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Cylinders 1988 Honda VRX400


cylinders

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Howdy ya'll, it's been quite a while since I had a project on here, so I'm bringing you my current cashhole from Perth, WA.

It's a 1998 Honda VRX 400. A water cooled v-twin bike they made for a brief period in the mid to late 90's as some kind of pre custom bike fad factory cafe. They were mostly Japanese market only bikes, and while there are a few customs out there they're pretty much all japanese shop bikes and there's no info etc online as far as I can tell.

The bike is rego'd as an 88 here as pre 89 bikes enjoy lax regulations around importation, doesn't bother me much at all as it means it's easier to rego and keep on the road.

This one came to me like this for only $2500 rego'd and running...

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First thing I did was put a bit more bend in the 1" bars, pulling them back slightly as the near flat angle was killing my wrists and felt gamy as fuck. Actually thats not true the first thing I did was melt my workboots against that unwrapped bottom pipe... but moving on, the bars feel alot better now and will make do until I order a set of Biltwell's 1" moto bar. I'd really like to fit a protaper or renthal bar on it but they all have 7/8" hand control areas and this bike is 1" from the aftermarket riser clamps to the hand controls. It's unusual to me being a small displacement jap bike but apparently common on Honda's cruiser stuff from 600cc upwards so potentially it has controls from a vt600/750.

I also replaced the stock grips as they're fat squishy foam pieces of shit with plastic looking chrome bits and just generally look like try hard harley bits. Went with Biltwell Thruster in 1" and so far I'm happy with them even though the vibration to the hands increased slightly. They look like this now...

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I've got my mind set on a much more upright and aggressive stance, so took the rear shocks off to make some measurements and put it where I want to go so I could confirm my idea. It currently has some 290mm length enclosed rear shocks that A - look like polished turds and B - Are about 80mm too short for the ride height I'm after.

Here's where I'm headed once I get my hands on some suitable shocks. (any leads on twin rear shocks with a 16mm top bushing and 10mm bottom around the 360mm length appreciated)

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This is the style or rear shock im after

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Aside from the above I've chased out a few little electrical things that were bugging me, I've got a couple left that I'm working on right now like the right rear indicator not working (not the bulb) and the neutral position sensor not always knowing it's in neutral. The neutral sensor thing is super annoying as I've gotta admit I've tried leaving the lights a couple times and been sitting there in N waiting for the light to change... and it also means that unless it's sensed N (15~25% of the time it works) it kills the motor as soon as the kick stand goes down.

Here's a pic of a pretty clean one from japan, not quite where I'm heading with mine but I like the stance and the lack of colour.

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Those are the stock pipes and although I like them, the high side custom things on mine are great and sound awesome, I'll wrap more of the pipe round my boot area, and possibly make up a heat shield as they are super fucking hot/great for warming my hands at the lights. And I'll also change the cans at some stage either for straight pipes or just do something about that alloy, I'm not sure yet.

Here's the most recent custom I've found it's from a shop in Sri Racha and I hate almost everything about it except the engine, the foot controls and those rear shocks (black springs though come on m9)

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Looking super closely at this custom I can't believe BikeEXIF featured it, lot's little details piss me off like th front guard drooping, the tribal looking tank, the gross colour way etc. but it's a shit tonne more built than mine at this stage so I can't pull it apart too much. Here's a bike that, although a harley, pulls off what I'm trying to do.

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