Swagger
Putting boot to ass since 1967!
I recently picked up this:
If you were to call it a Virago you'd only be a little wrong. In truth the major difference between the more plentiful 'Virago' and the European model XV920/TR1 is the chain drive vs. the US model's shaft, and the slightly odd looking rear end. What this is in truth is a good, all around motorcycle. This particular unit is in outstanding shape for it's vintage. It's an 81 with a shit-ton of miles on the clock (68k!) but the engine was recently treated to a fresh top-end rebuild and sounds/runs like brand new. That 68K kinda worried be at first but the bike was obviously owned by someone who did maintenance as it SHOULD be done. There are no rattles, no clunks or squeaks or any other odd noise for that matter. It's had paint recently but shows a fair amount of 'garage wear' in the form of subtle scratches and scuffs. I'm not worried about that at all as it's it such fantastic mechanical shape. Other than changing to tires of a brand I recognize (these are some kind of chinese death tire) the only place it *NEEDS* attention really is the suspension.
Typical of an 80's bike, it's squishy and wobbly and handles like a drunken hobby horse.
For all that though, due to it's exceptionally low center of gravity (note how low in the chassis the engine is) it feels tremendously light and agile for 480-some pounds(til the wallowing starts) so potential is there.
I've been happily involved in conversation with a couple guys who raced them in the 80s in the BOTT serries. Battle of the Twins was just that....a racing series for twin cylinder bikes. Neat. Like most racers these kats are full of tall tales about their bikes but once past the enthusiasm a vast amount of knowledge was laid on me in large chunks. From that info-dump formed a plan of attack for this bike, which will be built in phases since this is a clean tagged rider.
The end result will flesh out in one of two ways:
....or this:
Regardless of how it ends, this build will go in phases so as to keep this on the road as continuously as possible.
Phase 1: Weight-loss
Let's be honest shall we? This shit just ain't gonna work........
We're going start by taking heavy shit off and either just pitching it or replacing with something less weighty. In typical 80's fashion, there's a lot of crap hung on the bike for the sake of the prevailing fashion and perhaps a little misspent creative thinking.
On the chopping block currently:
1) Heavy cast alloy grab rail, "luggage rack" and tail light assembly.
Generally speaking, 'Heavy' and 'Alloy' don't go together, however in this case I think they alloyed the aluminum and zinc with lead or tungsten. Regardless this is just a heavy piece of metal with little real value as far as I'm concerned. The rack portion is good for a whopping 11lb (5kg for you Euro types) so totally useless and I don't intend to carry anything on this bike that can't be handled with a backpack or soft bags/tank bag anyway. The silly plastic "trunk" bit that's built into the rack? Dumb. Gone. Lastly the tail light; I'm a little torn as it's actually not bad for an 80's unit, it's not HUGE or particularly ugly so who know...it may remain we shall see.
2) That ridiculous enclosure for the chain:
So.......great idea! It makes an otherwise generic non-oring, non-spiffy chain last a loooong time. Some guys are getting 50k(!!!) out of a chain since it's enclosed no grit gets to it and it's bathed in expensive lithium grease. Neato huh? Well...yeah if they just hadn't made the entire assembly out of cast iron's fatter cousin. Really it's aluminum, pot metal and plastic bit it's also over 20lbs! I'll wax my chain now&then and run a simple aluminum chain guard and be a happy camper. Plus it looks stupid as hell....GONE>
3)Rear fender assembly.
Huggers are pretty common these days and they do a good job of keeping the worst of the crud from blasting off the tire and onto the back of the engine. Gods bless'm but Yamaha in the 80's got 'thiiiiiiiis close' to doing it right......but they failed. Vincent had lovely alloy fender(the light kind) hung from the swingarm and it looked great...this just looks bad, and...it's apparently pretty chubby for what it is. Gone. I'll likely run something in it's place though at the moment I haven't decided. There's a substantial frame element and some other stuff between the tire and the engine and nothing of note under the seat so I may do nothing more than a small aluminum splash shield.
4) Aluminum swing arm in place of the stocker
(see below)
5) Gauges, idiot lights, turn signals, factory controls, mirrors and other annoying heavy things.
The gauges are very much like those on my other favorite Yamaha from the 80's the XS750/850 triple. In a word....HEAVY. And not just heavy but bulky and ugly. Add in big (loose) levers, a chunky mastercylinder, goofy looking mirrors that show me my shoulders, some big 'ol lollipop turn signals and another 10 pounds of pot metal and crap plastic in the form of the aforementioned idiot lights, trim pieces, bracketry, reflectors, various flappy bits and one large wasp nest.....you may note that there's room for improvement.
