Wheel purchase advise
 

I'm looking into purchasing Marchesini or PVM forged magnesium or aluminum, 17" wheels for my 2005 VTR. I'm looking on Craigs List and Ebay. I'm also considering purchasing an AFAM 520 conversion kit, will that matter when purchasing wheels? What advise do you have for me?

Ask depending on the wheels, they may have specific sprockets for the wheels you're purchasing. Aftermarket wheels for the superhawk show up every once in awhile on ebay, but not very often. A pair of unknown brand polished ones just sold for a second time though on ebay for only like $200-$250. Looked kinda like old pm's. Good luck in your search.

the 520 is the width of the sprocket & that won't matter... what does matter is the bolt pattern. i'd hold off on the sprockets until you find the rear wheel.

tim

If or when you find wheels, make sure you tell the people selling you your sprocket kit you have Marchesini wheels. It will make a difference.

When I'm searching, listings don't say that the wheels are for a Honda VTR. Instead they indicate that they're from a GSXR or CBR. What should I keep an eye out for? And besides this site, Craigs List and Ebay, where else should I look?

Wheel fitment is a can of worms.
For the front, the VTR rotors will fit on CBR600F3 wheels. Not on F4-F4i wheels. NOt on 929, 954, RC51. Possibly 900RR, but I don't know. Beware of early 900RR. They were 16" front wheels, IIRC.

For the rear, it's a little less and a little more of an issue. The VTR and RC51 apparently have different cush drive offset than the others. I've heard that 929 wheels can be made to fit with some cush drive modification. Maybe 900RR as well. You will need to make a right side spacer to line the braek rotor up with the caliper, then modifiy the cush drive to move the rear sprocket inboard to line up with the front, and make a left side spacer to fit the swingarm.

I wouldn't even try to make suzuki wheels fit, especially the front. The front rotors have 5 hole spiders, Honda has 6.

There is a set of 900RR marchesinis on ebay now. But beware of what you are getting in to. Been there.

IIRC Marchesini's typically take a Kawasaki sprocket.

Your best bet to acquiring these custom wheels would be to buy them new. Aftermarket wheels tend to be fragile and not knowing the history of them could leave you with a expensive wall hanging. My advice is to drop the coin on a new set so you get the factory warranty. Do a little research though, not all aftermarket wheels are that much lighter than stock. There is a thread on here somewhere with a good link to a wheel test done on a GSXR1000 that has weights listed and the pros and cons of the different materials used to make these high dollar hoops. I think they tested 10-15 different specimens from several manufacturers with several different materials.

Maybe we could get a group buy thing going? Anybody?:mrgreen:

Thanks for the help fellas. Looks like I'm picking up pennies and recycling cans for a while.

Also if you are going to do a front end swap, do it now before you buy wheels for the superhawk front. The CBR1000RR front end is almost a bolt on, and the CBR929/954 is a bolt on and with a little work other front ends can be used. It would suck to have nice wheels and the stock front end. Even the stock superhawk calipers are inferior to the 929/954 and obviously the CBR1000. I have a 954 front end but if i did it again i'd use the '06-'07 CBR1000 front for the better brakes.

just my $.02

Oh, and avoid magnesium for the street due to the increased difficulty of repairs and fragility

+1 on the front end upgrade before new wheels Ross...I have a set of polished OEM wheels if you're interested...good luck Sailman whatever you decide:)
RC

If you do the CBR1000RR front-end swap, the aftermarker wheels become a pure bling-bling affair, as the weight of the aftermarkets are close to the stock CBR wheel, however the stock VTR wheel weights as it was made by cast-iron so there is already an improvement...

Oh and refering to superbling the CBR900 rear wheel is close to bolt-on, altough the stock wheel is 5 (6?) spoke so it doesn't match in looks... Which obviously isn't a problem with aftermarket wheels, and a 900RR rear should be easier to find than a VTR...

I'm running Dymags (Magnesium) with stock forks (Racetech springs, but no goldvalves). They work great on the bike. It has wounderfull turn-in charecteriscts. Other than that I can't notice much difference. I picked them up used for ~$800. Regarding the fork swap... from my perspective it depends on how you use the bike... I don't do track days. I do backroads mainly. Though not the 1st upgrade I'd recommend, I'm pleased with the result.

This is what my VTR looks like now...
Attachment 30218

I don't know your weight/size... But for me at ~200 it's a given... I'm doing trackdays, but even if not I'd recommend it...

The stiffer springs is just a small part of it... It's just as much about the brakes... With the stock brakes I was getting ready to throw out an anchor to slow me down...
Now I squeeese two fingers and the rear wheel starts to hop... If I'd grab a handfull like with the stockers I'd be doing sommersaults down the road...These brakes are also a lot more linear, so it's easy to modulate...

And I'd love lighter wheels... But just looking at the prices is a bit scary... If we are talking performance for money, the front end win's hands down, because it adresses more than one problem area...

Trust me, take one short ride on a VTR with a front-end swap and you'll know what I mean... The backroads will be a whole new kind of fun...

Tweety what kind of brakes do you have on your VTR?

The ones attached to my CBR1000RR front fork...:D

http://img37.imagevenue.com/loc727/t..._122_727lo.jpg

BTW... on the list of yhings I'd like to do to my bike:

Öhlins Rear shock, getting my HID conversion done, all my new electronic gizmo's hooked up, a new shiftstar, and possibly forged alu wheels... buuut that's if I don't think of something else that seems more fun...:D

I've done a lot studying on the whole conversion thing, but it still seems to baffle me. Is the 1000rr conversion really just "bolt on"?

Slight :threadjack:, but that's kinda normal around here...:D

Well, yes and no...

You can take a stock CBR1000RR front fork with wheel, and bolt it on, the triple tree even uses the same bearings... But you do get a better result using a triple tree from a CBR929/954... The reason is that these have a little less spacing between the forklegs and a nicer top triple (the CBR1000RR have ugly mounts for a steering damper, which cannot be used)...

The stock clipons from either CBR doesn't work, so here you'll have to be creative either with a superbike bar or a Heli's or adjustable clipons... Plus spacing out the stuff so it doesn't hit the fairing at full lock...

Apart from that, what you need to change is the position of the radiators (small shift down and back with 4 small alu plates, and shortening/repositioning a few hoses...) and you need to grind the steering stops on the lower triple to allow it room for the mount for the gaugecluster... The mounts for the fairing get a bit more finicky to remove/put on as the rads are moved, and you might need to reduce full lock a little whith a shim to avoid hitting the highbeam switch... But that's about it...

I'm no master mechanic but it took me a weekend to complete, but that was with a lot of doublechecking, thinking and even more scrounging for various bolts, zip-ties and whatnot that I had forgotten... Now, knowing what to do I'd probably be able to have the bike dismanteled and re-built in 2-3 hours, as that was roughly the amount of active work between thinking sessions... Plus since I had the whole bike apart I did a few other things, not related to the front end...

i can get a set of mavric pvm wheels secondhand for a blackbird for R5000 (abt $500). can anyone tell me if they will fit my hawk? searched on here and found one thread stating that both blackbird wheels are interchangable with the hawk, but i'm not sure if that's true. please can someone help this mod addicted noob????