...on this new to me bike that I recently acquired. I just restored a beater VFR and sold it when finished. I found that bike, a great sport tourer, was too 'stodgy' for me, too ponderous, just too damn heavy and slow handling, so I'm on my first CBR 600 now, and liking it a lot.

I just bought an older F2 for my S.O. to replace the Honda Hawk twin race bike of mine that she was trying to ride...I liked the handling of the F2 (did a track day at ORP in Oregon on it and had a blast) so I found an inexpensive and well used F4i.

First thing was the handling...It was awful! Really really scary, especially since the F2 was such a pleasant ride. The F4 would almost break my wrists wanting to tip in at slow speed... I put on some cheap Shinko Stealth take offs that helped, at least they weren't squared-off like the Freeway Flyers the Previous Owner had on there. Next was to raise the fork legs in the triples about 5mm. That helped some more. Then I did the sag settings as best I could with the stock springs....I got the front to 38 by running the spring preload all the way down, almost. I got the rear to about 35 with the rear spring on 7....I weigh about 170 without gear and ride pretty agro.

Next, I found that second gear was 'slipping' in and out under hard acceleration. Bummer! Also, the "F-I" light was lit up after warming....found the Map vac line off and fixed that. Found some gearbox internals on Ebay and picked up those for $90, planning on going into the box during our winter, but along came a Craig's List ad for a complete part out of a 2003 F4i, so I offered $350 for the motor and tranny and the guy took the offer. Drove about 500 miles round trip to get the motor...it ended up being the whole dang thing including cables, throttle bodies, even the kickstand....

So I pulled the whole old motor out and put the 'new' one in, without much more than a wiping off and a clean up of the connectors. While I had the motor out, I shimmed the rear shock to gain some ride more rear ride height, to further quicken the initial turn in and to be able to back off the rear pre-load. The motor went in without too much trouble and runs like a champ, shifts very smooth indeed, and dosn't jump out of second gear...Excellent.

I replaced the crappy organic front pads with some EBC HH compound put in fresh fluid...that made the brakes good enough for now...SS lines are coming soon...the rubber lines are not good feeling to me, but I can ride the bike with them for a bit more.

Today I put fresh fork oil in and added some spacers to the spring stack...I made them 18mm, which allowed me to back off the preload settings to line 5, preliminary....and still have just 32mm sag again at the front. I also increased the fork oil level about 8mm. Feels much better but it still needs springs and later on, some new valving.

I finally got an R6 throttle tube to work...what a frikken pain! But I no longer have to take two grabs to go from off to wide open...really helps when riding hard and fast. There are write ups here saying how easy this swap should be, but I found every thing worked just great with my swap.....until I put the bar up on the fork...and then it hung up.....I'd take it off and all apart, dremel here, dremel there and again...smooth and free in my hand, but when on the fork leg....hanging up again....

I put on some Q2 Dunlops, good handling tire, quite confidence inspiring.

So, slowly and incrementally, this bike is coming into good shape for me. I am quite pleased with how it handles now, though an Ohlins rear and a fork rework, as well as some more precise brakes would be a welcome addition...down the road a little....

Next is to paint the flat black crap-ola and put on a clear windscreen and maybe some more visible turn signals at the back....it has that double led under seat Chinese lighting set at the rear...pretty dangerous in traffic, not that I ride much in the city...but ...

Sorry for the long winded post...but it's pretty much the same things everyone should do when getting a different bike...(barring that engine/gearbox swap...)