In this case though the tach is electronic so I may keep that bit and run a smaller, lighter speedo......or just ditch the works and run a Vapor computer. A small LED panel for the idiot lights (what's an idiot to do without his lights after all?) and that should drop some weight as well as clean up the looks up top.
I'm a little bit stalled in my plan for the turn signals though. I like the old BMW style bar end signals a lot
6) No more Veg-a-matics!
The swirly 'Veg-a-matic' wheels are rightly hated by anyone who's a) tried to lug one around to change the tire or b) trying to go fast efficiently. In short, the laws of physics all conspired together (bastards) to make these wheels not only uglier than Rosanne Barr in a saran-wrap thong but heavier than a similar amount of raw fucking lead. Did I mention the ugly? For the immediate future this bike will wear spoked wheels from a CB500...because I have them, they are the right size and they have really nice Dunlops. Even stock, the cb500 wheels weigh substantially less. I'll do a weight comparison just for giggles as soon as I bring my highly accurate bathroom scale in. My calibrated 'Lift-o-matic 2000' (left arm)says that the front is at least 5lb lighter and the rear is closer to 10! Doesn't sound like much but excessive unsprung weight and especially unsprung rotating weight is a handling killer.
These relatively minor changes *should* be good for 55-60lbs depending on what things ACTUALLY weight. The rear shock is heavy as well but that'll be addressed in phase 2.
Keep in mind that this is just the beginning of the chub-shaving. Those BOTT guys....to hear it told they were running right at 300lbs. I have my work cut out for me...
Phase two: Improved handling
I think the weightloss will help a lot and this bike already feels pretty agile just for it's very low center of gravity but like a lot of things born in the 80's the suspension is pretty marginal. Braking pretty much bottoms out the front end and it's freshly rebuilt to factory specs. The back is just as squishy and my large self does little to help the situation. The frame itself is regarded as pretty stout and looking at the headstock it does appear to be pretty beefy so I'll be concentrating on suspension and setup.
Forks: The OE forks are marginal for a bike weighing 100lb less at best and 30 years of progress have illustrated just how lame they really are. Heavy, dangerously underdamped, fairly undersprung, too small and very flexible.
What I do have is the complete front end from a 91 BMW K75. The 41mm Showas are also what came equip'd on early CBRs though certainly set up differently. These forks are 4mm larger in diameter and an inch shorter (I'd be dropping the front an inch anyway) and come with a nice factory brace. The stem will fit with some tapered conversion bearings and the BMW sourced triples are Teutonic enough to look 'Engineered' once you strip off all the crap and give'm a good polishing. This pair happens to come with racetech .90kg-mm springs (for the Kay)and gold valve emulators already installed. My phase 1 target weight is 60-ish pounds less than the BMW so the springs should be a good starting point though I will likely have some made to suit eventually.
Rear shock and swingarm:
Yamaha chose to build the swingarm out of steel (alloyed with lead I think) and it's a hefty beast. Really heavy. I've got an Olhins shock that was slated for my old 955i but that bike went away before I installed it, he clevis end threads on and I'll machine something to suit this bike and yield an adjustable amount of lift out back to derake the front a wee bit. As I understand it, on this bike +1" = -1.35deg, so for every inch of lift out back the bike loses one and a third degree of rake. Good stuff. I'll likely start it at an inch of static lift with the ability to add more later. Coupled with the 1" shorter front end will yield quicker steering on an already quick steering bike. I'll be adding a gsxr steering damper (it's on the shelf.....thanks Mike D!) as well.
As for the swingarm, I'm looking really close at an 80-ish yz400 piece as that's been spoken of for this bike a few times. I had that particular evil dirtbike and it is a lightweight piece and quite strong...I tested mine a lot....and it looks like it'll all but swap directly, I've got a one coming so we'll see. Otherwise I'll likely need to make something to suit, we'll see.
Other things that'll be changed out during this period are the horrible seat and the way too heavy/restrictive exhaust.
