten to know in the last week, Mr. Robb Kerr of EFabEx here in town. I was referred to Robb by Nils at Restocycle. Spent about 3 hours hanging out with him the first time I went to his shop. Unbelievably talented fabricator, with an emphasis on race motos and cars. Does a lot of work for MotoAmerica teams and high end car racing teams. He has a couple Haas CNC machines, as well as a full machine shop.

I brought the old OEM clevis and explained what I needed. He went through his material stock and pulled out a 1' length of Nitronic 50 stainless round bar and told me this is what he was going to use as the material. We sat down at his computer and he did a rough design of a new clevis for me, that I think will fit nice with the overall theme of the machine. It couldn't be aluminum, due to how thin the material had to be to fit the Tyga attachment pin. Told Robb, go ahead, mill it up, you know what I'm looking for, I'm leaving it up to you. So I settled on 1/2" longer overall, with more substantial depth of threads at the top. This will solve my adjustment problem and I think it will look pretty decent when he's done with it. Put it this way, the guys personal moto is a Custom CBX with Ducati 1098 SSSA, tail section, Ohlins shock and Ohlins superbike fork front end, he makes all his own parts. Good enough for me.

When I got back to the garage, I was looking at the mismatched sprockets and chain and decided I was just gonna rip it all out and save it as spares, just in case. Got on the SprocketCenter website and ordered a new JT Race 520, 15T, rubber damped countershaft sprocket and a new DID ERV3 520 gold race chain to go with the JT Race 520 ultralight rear sprocket I already ordered. I just couldn't stand having that crap on there after the whole 42T rear sprocket debacle from earlier in the week, replacing all of it. Basically, I didn't want a single legacy piece left from the work that was done before they shipped the bike.

I also spoke with my painter this morning and he's finished all the paint, applied all of the decals, and he was shooting the first coats of clear today, so that stuff will all be done real soon. Haven't seen it yet, but I will just let him do his thing and he'll call me when it's done. I'm sure it's very good.

 

I cannot wait to see the bike all in 'one piece' let alone how you must feel, it will look fab I reckon

 

Thanks for taking a look, and yes, I will be pretty stoked when it's in one piece and I can actually ride it. When you get to the assembly point and you're working with non standard parts, you have to mud wrestle around a bit, just to make sure it's all going to fit right and everything is going to function correctly. Then you're taking it back apart, so that you can fine tune the detail bits and pieces and get it absolutely right. It can seem like you're not making any progress at times, but you have to have the patience to get it right the first time. It won't be too long now. Already thinking about what the next one could be.

 

You've gone to extreme lenghts to make this bike the best it can be and I tip my hat to you.
The expense would be huge, so why haven't you gone to carbon wheels?
Not a criticism, just a questiuon as it would make a huge difference to acceleration and handling.

 

Still waiting on the chain and sprockets to show up, should all be here by Thursday. Would be nice to hear from the painter and the suspension folks too, but I'm not holding out much hope for the forks, bodywork?, not beyond the realm of possibility for this week.

Still working on the very minute details necessary to a strong completion. As documented, the radiators required a little bit of finessing to mount up nice. After mounting the top rad, I realized that my solution wasn't 100% spot on.

On the upper rad, at the lower left mount, I went with a bushing and through bolt, initially



I noticed that when I did this, it fixed the radiator in a rigid state, as I had taken all of the give out of the rubber grommet. So I knew I would have to fix that, or run the risk of putting too much stress into the radiator. So I went to see Robb Kerr at EFabEx and explained the situation. No problem! he spun up a pin on the lathe to the same diameter as the stock mount.



The pin was interference fit into the new mount, just like the OEM mount. Then Robb TIG welded the backside of the pin to the mount itself, just to make it bulletproof.



I had the pin made a little longer, just to give a little bit more room for the rad to move. Now the radiator is actually suspended on the rubber grommet and not rigidly mounted. Just like it should be.



That's one of the last, not exactly right things, that needed to be handled. Rear sprocket showed up while I was typing this...so off to install that....

 

Great move - you could have asked to put a slot in non grommet end. This would then allow you as much adjustment as you need and also mean if you have to move it you can..

 

There is no adjustment, it either fits, or it doesn't. It can't go backwards, if you look at yours you will see what I'm talking about. The only direction it can go is forward....closer to the fairing I'm needing to clear, and I certainly don't want it going backwards into the valve cover, as that is what caused the whole clearance issue in the first place. If I had thought there would have been a benefit to doing it, I would have done it. I am pretty confident it's right in it's happy place, but that has yet to be proven definitively.

