5th Gen Movistar Project - Small update 28-May

As much as I love Honda's styling ideas I always thought the Viffer needed some more colour.
Painting the original fairings would have been quite expensive, allowing no room for error and leaving me without any spare panels should the worst happen.

For the price of 1 Honda side panel.. I picked up a pre-painted and stickered full set of ABS plastics from china. Rather than eBay I found them to be cheaper on DHGate.com, which is a very similar website to ebay but featuring only chinese businesses and mostly bulk/wholesale items.

Paid about $340 AUD including delivery, 4 weeks to get here from China.

Panels were packed very securely and wrapped in many layers of foam, with a wooden frame around the box to prevent it from being crushed.. zero shipping damage resulted.
Paint is excellent albeit a tiny bit purple in comparison to Honda's factory blue, but this could also be due to 12 years of weathering.. so can't complain
The shape of each panel is spot on, almost exact replica of the originals.. only problem is there was no touch up AFTER painting so every hole was a bit clogged with paint.
A quick cleanout with just a flathead screwdriver was enough, then transferring the rubber/brass threaded inserts from the old panels to new and reassembled.

It took me about 4 hours total to do the rear panel around the seat, and both main side fairings + the separator behind the front wheel, and the front fender. Not much worse than refitting the originals
I have not attempted to do the front headlight/windscreen cowl yet as that requires much more disassembly and I'd like to have at least a few days of spare time before attempting that as I suspect it will be much more difficult and this bike is my only means of transport to uni.

Now I have more incentive to keep it clean too.


Also shown here is a new set of front brake discs, as the previous ones were just on their service limit after 12 years I figured I should add some newies.
I am the kind of person who relies mostly on my engine for braking and so the brakes themselves will very rarely take a beating, and even a mild one at that. Thus the decision to get cheap ones was made easy.
After receiving them, comparing to the originals the build quality is rather impressive and then testing them out on the street I've gotta say they work SO much better than before. Only 1 finger on the brake lever and it still feels like I'm about to lose the rear (almost.. but not quite).

Plus being stainless steel their tolerance for heat is amazing, as during the first few days with oversized pads the brakes were dragging a little and heating up a fair bit. The rear (standard cast iron) disc turned purple after the first heavy test ride while the fronts never broke a sweat. Despite melting the tip of my glove when i tested to see if they actually were as hot as the rear... [image: Posted Image]

Looks fantastic too [image: Posted Image]

If anyone wants me to I might add some detail about the blueish headlight shown here [image: Posted Image]
Which may or may not be an 8000k 35w Xenon HID with angle adjustment via a solenoid for high/low beam

btw first post [image: Posted Image].. been lurking on and off for a long time though

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looks really good... have you got pix of the spread of light from the HID, there's a bit of a discussion going on over here:
http://www.vfrdiscus...ts/#entry829130

They are just the plug-n-play variant rather than projector, but the spread is quite good.
From directly infront you can crouch down to level with the light and still look directly at it with no problem.. much easier on the eyes than the originals. Crouching below that however and you lose all vision and begin cursing at the pain :P

Have had the HIDs in for a couple of months now and never had a complaint from oncoming traffic.
I'll take pics and upload tonight sometime if I get around to it

Hey, I think I have seen this color scheme somewhere before on a 6th Gen. Wait, my signature picture. You sir have a unique and good looking 5th Gen.

Welcome to the forum DC.
Good to see another 5thGen and you won't be that hard to spot either.

See ya on the road mate.

Not the best photo here showing the light spread but the driveway was full of cars and the garage was the only flat ground I could use.
As you can see its the standard spread that the original headlight has, and sitting directly infront of it after its warmed up the camera doesn't even try to dim that much so the glare to oncoming traffic is much less than it used to be.

As mentioned in the other thread about HID plug-n-play's the headlight reflector allows some light above the horizontal to light up road signs, and the bluish colour of these lights up the signs waaay more than ~3600k yellow stock lights.

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Will be interesting to read how the front panels fit/line up.  Till now, I have only read horror stories with regards to these chinese kits, so it sounds like they too read VFRD and improve their product! :tour:

Looks good and Welcome!!!

tell me more about the hid! what brand are they? I havent found any with a solenoid hi/lo system that would fit. I am crazy curious about this now, having just this week resigned my self to slightly disappointing lights on my 5th gen

Generic eBay 55w H4 kit.. didn't have a brand name. I have the relay under the right hand side fairings, and both ballasts underneath the front of the tank.

