I was looking at Harrison Calipers. With VAT they come in at a frankly obscene amount of money for a little extra bite. I know you can swap the fork lowers from a VTR and use the calipers from that for a bit of extra braking zing. I have Maxton sprung/revolved forks from a 1990 VFR, will all of this simply slip into the VTR bottms to make my life easier.
Also, I am willing to spend up to a grand to get my front end to be serious business...I know it might be a bit overkill but I have no intention of selling my 750 so it's a long term investment.
I was eyeing up some random forks on Ebay and Ohlins forks from a Speed Triple can be had for decent money. As can an R1 front end.
I'm a bit of a noobie when it comes to all this. I think I'm right in assuming that the bearings in the headstock are the most important bit?
If there's any guides for first timers like me, can someone link me? I'd be very grateful.
Although they're more about the 5/6 Gens, there are plenty of threads on front end swaps here on the forum. The principle is the same but the info might be different I.e. What parts fit and what you would have to do to make them work.
As far as brakes go I would try different pads (EBC HH pads) and maybe go with stainless steel lines and see if that helps. It seemed to improve my brakes on my 5/6 Gens. If that's not enough maybe go with different calipers or master cylinder.
The only bolt on calipers I can find are the Harrison ones, at over £700 it's a no go. I've decided (rather quickly) that a good compromise would be to shift the Maxton internals and stachions onto a VTR pair of forks so I can retain everything else. That way I get 2 pot calipers rather than the single pot sliders on the VFR now. If anyone's done the Firestorm swap, I'd love to know any in's and out's!
Honestly, the hardest part about doing my front end swap (CBR 929 RR) was making sure I had all of the correct parts, and that was only because I bought it in bits and pieces and not as a complete unit. CBR 929/954 and RC51 triple trees/steering stem slide right into the VFR headstock which allows you to use the complete front end off of said bikes. My bike isn't rideable yet, but from what I've read from others who have done the swap, the brakes on the CBR series are a massive upgrade from the stock brakes and provide much more power. The suspension is also fully adjustable as well as being a USD setup.
With enough searching, you can acquire a front end for less than $1k. I'd go that route, that way you're not mismatching parts within the forks themselves.
Someone willing to spend big bucks on an FL? Brings a tear to my eye, it does... :happy:
Harrison was the only aftermarket option for bolt-on brakes for RC36s years and years ago, and probably still is (I'm very surprised they are still in business, actually). It's much cheaper to do a swap, as you have discovered. Your Maxton internals might be swappable into the VTR lowers, but I've never done that swap, so don't take my word on it. However, do you even have preload adjustment on those forks? My FL certainly didn't. VTR forks also have rebound damping adjusters, which involve a lot of bits your Maxton'd forks probably don't have, so I'm not even sure it would be a straightforward swap.
Where in London are you? If you're anywhere near the "soufeast", you can come over and check out my FP (w/Firestorm forks, etc.) I'm on crutches for another couple of weeks, so I'm home a lot these days...
The only bolt on calipers I can find are the Harrison ones, at over £700 it's a no go. I've decided (rather quickly) that a good compromise would be to shift the Maxton internals and stachions onto a VTR pair of forks so I can retain everything else. That way I get 2 pot calipers rather than the single pot sliders on the VFR now. If anyone's done the Firestorm swap, I'd love to know any in's and out's!
do you mean you will get 4 pot calipers instead of 2 pot sliding calipers or have you got something else. The firestorm mod is straightforward, the fork lowers just swap with the VFR ones, choice of calipers but you will need a Firestorm mudguard of course.
I've got a 5th gen, so take this with a grain of salt, obviously...
when i wanted to do my conversion, everything i could find said cbr/sp1/sp2 parts, and that was it. I ended up using an 05 gsxr 600 front end (price was right), and just had to change the top bearing.
And i have had a 2005 speed triple. average suspension and brakes and best, even if they were USD forks and radial brakes. Don't get one from that era.
Fair play, yeah it's all a bit confusing as I would have thought shock diameter etc wouldn't really matter as long as the spindle that goes into the headstock is long enough and you got the correct bearings, right? I expect it's probably more complicated than that!!
Sure, I'll be home this weekend. I'll PM you my number.
None of the common swaps are difficult, but some are better than others from a cost and/or an aesthetics perspective. I have all of the parts to do an RC51 fork swap, but I've never got around to actually doing it...
