Hello vfrd community. I am considering converting an RC51 SP2 front wheel for use on my gen 5. The eventual destination will be the SP2 wheel between VTR or F4i forks. I will be using RC51 SP2 front brake calipers and F4i [or 03-06 CBR600RR] front master cylinder.
Does anyone know what the weight savings using the SP2 wheel will be?
Will the rotor offset line up, ie can I bolt my stock gen 5 rotors to the SP2 wheel and use them w SP2 calipers on VTR or F4i forks?
Do I need to consider custom axle spacers?
I know I will have to source wheel bearings that fit the 20mm gen 5/VTR/F4i axle.
Yessir, Mohawk's carbon BST's are the bee's knee's, but out of my price range. I'll look up the weight of a stock gen 5/6 wheel, or weigh mine w/o rotors, then compare it to 10.3 lbs for the SP2. Thanks for the feedback Epyon007.
I'm not going to enter into a flame war so if you read this it's solely my opinion if you don't agree that's fine, but you need to have ridden a VFR with lighter wheels to have an opinion.
OP I would use your standard VFR wheel/rotors with the F4i/vtr forks as it will save allot of $$, swamping to the lighter RC51 wheel or even lighter front forged wheel the effects are so negligible on the VFR it is a total waste of time/money.
My 6th gen was fitted with CBR1000RR Ohlins FGRT forks with modified RC51 front wheel, the RC51 wheel was later replaced with a OZ racing forged wheel which was much lighter. There were zero & I mean zero difference in performance with lighter front wheel on the VFR that I could notice. This is due to bikes overall weight & frame set up, in fact the heavier front wheel supplied better rider front end feel as far as I was concerned & I'm a front end feel rider. Yes there is a gain in power to weight & suspension with lighter unsprung weight, etc but what I'm saying is focusing on the VFR the gain is so unnoticeable the money to spend to achieve it is wasted. Others may feel differently but I felt fitting a lighter wheel front end was a total waste of time on my 6th gen.
I however just sold my VFR because I purchased BMW S1000RR which I bought with forged lighter wheels & I do notice a major difference between it & the stock wheels same bike but that is a sports bike with totally different frame/geomatry that is based on major loading front end unlike the VFR which is very neutral.
I have yet to ride a bike with lightened wheels but knowing what I know about things I would tend to agree with Roy, with a caveat. If your not tracking or racing the bike I would think the weight advantage would be negligible. You won't be throwing the bike around and changing directions like would do on the track, on the streets. Maybe you could tell a difference on some back roads scratching. RC51 owners say that changing wheels makes a big difference and that is a heavy ass bike for its "arena". But again most of those people are using them for track days or racing.
Perhaps more tangible gains would come from a full suspension upgrade, front and rear? Just a thought but keep us informed if you keep going I'd love to hear about the process.
What is the intended use of your VFR?
I'll see if I can convince Mohawk to come on down to NormalVFRsville and tell us what he experienced along with Roy's comments.
The stock VFR front wheel is roughly the same weight as the SP2 front at 11lb or 5Kg. a 1/2lb change will make no difference to feel, but like I was trying to achieve originally you get a 5 spoke to match your rear wheel :)
The issues you will face are that the SP2 wheel is both wider at the hub (I believe, you need to check) & has a wider axle diameter as standard, plus the discs are 320 or 330mm & a different offset to the VFR's or CBR600 lowers you have. So you can machine the wheel or make spacers to fit the discs from the VFR or another Honda (I use CBR900RR for my RC45 front wheel with 3mm spacers to get the right offset). Originally I just drilled the VFR discs to suit the RC45 bolt pattern, plus the 3mm spacer. You may be able to use the SP2 discs, if you can get a set of caliper extention brackets to move the CBR calipers further from the axle, I know they used to be available to buy.
You will need custom bearings to fit it on the CBR axle which IIRC is 20mm OD & the SP2 is 25 or 30mm OD, so will need to find a set of bearings with the correct OD for the wheel & an ID of 20mm for the CBR axle. You may have to get custom spacers made too. I was lucky the RC45 & VFR share the exact same front axle size & spacers :) If you do have to machine the wheel to fit in the forks, then remember you need to shortend the bearing spacer inside the wheel too !
Re the light weight wheels, for those that have not tried them they make NO real difference at low speeds, but once you up the pace, even on your favourite bit of grippy sweeping road you will notice, that you can brake later, the bike accelerates faster & best of all the effort required to turn in at speed, is so much lighter its like night & day. I have the triples lower 10mm & the rear jacked up 50mm on my adjustable length shock & have had it to a true 150mph with no loss of stability.
