Gentleman,

Recently I was riding on a beautiful country rode with nice turns and whoops, laid the bike down. I came out of the whole incident completely fine without a scrape or a bruise but thought, "I'm not about to spend 500 dollars on old fairings that are impossible to find and I sure as hell am not gonna go through painting them all again" so I decided to make a street fighter out of the bike. I have already ordered and received a polisport Halo headlight and have changed out the innards with an HID I got for Christmas. The thing is bright as can be. I have relocated the oil cooling radiator to the rear of the forks and am going to mount the thing with some brackets I am going to make at my universities metal shop (the joy of being an engineer major. I have completely unwired the bike in preparation for "painting" the frame and have decided to use truck bed liner. I really want to use the original speedometer and tachometer but as of right now am struggling to visualize how to mount them, or even how they would fit with the tight space behind the Halo.

So I'm really hoping to spray the frame tomorrow with the truckbed liner after a LOT of cleaning crum off of it and masking the other parts of the bike (which will take probably 3 hours while the painting will take no more than 30 minutes). I have some questions some of you experienced street fighter guys will have answers to. Also, its important to point out that I have the BRC 2 class on August 20 so the most important thing is to get the bike running and looking good, and then smaller details can follow, especially this winter.

First, whats the best speedometer/tachometer setup to use? I've seen the TrailTech things and am interested in that but am not sure that what I want. I love the look of the old instruments with their red glow, so if anyone has chopped the speedometer and tach out of the original cluster and used those on a street fighter I would love any tips and advice on how to go about doing that.

Second, I'm planning on having most of my wiring behind the radiator and above the valve cover. Is there anything wrong with this? I was planning on moving essentially all of the wiring back there, including the fuse box? Is this a huge no no due to the temperature of the engine or should the wiring boxes hold up? If this is a no go, where is the best place to put all the wiring junctions?

Finally, ************************************************** **********************.

I look forward to any answers to the posed questions and look forward to sharing my progress with you (also, I will post pictures most likely tomorrow of the new and improved black framed bike).

Best,
Erik

 

Just an update, I got the frame painted and it looks pretty sharp. I'm starting to rewire the bike and put the thing back together which is taking quite a bit of time. I pretty much just need to rewire the bike, paint the gas tank, and refill the fluids for it to be ready to finish up the riding season. Major modifications will come in the winter.

I tried to post some pictures but am having some trouble with PhotoBucket so will try again this evening.

 

Ate you still around? Any updates?