My "New" 98' VTR Superhawk!
 

Hey guys
So I have been riding for quite some time now. I have had lots of different street bikes, the most recent being an 03' R6. Have been looking for a Superhawk for quite some time as it has been a childhood hero essentially :leghump: . As luck would have it, I ran into a guy who wanted to trade his VTR for my R6. YES PLEASE! Not to mention it considerably less miles and was in better shape cosmetically. Finally!!! Love this bike to death. Look forward to keeping this one till I'm an old ass man who can ride around cursing at all the youngsters blazing around on their Tron bikes.
Note: Love the shortened Remus pipes on this one. Gives it an unbelievable, throaty sound without being obnoxious or attracting the lovely California Police...
Happy riding!
More pics to come
http://s22.postimg.org/c04v067q9/IMAG0415.jpg
image hosting 15mb

Welcome to the forum.

Your new bike has the failure-prone automatic cam chain tensioners. Do yourself a favor and change them out for manual tensioners immediately. Please listen to this voice of (bad) experience.

A search here should get you all the info you need.

I actually just ordered 2 of the APE Manual CCTs yesterday evening

Probably going to be ripping apart the carbs and cleaning the hell out of them. Retiming them as well. Saw some Repsol Racing fairings for the superhawk that looked wicked. Like the ones on the CBR1000RR. Might be nice to have a spare..... xD

I have 3 bikes. The Superhawk is by far my favorite. They just dont make them like this anymore. Nice big steel tank, solid welds and just raw torque. Good luck man.

How's the upkeep on these things? I mean they are Honda bikes so I assume they run forever. Other than the standard maintenance with the occasional full tune is there anything that you have found to go wrong?

CCTs, R/R are a must to replace/upgrade pronto

Rear shock linkages, and the starter connection bolt prone to corrosion (mainly due to the British winters) but your location in California should delay any early onset

Give the forks an overhaul and get some springs and rear shock to replace stock budget items. Find a rear seat cowl / lower fairing for looks if you wish. And looks like a cable-ties holding your fairing on - is the bracket missing or underlying damage?

Check the workshop section for a downloadable searchable Honda VTR service manual PDF.

Other than preventative maintenance stuff not a lot other than the CCTs and R/R. I have roughly 16K on mine and just checked the valves. All were still in spec. As long as the carbs are jetted correctly you should be good to go man.

Just the brackets are missing. Pretty easy fix. Pardon my stupidity but what are you referring to by R/R?

R/R is the regulator/rectifier. Late model R1 R/R's are the choice replacement. There are other options. Check out the knowledge base forum for more info.

I've heard that the 98 needs two manual ccts. Is this correct or will 1 suffice?

Two is the magic number.

Awesome. Thank you sir. Need to get myself up to date on all these hip abbreviations. Lol.