As a point to note the BST RC45 front is 2.5Kg & the rear is 3Kg, both are half the VFR's stock wheel weight. With the front sliders & caliper changes, my unsprung front weight is 4.5Kg less than stock & the rear is 6.5Kg less, these are significant numbers ! Try moving a 5Kg weight up & down rapidly with your arms outstrectched to get an idea of the forces involved :)
The Carrozzeria front wheel (Honda F4i) weighs 7.8 lbs. according to the CZ website. I also replaced the stock rotors with Galfer Wave rotors mainly because the VFR rotors won't fit the F4i wheel. And the Galfers are cool. Maybe I am fooling myself, but I noticed a difference on my favorite roads.
Excellent feedback - thanks everyone! I'm learning to accept quality input from experienced guys like you, Roy, Epyon007, Mohawk, Rc36Rider, and Alaskan. Clearly there are a significant number of fitment hurdles with the RC51 wheel, and the performance gain would be negligible. I'll stick with the stock gen 5 front wheel and rotors.
Jamie Daugherty gave me the same advice about front forks for delinking my brakes. In a nutshell, he said 43mm forks would possibly provide a slight advantage with racing brake pads and slick tires piloted by an expert on the track. For the rest of us, 41mm forks are more than adequate.
Excellent feedback - thanks everyone! I'm learning to accept quality input from experienced guys like you, Roy, Epyon007, Mohawk, Rc36Rider, and Alaskan. Clearly there are a significant number of fitment hurdles with the RC51 wheel, and the performance gain would be negligible. I'll stick with the stock gen 5 front wheel and rotors.
Jamie Daugherty gave me the same advice about front forks for delinking my brakes. In a nutshell, he said 43mm forks would possibly provide a slight advantage with racing brake pads and slick tires piloted by an expert on the track. For the rest of us, 41mm forks are more than adequate.
Cheers all.
Don't put me in the same category as those guys. I'm an amateur.
Much appreciate the compliments. I study everything I can and talk to as many experts as possible so I try to be as helpful as I can. I have come to the realization that I don't really need a lot of the race stuff like radial brakes and upside down forks to have fun on the street. Hell I can't ride my RC51 fast enough that changing to Radial mount brakes would likely do me any good so what the hell do I need it to commute on? I also see guys at the track with SV650's running fantastic times, there is nothing supersport about a SV650.
At the same time I know how much fun it is to play with parts and modify! Did you look into doing the full boat DMr suspension upgrade? I think I'm going to do that myself and pretty much call it good.
With all that being said I am FAR from the be all end all on these topics.
Yep - Jamie is sending a set of forks and F4i shock to me to install on my friend's gen 6. I've learned a lot and enjoyed every interaction with Dr. Daugherty. On Tuesday I'm sending him two sets of forks - VTR that are straight, and F4i with slightly bent uppers. I'll choose which forks to turn DMr loose on when I find out which will be the least expensive to give the full treatment. As long as I'm packing stuff up to ship, I'll include a Penske shock found on ebay. Jamie did wonders for Duc2V4's 41mm forks and Penske shock and I've no desire to reinvent the wheel.
Thanks Seb - yep, I'm leaning toward the F4i forks as you recommended. I have gen 6 handlebars and triples, along with an F4i axle, so my choice will be based on what Jamie finds inside the forks. He said he could source new uppers for the bent 43mm forks, but if the internals are trashed, I'll go with the VTR forks and pay a small performance penalty.
That's a nice looking 99 - the tail section is tidy and on point thematically. That motorcycle is one of the lucky ones to have you working with it. I've got a little lift-envy over the ratchet-operated unit you've got under the pan...
I bought some lightly bent 600F4i forks and had the uppers professionally straightened; US$40 per leg. They usually bend at the bottom triple so well clear of the sliding surface. Unless the forks are really trashed, I'm sure the damper cartridges and caps would be reusable and I would expect they will slip right into some 6G uppers with no modification. I did exactly that with VTR1000F bent forks and transferred the cartridges and caps to my 5G. Later on I used the same parts with VTR lowers and did the de-link with CBR600F4 brakes.
This comment gives me great confidence in my luck at finding 4fi forks and brakes that are going on to my VF750.....they weren't a bad price too!
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You'll have to get creative to get them to work well on your VF, they are a bit short for the job. Custom triples coupled with a handle conversion could get you what you need, as you can then drop the forks to the max and gain almost the whole difference in fork length back.
Thanks Seb, Yes they are about 80mm shorter. I wanted to drop the front a little, so was thinking the handle conversion which would put them where I want. May get rolling chassis soon(mock-up) so that will show where it will sit. Have managed to get the cbr600 swingarm in, so next align wheels...and chain... But look at the student telling the master....Haha.
Roy - I was just reading back though this thread to comb out a few more pertinent points. I definitely appreciate stark observation that for our motorcycles and their weight distribution, the weight difference would be negligible and that a light front wheel felt worse to you than a stock wheel on your VFR . The permutations you've worked with are vast - thanks for sharing your data.
I am learning that when I start chasing performance for my VFR, I gotta repeat to myself "Save it for the trackbike. Save it for the trackbike..."