The OEM seat for the TR1/920r is a nice looking piece and firm enough to make some pussies whine, but then I'd rather my seat be a bit on the firm side. This one feels like someone took the stock foam out and added the thick spongy stuff from grandma's couch and slung a semi-generic ebay-tastic seat cover on it. It looks remotely similar but is just uncomfortable. I'll be carting it off to a local shop for a rebuild. I'd thought to go to Corbin as I've had their seats on a couple other bikes, but I almost swallowed my tongue when I got the quote. For $500 based on my seat pan and foam(!!!) with vinyl...umm.....no. I looked at Sargent and a couple others but none could give me what I wanted for a fair price. Locally though there's a well respected joint that had made some really nice looking seat and as soon as I get some info back I'll be passing it along. Truth be told, even if her costs come close to Corbin or Sargent's I'll still go local...because it's local. Nothing wacky, just that tasty TR1 profile with the pilots seat blended in the thigh area a bit more and the rear edges rounded/softened. This will all get covered with camel leather with red stitching with a diamond quilted pattern on the seating surface. Looks like I have my choice for foam density and will likely add a gel pad under the front part.
The stock exhaust actually sounds ok but lacks authority but is REALLY HEAVY and fairly restrictive if the cross section I found online is accurate. I will likely end up with some one-off pipes once the engine building happens....oh yes, I WILL be building a beast for this bike. Any engine I spend any time at all with ends up way overboard and it's safe to assume this one will too in time. That all being said, likely I'll nab a cheap-o MAC or some other 2-1 exhaust header and I'll sling some kind of muffler on it...dunno yet.
According to various owners groups and a few articles I've read there's a good 10-13hp laying around waiting to be let loose in this without ever cracking the block. The OE exhaust is pretty but a decent (the MAC was cited) 2-1, a dynojet kit in the carbs and pod filters will do the trick. I know that the stock backbone/airbox setup is restrictive due mainly to packaging so this should help.
Pods on CV carbs!!??? I must have lost my nut huh? Apparently it works just fine in this case because the ol' girl's big lungs (even with the low factory compression) give a good strong vacuum signal and the dynojet kit allows for drilling out the transfer ports so it should still yield decent throttle response I hope. Worst cast I'll jet up this pair of VM40s I have on the shelf....but we'll give this a shot first.
Imagine this one with smaller turn signals, less obtrusive clocks and you get the idea of phase one. If I can get this thing to ~400lbs, 75hp and good handling I'll be happy with Phase 1.
The future....well.....that may lead to something like this:
trellis frame, 100hp torque beast, under 350lb......yum!
If you were to call it a Virago you'd only be a little wrong. In truth the major difference between the more plentiful 'Virago' and the European model XV920/TR1 is the chain drive vs. the US model's shaft, and the slightly odd looking rear end. What this is in truth is a good, all around motorcycle. This particular unit is in outstanding shape for it's vintage. It's an 81 with a shit-ton of miles on the clock (68k!) but the engine was recently treated to a fresh top-end rebuild and sounds/runs like brand new. That 68K kinda worried be at first but the bike was obviously owned by someone who did maintenance as it SHOULD be done. There are no rattles, no clunks or squeaks or any other odd noise for that matter. It's had paint recently but shows a fair amount of 'garage wear' in the form of subtle scratches and scuffs. I'm not worried about that at all as it's it such fantastic mechanical shape. Other than changing to tires of a brand I recognize (these are some kind of chinese death tire) the only place it *NEEDS* attention really is the suspension.
Typical of an 80's bike, it's squishy and wobbly and handles like a drunken hobby horse.
For all that though, due to it's exceptionally low center of gravity (note how low in the chassis the engine is) it feels tremendously light and agile for 480-some pounds(til the wallowing starts) so potential is there.
I've been happily involved in conversation with a couple guys who raced them in the 80s in the BOTT serries. Battle of the Twins was just that....a racing series for twin cylinder bikes. Neat. Like most racers these kats are full of tall tales about their bikes but once past the enthusiasm a vast amount of knowledge was laid on me in large chunks. From that info-dump formed a plan of attack for this bike, which will be built in phases since this is a clean tagged rider.
The end result will flesh out in one of two ways:
....or this:
Regardless of how it ends, this build will go in phases so as to keep this on the road as continuously as possible.
Phase 1: Weight-loss
Let's be honest shall we? This shit just ain't gonna work........
We're going start by taking heavy shit off and either just pitching it or replacing with something less weighty. In typical 80's fashion, there's a lot of crap hung on the bike for the sake of the prevailing fashion and perhaps a little misspent creative thinking.
On the chopping block currently:
1) Heavy cast alloy grab rail, "luggage rack" and tail light assembly.
