I posted a little while ago about my intentions of fixing up my F4i into a track/street bike. The plan has changed a bit. I'm taking a year off of racing next year, so the project will be much more extensive. The plan is to make the F4i a superbike spec track bike. This may seem strange to most people that I'm throwing a lot of money into an uncompetitive bike but I love my F4i and I'd much rather make something awesome out of it than just buy a new bike.

Anyway, I'm getting started soon. The first item on the agenda is ordering a full exhaust and having it properly mapped. I'm most likely taking it to MSPCycles in Georgia for the dyno tuning. This has to be the first step because the F4i is currently running freakishly rich and I need to make sure a proper map will fix the issue and that there isn't an underlying problem. I also need to make sure the engine is going to hold up, its taken a pretty good beating mixed with a bit of neglect over the past couple years.

Of course the bike already has a decent bit done to it. Its track ready but I have easy connectors when/if I decide to put lights/signals back on it if it ever goes back on the street. I've got Woodcraft clip-ons and rearsets, a GPR damper, Ohlins shock an endurance engineering subframe (light as hell and looks great too!), spool tabs welded on the swingarm, plenty of sprockets, good tires, aftermarket fairing stay, race gas cap, track bodywork of course, Vortex frame sliders, braided SS front brake lines, a PC3, K&N air and oil filters, and one of bootlegs shorty carbon fiber slip-on exhausts. As you can tell, most of my previous mods weren't intended for appearances or power and both of those are the key elements in this build so some of the stuff will have to go.

I will probably be getting an Akra full exhaust but when I get the bike dyno tuned, I would like to be able to put the shorty can on the akra headers to get a run with both cans. If running the shorty can does not make much of a difference and doesn't look ghetto rigged onto the akra headers I may keep that on there but if the akra does perform better with its own can, I'll have to run it like that. It will be mapped for VP racing fuel, most likely MR9 (thats some good ****), which also means it probably won't be used for a commuter bike lol (it'd be too expensive to ride daily anyway). I would, however, like to make it streetable. I may possibly return to the idea of the 30-second track bike, but this time making it the "30-second Superbike" haha. That takes me back of the whole problem of figuring out a way to mount a headlight in a way that is removable and not in the way. I still hadn't come up with a good solution for that one.
I considered running it as a naked bike on the street using a single headlight with bracket like most of the naked bikes use (SV650, 599, 919, Ducati Monster, etc) and just removing that and popping the fairings back on for trackdays but that would probably take more than 30 seconds and I don't think it would look as good that way. I guess I could suck it up and buy a set of sharkskinz plastics that have the headlight hole cutout with brackets. I could just use one side of the stock headlight and have the other side filled in and have my number plate painted on juts one side. Having that headlight would force the bike to be a trackday bike rather than a race bike though, which kinda sucks even though I didn't intend on actually racing it. I don't know but thats a start at least

I'll have to sell my SV650 race bike this winter to pay fund the project, once I do that the fun will really begin lol. The next major mod will be a new front end.The plan is to use the front end from an 01+ GSX-R1000 but I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use the[URL=http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/S-06-07-Suzu

 

I would like to mention that when I first began looking into the front end swap I was shocked at how many threads asking for info on doing a USD conversion were met with major bashing. It was very disheartening to find how people were being insulted for even suggesting it. That is ridiculous to me!

Most of the people doing the bashing it were doing it under the reasoning that "our bikes weren't designed for these forks"
I'm not sure if these people have noticed but "our bikes" weren't designed for anything but the parts they came with. Changing suspension components to something that it "wasn't designed for" doesn't in itself make the bike handle much differently. This isn't magic, its just physics. Your dealing with spring rates, rebound and compression damping, etc not magic potions. Now, yes if you put on a different suspension component and do keep the correct geometry (notice I said "correct" geometry not "stock" geometry), it can have a huge effect but that has nothing to do with the parts themselves, its how they were installed. Its the same as removing your forks and them putting them back on without attempting to put them at the same height.

There is very slight difference in rigidity but not enough for a street rider to notice and certainly nothing that would "ruin the handling"
Until the last couple years the only motorcycle chassis that were designed focusing on the physics and effects of rigidity as a handling factor were GP bikes, the F4i wasn't designed with a frame engineered for specific stiffness to work with only forks of a certain rigidity. The frame was designed to make the right shape and to hold all the partsin, the forks were brought over from the F4, they were slapped together, etc.

anyway, I believe I have settled on using the Sharkskinz street fairings. I'll have my painter fill in one side of the headlight hole and cut off one side of a set of stock headlights so that it has that endurance race bike look and so I can have my number plate painted on the othe side

 

wow, still no replies? come on guys!

I figured this would launch a pretty good debate on whether or not I'm insane for building a "superbike" F4i

anyway, here is the "before" shot, hopefully in less than year we'll have an "after" shot to go with it!

 

Ambitious and expensive good luck hope it turns out like you picture

 

What are adjustable triple-trees?

 

why dont you just buy a ducati they come stock with all that shiznit

 

I aready said why. He likes the F4i. Whats wrong with that? He's not asking for you to pay.

 

i say just buy a new bike then keep the f4i as your project race bike that you just slowly build up to prefection. That way you can keep racing while making ur f4i into a real monster

 

Thats nuts, I'm excited to see the end project. Do something different, thats my motto! Do you have more pictures of the bike before?

 

I hope it works out for you as you hope, sometimes so many big changes and mods to avehicle just make it harder to set it up (will you have to revalve the front forks?), but all those mods look great. Wheels alone will make a huge difference. Good luck, keep us posted.