Keef, sifting through ebay, it may be that Ducati wheels are the most cost efficient way of getting lighter wheels. More adaptation hoops to jump through, but...hmmm. later date stuff for me.
Alaskan - I looked at the Carrozzeria [CZ] wheels. Very interesting that a they make an axle adapter kit to fit a Ducati CZ rear to the VFR, but are adamant about not selling it as a separate kit. They'll only vend it with a set of their wheels.
Terry - thanks for getting me to consider straightening my bent F4i tubes. I'm glad yours are working well for you.
You will need custom bearings to fit it on the CBR axle which IIRC is 20mm OD & the SP2 is 25 or 30mm OD
The SP1 and 2 actually both have a most unusual axle OD of 22 mm.
AFAIK the 22x47x14 bearings are not available from aftermarket suppliers. The parts fiche quotes the actual dimensions rather than a standard size identifier such as e.g. 6005.
The '00-'03 Blades have a 25 mm axle and use standard bearings. Dunno about later models.
SEBSPEED I can make a drop triple if you need one, ship back with your covers... see how she goes
Wow, that is definitely something to consider, thank you. I was thinking another option was to make extensions, but the dampner would make it tricky. I have noticed that using the cbr triples which are about an inch less forward that the forks don't have to be as long. I will lose turning angle, but I'm happy.
I see all your stuff and am amazed and jealous, I'm yet to meet and make long-term friends in Australia (here eight years from South Africa ) with your abilities, and passion. Offer noted! Craig
Right, keep length and offset or go shorter and reduce offset to maintain a civil trail #, issue is keeping the wheel & fender out of the rad & pipes, need minimum length for that. Once you think you're happy, support the rear and middle for the bike, pull the fork cas and lift the front wheel to full compression & check for interference through the range of motion
For those that may want to play with different Honda frontends & disc's I found this file a few years back, it lists lots of Honda fitments for comparison. This is how I found that one of the CBR900RR models had the same bolt pattern as the RC45 plus the same disc size & offset as the VFR !
Roy - I was just reading back though this thread to comb out a few more pertinent points. I definitely appreciate stark observation that for our motorcycles and their weight distribution, the weight difference would be negligible and that a light front wheel felt worse to you than a stock wheel on your VFR . The permutations you've worked with are vast - thanks for sharing your data.
I am learning that when I start chasing performance for my VFR, I gotta repeat to myself "Save it for the trackbike. Save it for the trackbike..."
Keef, sifting through ebay, it may be that Ducati wheels are the most cost efficient way of getting lighter wheels. More adaptation hoops to jump through, but...hmmm. later date stuff for me.
Alaskan - I looked at the Carrozzeria [CZ] wheels. Very interesting that a they make an axle adapter kit to fit a Ducati CZ rear to the VFR, but are adamant about not selling it as a separate kit. They'll only vend it with a set of their wheels.
Terry - thanks for getting me to consider straightening my bent F4i tubes. I'm glad yours are working well for you.
I bit the bullet and bought the kit from CZ. The front wheel is for a F4i and the rear wheel is a slightly modified 1098 with the axle adapter. Maybe Seb could build an axle adapter for you . . .
I guess it's been well covered, but the only reason to swap to SP wheel would be matching forks. Mine is SP1 forks and wheel. Axles, brakes, etc., no reason otherwise.
I bit the bullet and bought the kit from CZ. The front wheel is for a F4i and the rear wheel is a slightly modified 1098 with the axle adapter. Maybe Seb could build an axle adapter for you . . .
I bit the bullet and bought the kit from CZ. The front wheel is for a F4i and the rear wheel is a slightly modified 1098 with the axle adapter. Maybe Seb could build an axle adapter for you . . .
Here are a couple of pics. Not sure whether CZ makes the kit any longer. Apparently the owner/CEO is a Japanese national who really likes VFRs, so he ordered his technicians to design a kit for the 4-bolt rear wheel. The set-up wasn't cheap - $2450 with Galfer Wave rotors and shipping.
Oh my god. I just drooled on my keyboard. AK thanks for those photos of your VFR [and Duc, and Yamaha]. Those wheels are worth every penny...if only I had that many pennies for wheels.
Kev you're spot on about the only reason for selecting an RC51 wheel is to go with RC51 forks. I was just working through the permutations. The cost of an SP2 wheel at around $200 didn't seem prohibitive for an upgrade to my gen 5 w F4i forks if I could get the brakes, axle, spacers, and bearings to line up.
Mohawk I'm still waiting for Google Translate to help me understand the Japanese characters at the top of the columns in the chart [But I can interpolate most measurement]. Thanks for posting that.
RC36 I'd be looking for 20/47/14 bearings to fit the RC46 axle. Alas, I've run up against the adaptational limit of my desire for a slightly lighter wheel with five spokes.
End of thread · 37 posts recoveredWayback Machine snapshot 25 Aug 2017
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