Newbie alert.
 

Hi guys, I'm in the market for one of these bad boys after having my last bike rudely totalled for me on Friday morning by a negligent driver. Planning on looking at and riding one or two today. Anything I should be looking out for as a complete VTRnewb? Given my past history I will be a serial pest on here with immediate upgrade and maintenance questions and updates lol.
Cheers all!

Besides all the regular inspection items that should be looked at on any bike, the VTR has a couple of specific ones. One is to take the seat off and inspect the connector from the R/R. It's in a tube like flexible sleeve along with other connectors and a lot of wires. If nothing looks scorched, then all is good, temporally. Another is to inspect the front upper face of the right case cover, looking for signs of coolant. There is a weep hole or a little tube like elbow tha twill show coolant if the water pump seal has failed. If you can, ask the owner to not start it before you arrive, do so. You want to do a cold start. Knowing weather the choke (fuel enrichment) is needed on a cold start might tell you if there is tuning/fueling issues.
Someone else will no doubt chime in and add more.

cheers mate. Excellent info. Going to have a look at one on the other side of town tonight. This fella looks like he has loved the shit out of this bike as it is adorned with all the fruit and then some so pretty confident maintenance will be spot on but will definitely request a cold start before i head out and will definitely check all the points you mention.
thanks again!
what about clues as to more sinister/expensive problems?
Are these bikes prone at all to engine failure? Big end knocks, timing chain issues, etc?

Yes, the oem auto cam chain tensioners are prone to fail, resulting in introducing valves to piston. 1st mod on your list should be a set of manual adjust units. After that, the R/R issue as mentioned above, then they are very reliable steeds.

Welcome btw. Where are you from?

Thanks for the heads up. Im in Melbourne Australia.

Just got back from looking at this bike. Very nice. laid down a deposit. German guy, pretty fastidious. Clean bike. Good price, lots of extras. Forgot to ask about the tensioners though... how many miles are the OE ones usually good for and how pricey is it to chuck the manual ones in? This bike's got about 40,000 km on it., i'm guessing that's about 25k mi in old money. 2006 model.

No real pattern connected to mileage on the cct failure. Just have the idea you are riding on borrowed time. Better to do them sooner rather than later. And a $$$ figure depends on where you live. I have no idea what labor rates are in your neck of the woods.

Is it a difficult job for the average punter with a workshop manual? How many hours labor would a competent mechanic usually charge?
i had a look online and the tensioners themselves run about $100-150

The procedure is not very difficult, if, you fully understand the valve/piston timing. The hardest part , for me, was setting the amount of pressure on the manual tensioners. While checking valve clearance, I took a measurement of the slack in the cam chain. I had the tensioners too tight even though I followed the install instruction exactly. The problem with setting the amount of pressure applied following the instructions is very subjective.

I would be very careful of who I let work on my bike. Easy to get it wrong if you don't understand this type of engine. Not that many people around that have any experience with the VTR.

Another option is this.https://www.vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewt...p?f=31&t=19416

Known problems relative to a used purchase areas to focus on are few for this bike...
Look for signs the motor has been worked on, clean front head, less clean rear head and cases (CCT failure?)
Look to see if it has the stock Auto cam chain tensioners or aftermarket manual
Ask to remove the seat and take a peek at the Regulator rectifier, its it a stock one (look online for pics to ID) if so that is a first MOD Id do, and take that cost into consideration of purchase price (Yes I sell a kit, but if you want to do it yourself, just ask, I'll walk you through the how and where to get the stuff.
Bring a test meter with you, check bat voltage key off, key on and key on running @3k RPM if your not seeing 12.5 or better key on battery is not fully charged....WHY ? If your not seeing 13 or so running, charge voltage is not great WHY?

Not difficult at all. There are a couple of very comprehensive how-to's floating around the web, one here and one on the UK site. Biggest deal (aside from getting the tension right) is to zip tie the chain to the cam sprockets to assure they don't jump a tooth. Check out the knowledge base.
https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...ledge-base-40/

Ok cheers. But is it a big job? Like, how much of the bike has to be stripped off?

Tank off, airbox off and make sure you use a JIS screwdriver to remove the air intakes (they can take some force as they were originally loctited tight and with a philips head screwdriver can cause damage). Rear cam cover off (some people also recommend taking the front one off also). But firstly see if you can loosen the crank timing cap covers on the generator cover - if you need to force it best have a new un on order ready for the rebuild).

Good time to fit a vacuum take off on the front pot with a pluged hose for easy carb balancing. And have some silcone gasket/ Hyllmar blue for applying the threads of the tensioner, and some loctite on the MCCT retaining bolts.

Have a search for Krieger's from Columbus, OH Manual Cam Chain Tensioners > Krieger Cam Chain Tensioners

I'm gonna say be careful of doing the cct job yourself or as stated letting someone who doesn't get it do it.

I Just did a set last summer and even in my race garage with my race buddy who has 30yrs experience as a moto tech we miscommunicated and pulled the cct before getting it to top dead center.

The only solution was to take the bike apart to take off the head to check the actual alignment of the cams. (2hr job turns into 8hr job). Mirrors, screen fairing radiators etc all come off. What a pain when I raced all day and had to be up at 7 to race again.

If you let the chain jump teeth you are risking destroying the motor on startup. Just sayin.

That said, it is not a time bomb of a motor. Many people don't ever change the ccts or swap them to the 2nd gen version. I still recommend doing it but don't freak out like its gonna blow at any minute.

The RR issue is way more likely to strand you. You can search on here but I used an R1 regulator. Cheap on ebay and very durable.

