mello dude

If you are a cheap bastard, Harbor Freight sells a battery maintainer charger type tender with a coupon for $5.99. Just gotta keep an eye out for the coupon. I have one, and I hook it up to the Valk battery once a week for 24 hours. It does a decent job.

lol -- I like chrome, but only on cruisers.

I'm guessing you probly wont care for my taste, but either fairing with stock bars or lower bars, naked, and the headlight needs to be chrome. Also chrome plate holder. The header pipe chrome looks lonely. Chrome parts need some balance, front to rear. Sweet bike btw..

Nice job!

Try $100k (dammit)

Check your parts list against full OEM MSRP prices, -Any online parts vendor is a good place to check.. http://www.partzilla.com/

Your 6th gen has "right side up" forks and the VFR below has USD forks - Do you see? 5th gen "right side up" forks or "standard"

Nice - lotsa new parts to farkle my 5th gen with.

Interesting... but looking at it, in gross generalites it could apply to every motorcycle on the planet. I have heard of the moisture in the caliper issue before. But with the Zooks, the plating on the piston seems to be combining with the moisture generating hydrogen. And the bottom line is poor maintenance with overdue brake fluid flushout causes effed up brakes. What else dont we know?

Pick a number, any number.... http://www.nadaguides.com/Motorcycles/1985/Yamaha/XV700N-VIRAGO/Values

Absolutely - I'm a big fan of bike builds. ---VFRD has a good group of enthusiastic builders. Here's one of my favorites Whadya think? ---More bike builds!

By the Dayton Mall -- PM me if you want to hook up.

I have a set of Super Hawk clips ons you could try. - They are 41mm

When in doubt you could send an oil sample to Blackstone Labs and get and analysis. Looks like this. http://i1139.photobucket.com/albums/n553/VFR781/Misc/OilLabReport_0001_zpsf887a86e.jpg The bike shifting felt "notchy" and by the report shows the viscosity fell out of spec. Seems like the butt diagnosis is not a bad indicator to do a change.

^^^^ Agree with you that the bikes charging system needs to be in top shape before considering one of the Lithium Iron Phosphate batterys. (mine is) And I have read/noted the concern about the cell balancing. MOTY does sell a charger, but I havent needed to go there for charging issues. (I have a voltmeter up front to watch volts in real time) -- Got the 3 years so far and If it goes 5 seasons, I will consider my experiment a success...

I have run a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery from MOTYdesigns for the last 3 seasons. Generally I like it. It does lose some punch if it has a soak in sub 50s temps, so it is best to pull it and bring inside if you are expecting low temps. (Mine has a quick connector, so its no big deal) Its a common trait of this battery technology. For me the best part is for winter, just bring it in the house, and forget about it. No charging required. Forget about the battery tender. The battery can sit for a year and only lose a tenth of a volt. And of course the thing only weighs 1.75 pounds. Coolness... Now Lithium Ion? Not me, no thanks.....

Still have the F4i wheel?

I like 10 of the styles out of the 16, wonder what that means... although I'm on a Becks Dark and Stella Artois kick for the moment big time.

Kinda agree on that, but you need to head to the aftermarket, to nail down the fixes.

http://www.partzilla.com/ for OEM parts... I've had good luck with Ron Ayers too.

Same thing in the automotive engineering world..... Pic of Delphi connector for stator replacement.......with crimped style terminals....

+ 1 - -- The stator connector is a weak link on Hondas, (For that matter, the wire gauge stator side on it is damn wimpy too. ) if you dont keep up with them, they could look like,,, That why I like the MetriPack series connectors 450s or 630s for the stator connector. High amp specs and sealed. Used this 630 on recent R/R fix it job. (Rated 46 amps)

Dude - grab this R/R kit.. www.roadstercycle.com

As long as its the fine female type.

The "good" R/Rs have a p/n like FH0xx aa and are newer design MOSFET technology. The "crap" R/Rs have a p/n SH xxxxA. (At least the OEM parts made by Shindengen.) ---- btw highly recommend - www.roadstercycle.com Honda was cheaping out on chargings systems for quite awhile and yours year is from the middle of it. My '98 VFR was part of that too. I rebuilt the whole thing. -- Anyhoo, here's a list to check the system. Start out buy confirming the battery is good. Go through all your connectors for burnt leads, dig deep. Crispy wires? Not good. Your gonna have to fix that! Individual spade connectors dont have enuff cajones to handle the stator to R/R connection. Some guys do a direct solder hookup and others (me) used automotive type Delphi MetriPack connectors that handle high current. Then---Go through this starting point quick list. You will need a multimeter too. Steps: - Recharge battery overnite - then to take it to Autozone, Batteries Plus, or similar to load test. -- Good? Bad? – An iffy battery can fake you out and act like a bad R/R. Buy new if needed. - With good battery fire it up, warm up for a minute or two. These are R/R quick checks--- --- With voltmeter at battery get voltages -- idle volts? 5000 rpm volts? What’s the numbers? Should be in 13ish min idle and in 14s at revs. If in the 12s at idle, try at 1900 rpm. - Check stator - 1. Pull connector apart. Set meter to resistance. Check pin to pin, 3 yellow wires, A to B, B to C, C to A. What’s the numbers? 3 separate readings --Should be less than 1.0 ohms. (Engine off) - 2. Check continuity from each A,B,C pin to ground, -- -should be infinity - nada nothing. no continuity. -- 3 separate checks. (Engine off, again connector is apart) - 3. Crank it back up. Do another pin to pin thing, but set meter on AC volts. idle and 5000 rpms. What's da numbers? Should start 15 -20ish and climb 50ish and more. Again – 3 readings, connector still apart. - Repeat hot. This quick list will catch the obvious stuff, but if you need to dig deeper check this chart. http://www.electrosport.com/media/pdf/fault-finding-diagram.pdf