Battery change advice for custom rear subframe
 

Hi all,

I have a VTR1000f that I have done a 2007 Rear subframe swap on.
Everything has come together really nicely except for 1 problem, the battery!

The VTR battery is considerably larger that the space it needs to accommodate. I have heard of people changing batteries from bike to bike but I need to know whether I can use the battery from an R1 or not. The 1000cc part makes sense but the current and amps may be different/not compatible.

ANY advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Paul

Have done the 05 cbr 1000rr tail swap,same problem as you,and end up using a battery for a cbr.
Had no probs so far,so cant see why the R1 would be any different
Also I have no bar warmers ,or sat nav, ipod,to drain the power from the battery
So take that into consideration,but I could be wrong

I would highly recommend a LiFePO4 (lithium) battery of some type. Lithium packs scare some people, but done right they are a huge weight/size/performance advantage. I'm running one of these right now and it is considerably smaller. I originally looked into it for the same reason your are, for space reasons. If you run the bike once a week or more, you need no balancing or charger. If you go longer you just need to unplug the battery. The shelf life of the A123 cells or similar is astounding and it is actually bad to put it on a trickle charger.

There's plenty of reading if you search A123 cell, Turntech, or LiPoFE4 on the forum. The actual battery that I'm running currently is the 8 cell one that forum member Jamie Daughtery sells through his site, and these guys were very helpful to work with:

Motorcycle Batteries - RBbatteries

Speedcell, turntech and a number of others also make them, or if you're feeling adventurous you can make your own ;).

It could be taken into consideration, but you have other electrical issues if you're worried about those ;)

Once the bike is running, there should be no drain from the battery. The R/R should always charge more than you're draining. Bikes wouldn't work on a net loss of power... they would always be running out on the road if any of these things drew more charge than the system was producing over any significant time span. So what I'm saying is, you shouldn't base your accessory power draw on the size of your battery as that isn't an indicator of IF it will drain the battery, but HOW LONG it will take (assuming that it's drawing more than the battery is being charged).

The battery serves to start the motor reliably, and in cases of newer bikes keep that gauge clock running when the bike is off. How much and how well the battery holds and delivers charge under daily conditions (as well as takes a charge from the R/R) are really the issues to be concerned with, and the LiFePO4 batteriess do all of those very well...

Thanks guys, a huge help!

When doing the 05 tail swap, did you put on a 05 CBR sub frame? I'm about to start a big project on mine and was planning on outing on 05 CBR Fairings. I think this can be done if I make my own mounting brackets but any advise is helpful.