#bobberlife

But, a lot of people make their own mounts for dampers. All of the older gixxer ones were inside the front fairing.

My favorite 954 fighter had one that mounted from the lower triple to a custom bracket off the motor mount.

 

under the knife again;

new headlight setup. the lower one (for low beam) is a flood light, the top (for high beam) is a spot light refractor

2016-09-04_03-56-57 by Steve, on Flickr

also moving the gauge to the triple, which necessitates relocating the ignition switch, but the stock switch is gigantic and ugly, so i built this relay interface instead. just have to ground the yellow wire for ignition on.

2016-09-04_03-57-43 by Steve, on Flickr

it'll let me use a bit more versatile anti-theft device which is more hidden and probably wont use any keys, probably more like a few hidden toggle switches.

 

that definitely helped clean up the wiring up front, and is stupid bright on high beam

2016-09-11_11-52-06 by Steve, on Flickr]

hacked a bar end to mount the gauge to the steering tube, worked alright, there's just no great place on a stock f4i triple to mount the stock f4i gauge

2016-09-11_12-13-23 by Steve, on Flickr

 

20160926_174431 by Steve, on Flickr

20160926_174442 by Steve, on Flickr

added a removable rear fender since it's getting wet, and bobtail isn't doing it. decided to go against the trend of up-turned fenders. it's the back section of a bigass cruiser front fender (see the fork dents?).. not too pretty but it'll get me through the winter

 

Now that's Sharp!

 

vibration problems.

i tried to make up for the fact that i lost a bit of bar weight from going to bar end mirrors by adding a small bar weight to the outside.

the extra weight actually increased vibration at the bar end, and the cheapass barend mirrors ripped themselves apart from vibrations, threads started tearing apart at high speed, and then i lost one on the highway.

turns out that rubber mounted inner bar weight vibrates at an insane speed at certain rpms depending on how much weight you add to it. you can even put your finger on your bar end and feel it.

i decided to press a heavy metal slug into the clipon in place of the weight, then tack welded a big M10 nut into the end of the bar so i can mount weights or mirrors to it, and the slug is trapped forever.

so far working way better

 

worked on the tail section a bit more getting it ready for the upcoming season

the last plastic fender was long and flexible, i had to brace it to stop it from wagging around at high speed. started pissing me off. also got sick of how it looked

went with a shorter steel fender.. same idea as last time, used the back part of a wrecked cruiser front fender, but this time a different cruiser.

i got some scrap plastic, and boxed in the subframe completely and built a new battery and electrical tray that ties into the new fender.

i'm a horrible fabricator, but this plastic (we call it star board) worked well using rough cuts and bending in a vise with a heat gun.

i spent more time figuring out how to hide my bad cuts behind existing framework, rather than making the cuts look good....

then rewired everything again. i shortened the reg/rec wires, tail relay wiring, etc.

can't really see in the pictures, but the cut off ends of the stock subframe are now vertical strips of LEDs for the signals

hid the reg rec, rear brake res, bunch of other stuff, and used a shorter lithium battery

new fender by Steve, on Flickr

new fender by Steve, on Flickr

 

eventually all us fairingless freaks realize one thing, street fighter doesn't mean fighting on the street, it means you fight hard to keep the thing on the street.

the biggest thing on holding together a custom 600 fighter is definitely vibration, especially if you play around at every rpm possible.

i got a weird rattle, which i figured meant my manual CCT needed tightening, so i checked it and it was perfect.. so i went for a ride, held the rpm where the noise was worst, and started grabbing onto parts until the noise died. turns out my thin headlight bracket (which came with the lights, but i bent a bit to make it fit) tore right through like it was made of cardboard.

i had to make a new, stronger, one peice bracket. it took a few tries, my entire fab shop is a hacksaw, a drill, and a set of flat files...dremel died. even worse, the headlight tore itself apart inside, the lenses from the leds broke loose from their mounts.

the other recent changes involve exhaust. i devised a way to adjust the overall baffle diameter in my chopped up yoshi triple oval with a series of pop rivets and cones, making a totally dynamic muffler like a supertrapp but that requires an insane amount of disassembly/reassembly time to tune.

turns out after a whole day of drilling and re-riveting 1.5" is the ideal baffle size for an F4i with a shorty pipe. no more, no less. it has the perfect off-idle and full throttle torque band at 1.5". 1.6" starts to lose low end torque, 1.4" starts to lose high end torque.. and you can really feel it.

i tried both with stock and hindle front section. the stock exhaust loses less torque at larger diameters, but the effect is similar.

 

by https://www.flickr.com/photos/rfesu/, on Flickr

by https://www.flickr.com/photos/rfesu/, on Flickr

by https://www.flickr.com/photos/rfesu/, on Flickr

 

Your bike looks sharp. I like how all of the lines match from front to back by keeping the original seat at it's oem stance so the seat matches the tank.