Oil cooler Air vent

As the old beast is 21 years old! The late 80's and early 90's honda used a small oil radiator for cooling. Later designs got rid of the annoying pipe work and instead used a cooling device around the oil filter......like a water jacket. It saved on pipe work, I guess it made the oil pump more efficient, less umph to push it through the Metre or so pipe work. I guess thats engineering progress but I'm stuck with it, it works so Ive soldiered on and created my air vent duct from a ford air intake(previous post), fixed it into position with an aluminum bracket. The tricky bit to do was to measure and cut the front hole. It had to be slightly smaller than the plastic vent so not to look untidy................................ Job done!

Tachometer mounting

Took the clock completely out of its housing exposing the inner part holding the circuit and electromagnetic dial gauge. Thought if I could thin it down as much as possible then it could fit in the centre area. I used the old clock mount and cut the original 3 point fixings off and filed, sanded bare, then welded into position. The mounts were welded on in a L shape onto the front perimter frame...where the frame dips in a curve( see other picture back last post). Looks quite neat.......remember I'm trying not to spend much money at the moment so I'm looking at re-using as much as possible from the vfr......might as well as its not going back to being a road bike..I guess I can do the same to the temp gauge...wont need the fuel gauge.
Incidently If i could get my hands on a vfr750f-h wiring diagram it would be interesting to see how the older bike wired its Tachometer. The usual 3 wire tachos have the +,- and pulse from one coil. One coil sparks usually 1,4, and 2,3 needing only 2 coils as there is a dead spark when one piston is BDC. BUT here the vfr's unique firing order needs 4 separate coils so how did the old vfr's tacho work? May be it was the same as this one, 2 wires from the cdi box. Time to buy a haynes manual...funny while I write this I can here an owl in the distance...must be late.

windscreen/oil cooler

Windscreen is now fixed at 3 points, went to a scrap yard to look for air ducts/pipes. cars usually have lots of odd flat plastic ducting that funnel air into the air filter. Found a selection, most useful was a mid range ford late 90's, got a few the same shape from different models. keep them just in case I have to make another fairing. Ive cut it down. All I need it for is to direct air from the front nose cone( hole yet to be drilled..not looking forward to that bit) onto the oil cooler. Made a small aluminum angled bracket to hold the air duct in place. Good fix, I may not even need to attach the end of the duct to the nose cone. Not done much else today as the wife wanted to go the pub...couldnt refuse that!

front perimeter frame finished!

front nose cone is now secure. Used parts of the old sub frame, reversed some brackets and it all seemed to go quite smoothly. The oil cooler will sit inside the nose cone but i will create some air ducts to force fresh air around it...........I think, oil cooler pipes were swopped sides because it had to sit upside down because it would reach my fixing point and the pipes would have fouled the fat forks. Thinking about which clocks I will use. The original vfr one has 2 connections, one goes direct to the cdi box the other to earth, works by the cdi box sending a voltage, the greater the voltage the more revs. I was hoping to use my old cbr600 fh clocks as theyre already cut down to bare bones and quite small. even has the temp gauge next to it but the problem is that it has 3 connections, earth, coil pulse and cdi box so works on the pulses from the coil. So 1990 on new model honda's tend to have the 2 connections.
Fairing lower is still a worry that its too low.Not sure how to get round this because of the race regulations insist on a lower fairing to contain oil. Most bikes of this age had the fairings as a 2 part because the exhaust were directly under the sump.
perhaps i could try and put a small belly pan.....or try and cut the lower tlr fairgn down a bit because its quite long and tends to dip at the back end.
Had some thoughts on various ideas too, could i make a manual exhaust valve flap so i can vary the back pressure at different revs, try and give it mor etorque low down by restricting the flow then opening full above 8000. Also could I create a variable airbox. Got me thinking now for the future. At the mo though I have to deal with the mundane issues like making sure all fairing brackets, steering obstructions, clock mounts, radiator, coolant tank....list goes on....then its finally stripping it all down, engine tweaking, suspension twiddling then finding ive run out of money to test it!

top fairing cont'd

fairing cont'd

Fairing is now supported by fixings so I can work on the steering movement not clashing with the fairing upper. Have cut the top fairing to shorten it. Just got to work more on the front frame and other fixing positions like dashboard/rev counter( may be a vapour kit as they are 110cm by 50 cm, tiny units) also the oil cooler and radiator. The old radiator is junk, corroded here and there will look for another at a breakers or the next jumble.

fixing fairing

Fixing points for the TLR fairing is coming along. Ive had to cut away a little at the back for the exhaust. I had also cut some of the air vents bigger for my previous cbr project which has since donated this to the vfr project. The fairing comes in 2 pieces, top and bottom. The bottom is one piece so to act as a catch tank ( ACU spec). One mounting point lines up exactly with a vfr one so thats pretty lucky. Ill make a couple of brackets to cover the rest of the bottom part. I'm making a front fairing frame using a bit of the old vfr one but heavily cut down. Its got to be able to lift the top fairing quite high, Ill probably have to reinforce the fairing top with left over carbon fibre.