helimd

I just finished the mods. First, a little history on the '04 VTR. I know, it's Titanium in color, but the title lists the bike as an '04, not an '05. I bought it from a local dealer, not as a salvage bike, but a repo. It had been laid down on the left side with right at 2,400 miles on the odometer.

I looked into replacing all the bent pieces with stock, but ultimately came back to the look of the CBR1000RR. Always liked the undertail exhaust. I took some measurements, made the decision to do the mod, and a year later here are the results.

I really believe this is what Honda should have done to preserve the product line. This, and fuel injection. Later

E.Marquez

Well done.

kardiac996

Looks good!

Tebs

Nice bike! If we are doing a wish list for the Honda factory goodies on the SH I think a single sided swingarm would have been sweet!

kardiac996

You have any notes of the tail swap?!

Id love to go a similar direction.

saige

now you just need a 900rr brace with a tire hugger and it will fill it in just right.
have you noticed any loss in power or anything doing the single exhaust.

Wolverine

Saaweet!! Me likes.

helimd

I took pictures of the components I had to build. But let me begin by saying that the first step was figuring out if the subframe would work, as is. Amazingly, Honda used the same spacing on the upper mounts of the VTR and CBR frames. However, when I bolted the subframe on to the VTR frame, the stock CBR seat sat about 2" too far aft, leaving a substantial gap to be filled between the seat and tank. Not good.

So, I fell back on my homebuilt aircraft background and started building mockups of the different brackets needed. I finally had to get the sawzall out and cut all four mounting lugs off the subframe. Then I built the upper mount which, surprisingly, uses the old battery box mounts for attachment to the subframe. Then it got tricky.

The lower mounts incorporate four machined steel nuts which became the basis for the lower attach points and the battery box. Once this was done, it was a simple matter of joining the cbr parts, all Ebay finds, to the new subrame, building the exhaust and extending a couple of the wiring harnesses to allow the parts to all fit under the two seats.

I don't know how I got so lucky, but this thing had a full tank of unpreserved gas in the tank for 2 years. I went to drain the tank prior to rebuilding the carbs. When I opened the fuel cap, the first thing I noticed was the lack of "old gas" smell. I took a chance, put the battery in, and fired it up. Probably took a grand total of 5 revolutions before it lit off. Amazing!

I checked the tire pressures, put on the new license plate, and took her out for the first ride. Not noisy, no latent heat issues from the undertail exhaust and, most of all, she ran like a scalded cat. As mentioned on another post, I'm an old man of 60 and probably not the best judge, but it feels every bit as strong as it did before the new tail. I am loving this thing.

helimd

One other thing I looked at. This baby is definitely an '04, at least according to the VIN. I have no idea how it ended up being a Titanium build, but it is. Lucky for me, too, as the cbr colors matched perfectly. If you notice, I carefully trimmed the 996 off of the fairing so now the recognition comes from the 1000rr on the tail. Perfect!