 

Received some good news on Tuesday, Tige from FastBike Industries sent over some pics to update me that the upper tubes and axle carriers had been treated in SoCal and were on their way back to the shop for the assembly process.

The upper tubes were anodized with a new process that supposedly makes them more resistant to scratches. The upper tubes in gloss black.



Axle carriers done up in matte black



Came across some interesting things when I started looking into why the chain seemed to be a little close to the exhaust where it passed under the swingarm. Failing on my proper due diligence, during the initial install of the chain and sprockets, I found a little laundry list of fix it items.

The chain to exhaust clearance issue was easy to figure out... all due to the rear sprocket being 4 teeth larger than the OEM size of 38T. With the countershaft sprocket cover in place, I couldn't readily check the tooth count, so I removed that and counted up the teeth, +1 over stock. I had requested a stock ratio, 520, chain kit be installed by the folks I bought the moto from before they shipped it, of course, knowing what I know now about their craftsmanship, bad move on my part. This became even more evident when I pulled the countershaft sprocket off....

I had replaced the bolt with new OEM, but the washer wasn't available from Honda, discontinued. When I pulled it off to do the soda blasting I just pulled the sprocket and washer off as a unit and set it on the shelf....what I had failed to notice, was their idea of "fixing" an issue with the width of the 520 sprocket on the shaft. The 520 sprocket is about 1.4 mm narrower than the 525, so when you tighten the standard washer and bolt...the washer doesn't seat on the sprocket. This allows the sprocket to slide around on the splines, as the bolt is only tight to the end of the output shaft.

This is when I had the facepalm moment and realized what had happened. When I removed the counter sprocket bolt and washer, this detached itself from the back of the washer



I couldn't believe it, they had used an electrical box knockout reducing washer, behind the OEM washer to make up the 1.4 mm discrepancy. I was mostly pissed at myself for not seeing this before I reinstalled it, but I was also befuddled by the fact that somebody would do this and think it was a viable fix. I didn't see it, because it was smashed into the concave side of the washer, making them both one piece. So not only was the sprocket bigger, putting the chain a little too close to the cases for my tastes, but they had done this.

The old setup, after a more thorough inspection on my part.





I received a new 520 chain and sprocket from Sprocket Center, to go with the new 40T rear sprocket I purchased earlier from another source



The ERV3 is my chain of choice on all my moto's. Currently, this is the lightest and strongest 520 x-ring chain technology available, capable of handling up to a 1000cc. A bigger chain isn't necessary, unless you happen to be one of those folks that goes strictly by the book, no matter what. To each his own, but if you want to just give away free HP and add friction and weight, and wear and tear on your drive train, knock yourself out, I won't judge. None of my damn business.

I ordered a 520 JT Sprocket, 15T, for the front. I ordered the rubber damped version. Sprocket Center sent a different make of sprocket with a note telling me these sprockets were the latest and greatest, and superior to the JT. Alright, lemme do some research...

https://www.ognibenechaintech.com/en/prodotti/6/ingranaggi-OE.html

Looks good to me, great, I'll give it a go. The quality of the sprocket, just by visually inspecting, appeared to be pretty decent. However, the width was still 1.3 mm narrower than the 525. I was expecting it this time.....



Grabbed all of the bits and headed over to my good friend at EFabEx for a little time in the machine shop. Robb took one look at all of the bits, took a couple measurements and went to work making Nitronic 50 stainless chips on the lathe.

About 20 minutes later, he handed me back this. Now we are talking



A one piece stepped washer to attach the sprocket correctly on the shaft. Cut the chain, pressed on the link, got it adjusted, torqued up the bolt



I am really surprised at just how smooth everything spins. It's very quiet and has a very low level of friction, and the chain to case clearance is at a comfortable distance. Now I'm happy. Add it to the list of reasons I should have never let those monkeys touch it.

Buttoned everything up and finished up by addressing a small detail. The Tyga system is a left exit, which means it crosses under the swingarm, I noticed earlier that the sidestand just barely made contact with the exhaust, when in the full up position. Couldn't have that. So I put my thinking cap on and came up with a nice simple solution.

I used a stainless zip tie from Heatshield Products, left over from when I wrapped my 6g exhaust many moons ago, and I ordered some 3/16" industrial grade silicone tubing that is good to 500* F and and made up a tidy little bumper



Tested it out, works perfect....another successful application of the two basic principles of problem solving, 1.) KISS, and 2.) Smarter Not Harder.



Robb at EFabEx said he was shooting to finish up the new extended brake clevis for today, so maybe this afternoon I can wrap up the last of the minute details with the rear brake master cylinder.

 

that's interesting