Threads like this make me realize how lucky I got. (Kind of, as I had to rebuild the forks a few times).
A guy here on the forums, did a R1 front end swap on his 4th gen. Then he hydrolocked the engine so he parted it out. I asked him to sell me the complete front end as a kit and we went back in forth on the price for a few months and eventually we settled on $500 for everything, which was an amazing deal except after a few miles I could tell something was wrong. There was no damping. I took them apart and the damping rods were not attached. So I assembled them together and the seals blew. So then I rebuilt them. Valuable lesson. Should have just rebuilt them from the start....
The common mod is indeed to get yourself the forks from a Firestorm. You will also need the front brake master cylinder to match the new calipers as the original VFR one will be too weak. Funnily enough I think the old ST1100 MC will work and so will the last generation VFR 800VTEC (if you want a metal master cylinder which looks like your original...youve a load more options if you don't mind the look of it).
Another thing you could do is simply keep your forks as they are and instead have adapter plates made for a pair of Firestorm calipers and mate them up with one of the master cylinders listed above. No messing with ride-height that way and you've better brakes. Adapter plate drawings are on bikersoracle vfr section if you search hard. I think the Firestorm front idea can change the ride height slightly, someone else could confirm for me perhaps.
Best bang for the buck / simplest swap is just sliding in f4i forks into the stock VTEC triples or f3 forks into fifth gen triples. And respringing and valving or heavier fluid of course
I can get a 2005 cbr600rr front end. It's about 3" shorter that a VFR750's but I think that's negated by the front end dropping when I'm on it and diving under braking anyway. Will the stem and bearings from this fit?
p.s I've tried using all balls for conversions but it gets stuck at 'loading' once I've selected a street frame in the drop down
Best bang for the buck / simplest swap is just sliding in f4i forks into the stock VTEC triples or f3 forks into fifth gen triples.
And respringing and valving or heavier fluid of course
Actually, hang fire. I've been offered a complete 954 front end (minus the wheel) for £500. They've also offered me an SP1 front wheel (but for £300 extra...ouch) so it would literally be bolt in and off I go.
Can anyone confirm the following:
Will there be clearance issues with the oil cooler or anything else?
Are replacing the steering stops really difficult? I believe I can just drill the existing ones out and fit some bolts in to do the job
I agree a handlebar conversion would probably be smart. I have a 954 front end on my bike with a rc51 top triple (flat, easier to mount handlebars) and would not want to drop the front end any more than it is. I also don't have an oil cooler or fairing on my bike, so I can't speak for clearance issues you might encounter. If you used the 954 top triple you would gain something like 15mm in height, but they are harder to mount handlebar risers to.
As for steering stops, you don't need to mill anything off, just tap the existing stops and install bolts to give you the proper steering lock.
Thanks guys, much appreciated. I'm going to go for this I think, on my other VFR I'm going to fit the brackets needed for CBR calipers. I'll start a separate thread for that as I need some advice :cool:
Don't forget, this is a 3rd-gen, so fork swaps on other models won't necessarily be relevant. There have not been a lot of full fork conversions done on 3rd-gens, AFAIK, so accurate information is scant, but I believe I have read that there is an oil cooler interference issue that requires relocation or re-shaping of the oil cooler when RC51-style forks are swapped onto a 3rd-gen.
Fork length is the big issue, unless you want to risk the bike's stable handling by "experimenting" with the geometry. You can run the demo of Tony Foale's suspension program (www.tonyfoale.com/suskin/MotorcycleSetup.zip) and check what happens to rake and trail if you lower the front end at the same time as reducing the fork offset (which CBR/RC51 triples will do) without raising the rear end at the same time. (The "Attitude" sub-program seems to allow you to change parameters and do calculations.) Good luck!
3rd gen is different hard parts but afaik, bike dimensions, wheelbase, rake, trail, are almost the same between the 3-4-5 gens, within a couple mm's. Here's the RC SP2 front end on my 5th gen, you can see how much fork is available. I like this particular set up as it gives me the most neutral feel, and no clearance issues to the front fender but it is at about the limit.
Interesting, quite a lot easier to get a Gixxer front end over here than a cbr one. That also means the sv1000 front end will fit which I believe had longer forks and sorting for a hacker bike. Not USD though but who cares about that in the grand scheme of things
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