Wondered what happened to ya...

Only rode an 80's 1000F once, but coming from a CBR600, I was amazed by the low-end torque. Pulled harder @ 4K than my 600 @ 8K. Or at least it felt like it.

Love to see it with all the bodywork on it.

 

 

Lookin good, Oh what fun.
Decals;
Quality Decals for Honda Hurricane for your Motorcycle
Quality Decals for Honda CBR Series for your Motorcycle

 

Yes, I love it! Definitely inspires me to keep after my projects.

 

I saw the same thing doing mine - Super clean, no varnish with light passing through the jets. But it did run better after the cleaning, maybe partially because I sealed my airbox boots as well. Are these carbs really that touchy? My bike is a MK2, not sure what the differences are.

 

Those xtreemedecals are tempting, but from the preview, they look slightly off. The OEM version has pinstripes across the bottom half of the numbers, giving it a sweet 80's fade. I think the best solution will be to try and reverse-engineer them from google images, and paint them on by hand. I might wait until fall to go through that process. I'm not exactly a great painter - the bodywork's decent, but I'm definitely a bit rusty with the spraygun

This is what I mean about the decal:

https://www.cmsnl.com/honda-cbr1000f.../#.WyfMvlVKiUk

I think the carb cleaning helped, but not as much as gobbing up the cracks in the airbox. The carbs were visually clean on the inside, but I think some gunk had accumulated on the pilot jet, so I plucked a bristle from a wire brush and cleaned it out. The MK2 carbs produced slightly more power, despite having a half mm smaller throttle body and no fuel pump. As I say, it might be a cute little upgrade at some point, but the original equipment runs, so I don't feel the need right now. The only other difference on the MK2 is the adjustment screw is on the bottom which is almost impossible to access without fancy tools

Out of town all weekend, so I didn't get a chance to look at the leaking petcock. That's probably my most pressing concern. Once it's sorted, I can put the rest of the bodywork on. These panels were so badly destroyed that I'm a little surprised they came out looking the way they did

Not perfect, but that was never the goal

 

I haven't tried painting anything yet, have that old CB to test on to make sure I have the knack. Your panels look really good

 

Thanks GronkFries

Also, let me just say that while I'm not a personal fan of the ratbike look, I've had more compliments on this half-finished bike in 2-3 rides than I got in the prior 4 months on the mint condition 2014 CBR1000rr. For some reason, everybody loves a rat

Today some punky thing with bright hair stopped in a crosswalk to tell me she really liked the bike. On my first unsuccessful ride some Harley dude gave me a fist bump as I was troubleshooting the leaking petcock by the side of the road (also, don't try to tell me those guys ain't friendly, cause they always seem to be the first to stop and offer assistance)

My neighbors can't seem to keep from staring. I can only assume it is with admiration, though it's also possible that they intend to call the cops about the sights, sounds, and (sometimes) smells but whatever, I don't make trouble when old Ben gardens shirtless, so they can handle my punk *** ripping around a bit to make sure I haven't left any bolts loose

Once the 1000km break-in and leak test are confirmed, I'll dress it up all pretty. In the meantime, I like having the access so I don't have to detrim the bike every time something goes wrong

 

I have to chime in here. Been riding around on my steel sled after all the sh*t blew off it. It feels nice and other people on the road don't look surprised by any means, but I do plan to put the plastics back on it after they are fixed. But maybe not for a while, it doesn't look too bad. Mechanical first!!

 

Update: More Mechanical

Haven't had as much time to work on the bike, and with our kids in the golden age of 6 and 3, this summer I've been making a bit more of an effort to get quality family time then on finishing my project, with vacations, camping, daytrips, and biking putting a lot of my weekends to better use. That and rebuilding sections of our deck, fixing the car of some lady who my wife bumped with our van, putting air-conditioners in every room to deal with the intense heat of this summer, and spending a lot of time on the goldwing.

I know. Excuses, excuses. I haven't been totally idle though. We're still making progress:

-Petcock replaced. No more catastrophic fuel leaks. Take that off the list
-Break-in period complete, old oil changed out, along with a bad gasket on the shifter cover, which I wound up purchasing rather than cutting another out by hand
-For some reason the stick coils kept popping out mid-ride. Luckily it was possible to fix by the side of the road. Shoutouts to the nice police lady who stopped to make sure I was okay on one of my many 'roadside stops'. Since then I've been travelling with one of those infrared thermometers so I can confirm ignition and get a rough idea of how hot each pipe is getting. Pretty consistent, so I think each cylinder is contributing, and no reason to think that any are excessively lean/rich
-Figured out that the stick coils were popping out due to tension on the wires. Rerouted them with the wires facing forward. This led to a hilarious incident when I was on my way to work and the fan started rubbing up against one of the wires, making a really ugly sound. I thought I'd blown it up
-Later that week, it stalled in traffic on my way to work. I'm not sure why, but it started right back up. It seems to run worse when hot, which doesn't make a lot of sense. Might wire in a manual bypass for the electric fan so I can manage the temps better in traffic
-The rattling unnerved me so I pulled the valve cover off to confirm clearances, and take a visual of the cams and cam chain. While I was at it I took a compression test and verified timing. All looked good. I'm sure it sounds the exact same way it always did. Maybe I'm just hyper-nervous about every little sound this engine makes because of all the hours I put into it
-Spark plugs are all a healthy brown, and for bonus points I greased the threads with a bit of anti-seize on reassy (thanks to a guilt trip from echowars)
-I'm not really happy with the idle, so I think I might go back into the carbs to give them another good clean/sync
-Per a sketchy youtube tutorial, I tried to locate potential vacuum leaks by blowing cigar smoke into the crankcase breather tube on top of the airbox. No useful data
-I'm also thinking about wiring a temporary voltage readout on the battery so that I can confirm R/R. I'm wondering if that might be why it has problems with the heat, and possibly contributed to the massive heat warp in the tail that was one of the nastier bits to repair
-For some reason, the bike still smells a bit like burning oil, or maybe plastic. It's not coming from the exhaust, and I've been driving myself batty trying to find the source
-Took the air out of the front forks. She was feeling a little bit harsh. Still a very nice handling bike, great steel beast that she is
-Probably about half an inch of chicken strip left. Not planning to ride aggressively, especially while she's unreliable, but I have gone for a couple test flights up the highway, and once she's on the open road, it feels like all the mechanical issues go away... or maybe I just can't hear them over the rushing wind

Two steps forward, one step back