The shape of the shield on the light makes the beam point straight ahead during normal use, while the high beam switch activates the solenoid which just pulls the bulb back in its housing allowing light through a hole at the bottom onto the lower reflector and thus angling the beam higher. Quite a cheap/simple design yet very effective.
Only problem I came across was the standard Honda lights weren't actually H4 (despite H4 being imprinted on the lense) and I had to bend the tabs back and make it fit

Had a bit more of a play around recently, and figured I'd take some more pics while she's nice and clean.

Changes since before include:
Dubious Chinese gold anodized brake/clutch levers, with adjustable length and fold up in the event of a drop.
Dubious Chinese carbon fibre mirrors, without indicators though as I (unlike most it seems) actually like the dumbo ears.
Gold bar ends to match the levers.

Many things are still on the to-do list, and I'm currently searching for a decent white rear wheel as the next upgrade.. see here for details on that:
http://www.vfrdiscus...el/page__st__30

Will need to make the front white to match, but haven't decided yet if powder coating or just finding a white VFR rim would be easier, as time is something I have plenty of right now.

I was also considering replacing the windscreen with a proper ZG-DB if I can find a cheap one, or just cut the current one down as its way too high for my likings..


Later on down the track will be the more difficult stuff, such as front end swap as seen elsewhere on the forums,
Ducati 848/1098/1198 tail conversion which I've done a quick to-scale mockup with random stock photos I found on google
and perhaps a Koso RX-2 dash with the inner fairings trimmed down a bit.

Basically the overall goal is to modernize it and give it a more sporty feel while still retaining the original character and bulletproof engine.

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Looks great. I like solid color bikes and bikes that look more racy-ish.  I am curious about the tail conversion, especially if it can be somewhat pliug and play. Unlike most here, I am not a natural machinist/welder/fabricator. So I need as much plug and play as possible.

Nice write-up DC. I've been considering DHGate.com body panels (recommended by Timmy). I pretty much destroyed all my body work at T-mac. Your experience with them is very encouraging. Thanks.
BTW: nice looking machine.

If you're going with a more angular tail, consider swapping the fual tank to a 6th gen item. It's also more angular, and might help lead the fairing back into the tailsection a bit more???

The 5th gen's bodywork is a little soft looking, especially compared to anything post-2000.

[image: View Post]Veefer800Canuck, on 29 May 2012 - 12:45 AM, said:

If you're going with a more angular tail, consider swapping the fual tank to a 6th gen item. It's also more angular, and might help lead the fairing back into the tailsection a bit more???

The 5th gen's bodywork is a little soft looking, especially compared to anything post-2000.

If you look carefully at the crappy photoshop job you'll see that's a VTEC tank, and I agree it does suit a lot better.
Also the front forks/wheel in that picture is VTEC too, which would be the cheapest and easiest swap to do considering it isn't intended for a race track.. Could keep my current brakes too

I hear you can use the f4i forks and still use your calipers and wheels. You just need the whole triple/forks/clip ons.   Someone needs to confirm this though, I am only going off of what I read in a post.

I had a look around about the F4i setup and it looks like you can use 6th gen upper triple, any VFR800 ('98-'12) wheel and rotors, 6th gen fender fits with only 4 of 6 bolts which is plenty anyway... but calipers, must be F4i and will remove the linked braking system.
Considering I have a 5th gen I'd be swapping almost everything anyway, only getting to keep my rotors unfortunately.

When I get to that part though I may decide I want to be rid of the linked brakes anyway...

Hi DragonCypher,
Thanks for the great pics on your Movistar replica, it was enough to make me go online and order a set for mine.  Just woundering if yours was from Lee's or Motorstar?  I placed my order with Motorstar so I am hopeing yours was the same.  I also decided to have the word "MOVISTAR" replaced with "MONSTER" and the "M" replaced with the monster "M".  So I am going to be very interested to see how it turns out.  If it comes up as good as yours I'll be happy.....   I will keep you posted