I think my account got moderated into the bin so I guess I should actually try to introduce myself and stuff

So a few weeks back I traded this
<<<Large pics removed - new ones below>>>

**** pic I know. Been too busy doing maintenance, fixing retarded electrical **** and riding it to take a couple better shots.

I dig the bike a bit more that I thought... but I am a fan of the 'fighter style so I've started collecting the parts to convert it to handlebars. Besides clipons make my carpal tunnel syndrome flair and I lose the use of my thumb and for fingers while riding

If I end up keeping the bike I'll probably fighter it. I really hate hiding all that lovely mechanical goodness behind plastic.

If I don't keep it I'll put an ad on CL next spring to trade it for a Buell XB9s or an old Ducati Monster or really any L/V twin or v4 sport bike that will make me smile. The i4 is fun for horsepower at speed but I'm a torque fan and this thing only has as much torque as that 87 Sportster 883 did...

So there...
Hi

 

Welcome aboard ahks!

Say, we all like pics but yours are a just a little large... Can you shrink 'em down a bit? ;-)

Good looking bikes. The red wheels on the F4i are dif. There are many directions you can take the fighter look. Start a thread & give us pics on the progression.

 

I don't appear to have an edit button...

 

I'll delete the large pics & you can repost 'em.

 

Awesome thanks for that

Right heres what I used to have


And heres what I trader her for


As soon as I get the wiring cleaned up from the farce that was the PO's attempt to "DIY Integrated tail light with a trailer module" I'll get some more pics in daylight.

I previewed it this time to make sure the pics were the size of Alaska too

 

There we go! ;-) Thanks for taking the time to do that for us. We like pics. :-)

You've got a nice F4i to work w/. Make it your own. Enjoy doing your mods/upgrades.

 

Welcome to the forum.

Hope you keep it and stick around. The F4i is a great bike. If it's not blowing the air cleaner off the sporty, something is not right....

 

Welcome,

F4i's are great bikes, good handling, In my opinion the best looking Cbr's by far, also if maintained correctly they run for ever.

 

I've seen the guy with a couple hundred thousand miles on an F4i on youtube. While I don't think I would ever be an iron butt rider it's encouraging to see that sort of longevity out of the platform.

I started riding with a 94 Yamaha XJ600, 4 or 5 years ago? If it were fuel injected I may have never sold it. Multiple carbs and I don't get along. It doesn't help that the bike wasn't popular enough to warrant anyone making a rebuild kit for them.

Last year I picked up the 87 Sportster 883, thing had such low mileage it was scary. Original tires, brakes, fork oil. I don't want to think that it had original trans fluid as well but when I asked the PO about changing it he said he does oil changes every year. I'm not sure he knew they were separate on that bike...

But I rode it till it got too cold. When it was still fresh in my mind it was fun and exciting, I wanted to chop it, bob it, bore it out with a 1250cc kit, swap the forks to sport bike forks... I rapidly realized I wanted to turn it into a Buell.

Over winter I started to look at Buells and noticed the huge difference in weight and power to weight ratios. I quickly came to the conclusion that I would never get that low weight, high torque feeling out of a Sportster that has a dry weight of 490lbs.

So this spring I started an ad on CL that read (and this is one of the ads copy pasted from my CL account )
I wrote that having ridden a friends R6 but never having touched a CBR of any sort. I probably should have replaced CBR with GSX-R as I know I didn't want a gixxer. **** just shouts squid even when I see someone that appears to be responsible riding one.

So a guy responds to my ad and asks what I'd take for the Sportster and mentions the only thing he'd have to trade was an 03 CBR. I figure, "What the hell, what's it gonna hurt to check this thing out and maybe take it for a spin?"

I really had no idea what I was missing. I've only got a 30" in-seam and the seat on the F4i is a bit wide so I can only 1foot it or tip toe it. But the weight of the thing changes the game completely. I didn't really know what I was asking for when I was talking sport bike weights. The thing is over 100lbs lighter. Add to that the fact that everything works so well. The front brakes will toss you if you try to grab a bunch like on the Harley, so it just takes 1 or 2 fingers, no need any more to grab a whole fist full at the sudden appearance of brake lights in front of you. The rear brake was anything but anaemic. I managed to lock the rear brake in the parking lot for the test ride, talk about a cold sweat BTW. Having the rear slide out a touch at 40mph in a parking lot? How do you spell adrenaline? So I took it out on the roads and took it down a few miles then took it from idle to 10k in first gear. Realized I still was a couple thousand from red line, was going faster than I ever had on the Harley, it felt like it wanted to be there...

That's when the grin started.
It's still there a few weeks later.
Being the pessimistic optimist as I am wont to be... Lets see how I feel this fall and next spring.

And sorry about the long wall of text, typing helps me wake up in the mornings.

 

That's some story man, I could imagine going from a 883 sporty to an F4i is very confusing to say the least for riding style/power. I honestly have never rode a Harley, but I build as a hobby about 5 or 6 chopped up bobbers a year as a hobby, I buy them on CL for around 4 or 500 bucks, cut the heck out of them and then sale them when done.

Sport bikes in general have really touchy rear brakes, I normally don't even touch it unless I need to make a really quick stop that I need both front and rear, or pulling out on a hill.

I'm sure you won't get tired of the F4i for a very long time, I completely rebuilt the one I had from the ground up (I hit a deer and destroyed it a week after I bought it), the aftermarket for the F4i is insane! You can find anything you could ever want on Ebay. Only reason I ended up putting it for sale in the end was to find a bigger cc bike to use for interstate long distance trips. I still miss my bike everyday

You can check out my profile on here, I have an album of the F4i. You might see some things you would want to do to yours, I had only about 1200 bucks in the full rebuild of the bike, only thing left stock was motor and main frame.