To make it not too confusing, don't panic, do some research on the forum as Wolverine suggested, here is another very detailed instructions with pictures for comparison:
https://www.vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=28583

Just follow the detailed instructions, should be fairly easy even for someone lightly mechanically inclined, about 2 hour job with tea or coffee, your choice mate.

Cheers mate and welcome onboard.

Joe, that happened because you had too many hands :-) it's a one man's job brother.

Thanks all for the excellent help. Hopefully all goes well with the purchase when i go to pick the bike up this weekend. He reckons Honda assured him the later models didnt need it but ill do it anyway at some stage.
as to the R/R, do they really go bad?
i had a 94' fireblade for about 15 years two bikes ago and never touched thd reg despite all the warnings. Will probably do this one tho.
so R1 unit is the way to go then?

Don't take my word for it, do a few simple searches and read the facts

And Just R1 as that can be one of several different RR's, you specifically want one that comes on many R1's but not all
And do not trust the ebay seller, they are posting chinese crap as rea Shindengen all the time..FH020, or FH012.. Nor do they properly list them as per what they really came off from, but list as what they fit and get that wrong a lot as well. If you cant confirm it is a real Shindengen FH020, or FH012 don't buy it.

If you not sure about the RR you see on ebay or elsewhere, just copy the link up here and let us validate for you.

http://vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=43121&p=472171&sid=28fe033940 dcc3595917c2b1b23d012e#p472171
Ok so i finally picked it up. Hats off to the previous owner! Very pedantically looked after. Even has little stickers with torque specs next to every fastener.
little bit woried about cooling capacity though.
it was struggling bit on the rise home, through the cbd traffic on a moderatly warm 27c day.
struggled to stay under 100c. Buth never went oved 106.
coolant flush may be in order.
can see lot of possibliities for extra cooling fairlh easy though; 3rd radiator, bigger oil cooler, 2nd fan different thermostat, thermoswitch, etc etc.
hopefully wont need any.of that though.
R/R is of the finned type.
i guess i better start thinking sbout the CCT soon *sigh*
very happy with the bike though.
i cannot imagine having better bang for buck

http://vtr1000.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=43121&p=472171&sid=28fe033940 dcc3595917c2b1b23d012e#p472171
Ok so i finally picked it up. Hats off to the previous owner! Very pedantically looked after. Even has little stickers with torque specs next to every fastener.
little bit woried about cooling capacity though.
it was struggling bit on the rise home, through the cbd traffic on a moderatly warm 27c day.
struggled to stay under 100c. Buth never went oved 106.
coolant flush may be in order.
can see lot of possibliities for extra cooling fairlh easy though; 3rd radiator, bigger oil cooler, 2nd fan different thermostat, thermoswitch, etc etc.
hopefully wont need any.of that though.
R/R is of the finned type.
i guess i better start thinking sbout the CCT soon *sigh*
very happy with the bike though.
i cannot imagine having better bang for buck

Look nice squid.
I've tried different gearing and settled on +2 on the rear. A +/- 1 tooth change up front is the equivalent of 3 teeth in the rear. Seemed a bit too much for me so I did the +2 and it was purrfect! Also sounds like it could use a carb clean and sync.

Haha, ahh yes the cooling matrix, I know it well. The mysterious 3rd rad, much bigger oil cooler, lower temp fan switch, coolant flush. Its a white whale....

I ride in NYC so cooling is a real battle. I have many threads on it but the bigger oil cooler then blocks airflow to the 2 rads so cancels itself. Same with the 3rd rad unless you are going triple digits (when you wouldn't need help anyway.)

The solution is of course flush and bleed coolant, but for me I put on the Chinese "racing" radiators. They are a half inch thicker and really helped. I removed the zx10 8 row oil cooler after several months and the bike ran cooler wo it.

I also have my fan on a manual switch (as well as stocker) so I can turn it on when I want to but rarely need to.

I also ran evans cooling waterless coolant for a while. Really good stuff but $55/gal so discontinued it.

Keep posting on what you are up to on the new bike. That's the whole point of the forum, you may help someone else in the future.

Looking good, welcome to the nut house.

To each his own on the cooling deal... my experience riding in Texas Summer heat and cooling mods is different then others.

I found measured temp drop with a 7 row cooler over the stock one and did not find it blocked any appreciable air flow to the rads.
I found even more temp drop with aftermarket larger radiators.

That said none of it was needed save for the very worst conditions.. high ambient temps stop and go traffic... In those 100 deg plus days the bike was getting heat soaked when traffic came to a stand still because of a wreck, or other issue .. Get moving just a few MPH for a few seconds, no way to shed much heat then stopped again. So I addressed the cooling system for the worst conditions I ride .
I was all set to add a second fan, having both a 2nd stock one on hand and a 4" SPAL ready to go........and decided it was not needed for my riding conditions. If I was a city dweller and had to to congested stop light traffic commute deal... I might.. but I dont and wont...lol

https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...2nd-fan-34621/

https://www.superhawkforum.com/forum...-cooler-32628/

Thanks for the welcome! Those threads give me some ideas... easiest seems the ATV inline cooler, could be worth a try. That hose is getting bombed with road debris and header heat so could be a good reliablity mod with addition of a heat shield or a bit of wrap on the header.. maybe find a mounting point so it supports its own weight too.
Will definitely be giving the cooling system a good flush and give the outside of the rads (and the rest of the undercarriage) a good soak with truck wash and a pressure wash.

Got rid of the high mount brackets and chucked the pillion pegs back on, gave its nether regions a good degrease and power wash.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.sup...35965496ac.jpg