Generally speaking, 'Heavy' and 'Alloy' don't go together, however in this case I think they alloyed the aluminum and zinc with lead or tungsten. Regardless this is just a heavy piece of metal with little real value as far as I'm concerned. The rack portion is good for a whopping 11lb (5kg for you Euro types) so totally useless and I don't intend to carry anything on this bike that can't be handled with a backpack or soft bags/tank bag anyway. The silly plastic "trunk" bit that's built into the rack? Dumb. Gone. Lastly the tail light; I'm a little torn as it's actually not bad for an 80's unit, it's not HUGE or particularly ugly so who know...it may remain we shall see.
2) That ridiculous enclosure for the chain:
So.......great idea! It makes an otherwise generic non-oring, non-spiffy chain last a loooong time. Some guys are getting 50k(!!!) out of a chain since it's enclosed no grit gets to it and it's bathed in expensive lithium grease. Neato huh? Well...yeah if they just hadn't made the entire assembly out of cast iron's fatter cousin. Really it's aluminum, pot metal and plastic bit it's also over 20lbs! I'll wax my chain now&then and run a simple aluminum chain guard and be a happy camper. Plus it looks stupid as hell....GONE>
3)Rear fender assembly.
Huggers are pretty common these days and they do a good job of keeping the worst of the crud from blasting off the tire and onto the back of the engine. Gods bless'm but Yamaha in the 80's got 'thiiiiiiiis close' to doing it right......but they failed. Vincent had lovely alloy fender(the light kind) hung from the swingarm and it looked great...this just looks bad, and...it's apparently pretty chubby for what it is. Gone. I'll likely run something in it's place though at the moment I haven't decided. There's a substantial frame element and some other stuff between the tire and the engine and nothing of note under the seat so I may do nothing more than a small aluminum splash shield.
4) Aluminum swing arm in place of the stocker
(see below)
5) Gauges, idiot lights, turn signals, factory controls, mirrors and other annoying heavy things.
The gauges are very much like those on my other favorite Yamaha from the 80's the XS750/850 triple. In a word....HEAVY. And not just heavy but bulky and ugly. Add in big (loose) levers, a chunky mastercylinder, goofy looking mirrors that show me my shoulders, some big 'ol lollipop turn signals and another 10 pounds of pot metal and crap plastic in the form of the aforementioned idiot lights, trim pieces, bracketry, reflectors, various flappy bits and one large wasp nest.....you may note that there's room for improvement.
In this case though the tach is electronic so I may keep that bit and run a smaller, lighter speedo......or just ditch the works and run a Vapor computer. A small LED panel for the idiot lights (what's an idiot to do without his lights after all?) and that should drop some weight as well as clean up the looks up top.
I'm a little bit stalled in my plan for the turn signals though. I like the old BMW style bar end signals a lot
6) No more Veg-a-matics!
The swirly 'Veg-a-matic' wheels are rightly hated by anyone who's a) tried to lug one around to change the tire or b) trying to go fast efficiently. In short, the laws of physics all conspired together (bastards) to make these wheels not only uglier than Rosanne Barr in a saran-wrap thong but heavier than a similar amount of raw fucking lead. Did I mention the ugly? For the immediate future this bike will wear spoked wheels from a CB500...because I have them, they are the right size and they have really nice Dunlops. Even stock, the cb500 wheels weigh substantially less. I'll do a weight comparison just for giggles as soon as I bring my highly accurate bathroom scale in. My calibrated 'Lift-o-matic 2000' (left arm)says that the front is at least 5lb lighter and the rear is closer to 10! Doesn't sound like much but excessive unsprung weight and especially unsprung rotating weight is a handling killer.
These relatively minor changes *should* be good for 55-60lbs depending on what things ACTUALLY weight. The rear shock is heavy as well but that'll be addressed in phase 2.
Keep in mind that this is just the beginning of the chub-shaving. Those BOTT guys....to hear it told they were running right at 300lbs. I have my work cut out for me...
Phase two: Improved handling
I think the weightloss will help a lot and this bike already feels pretty agile just for it's very low center of gravity but like a lot of things born in the 80's the suspension is pretty marginal. Braking pretty much bottoms out the front end and it's freshly rebuilt to factory specs. The back is just as squishy and my large self does little to help the situation. The frame itself is regarded as pretty stout and looking at the headstock it does appear to be pretty beefy so I'll be concentrating on suspension and setup.
Forks: The OE forks are marginal for a bike weighing 100lb less at best and 30 years of progress have illustrated just how lame they really are. Heavy, dangerously underdamped, fairly undersprung, too small and very flexible.
What I do have is the complete front end from a 91 BMW K75. The 41mm Showas are also what came equip'd on early CBRs though certainly set up differently. These forks are 4mm larger in diameter and an inch shorter (I'd be dropping the front an inch anyway) and come with a nice factory brace. The stem will fit with some tapered conversion bearings and the BMW sourced triples are Teutonic enough to look 'Engineered' once you strip off all the crap and give'm a good polishing. This pair happens to come with racetech .90kg-mm springs (for the Kay)and gold valve emulators already installed. My phase 1 target weight is 60-ish pounds less than the BMW so the springs should be a good starting point though I will likely have some made to suit eventually.
Rear shock and swingarm:
Yamaha chose to build the swingarm out of steel (alloyed with lead I think) and it's a hefty beast. Really heavy. I've got an Olhins shock that was slated for my old 955i but that bike went away before I installed it, he clevis end threads on and I'll machine something to suit this bike and yield an adjustable amount of lift out back to derake the front a wee bit. As I understand it, on this bike +1" = -1.35deg, so for every inch of lift out back the bike loses one and a third degree of rake. Good stuff. I'll likely start it at an inch of static lift with the ability to add more later. Coupled with the 1" shorter front end will yield quicker steering on an already quick steering bike. I'll be adding a gsxr steering damper (it's on the shelf.....thanks Mike D!) as well.
As for the swingarm, I'm looking really close at an 80-ish yz400 piece as that's been spoken of for this bike a few times. I had that particular evil dirtbike and it is a lightweight piece and quite strong...I tested mine a lot....and it looks like it'll all but swap directly, I've got a one coming so we'll see. Otherwise I'll likely need to make something to suit, we'll see.
Other things that'll be changed out during this period are the horrible seat and the way too heavy/restrictive exhaust.
The OEM seat for the TR1/920r is a nice looking piece and firm enough to make some pussies whine, but then I'd rather my seat be a bit on the firm side. This one feels like someone took the stock foam out and added the thick spongy stuff from grandma's couch and slung a semi-generic ebay-tastic seat cover on it. It looks remotely similar but is just uncomfortable. I'll be carting it off to a local shop for a rebuild. I'd thought to go to Corbin as I've had their seats on a couple other bikes, but I almost swallowed my tongue when I got the quote. For $500 based on my seat pan and foam(!!!) with vinyl...umm.....no. I looked at Sargent and a couple others but none could give me what I wanted for a fair price. Locally though there's a well respected joint that had made some really nice looking seat and as soon as I get some info back I'll be passing it along. Truth be told, even if her costs come close to Corbin or Sargent's I'll still go local...because it's local. Nothing wacky, just that tasty TR1 profile with the pilots seat blended in the thigh area a bit more and the rear edges rounded/softened. This will all get covered with camel leather with red stitching with a diamond quilted pattern on the seating surface. Looks like I have my choice for foam density and will likely add a gel pad under the front part.
The stock exhaust actually sounds ok but lacks authority but is REALLY HEAVY and fairly restrictive if the cross section I found online is accurate. I will likely end up with some one-off pipes once the engine building happens....oh yes, I WILL be building a beast for this bike. Any engine I spend any time at all with ends up way overboard and it's safe to assume this one will too in time. That all being said, likely I'll nab a cheap-o MAC or some other 2-1 exhaust header and I'll sling some kind of muffler on it...dunno yet.
According to various owners groups and a few articles I've read there's a good 10-13hp laying around waiting to be let loose in this without ever cracking the block. The OE exhaust is pretty but a decent (the MAC was cited) 2-1, a dynojet kit in the carbs and pod filters will do the trick. I know that the stock backbone/airbox setup is restrictive due mainly to packaging so this should help.
Pods on CV carbs!!??? I must have lost my nut huh? Apparently it works just fine in this case because the ol' girl's big lungs (even with the low factory compression) give a good strong vacuum signal and the dynojet kit allows for drilling out the transfer ports so it should still yield decent throttle response I hope. Worst cast I'll jet up this pair of VM40s I have on the shelf....but we'll give this a shot first.
Imagine this one with smaller turn signals, less obtrusive clocks and you get the idea of phase one. If I can get this thing to ~400lbs, 75hp and good handling I'll be happy with Phase 1.
The future....well.....that may lead to something like this:
trellis frame, 100hp torque beast, under 350lb......yum!
I'm following. Let the circus begin!
