Fantastic Thread. Just found it and it has occupied me for 3 days on the train ride home.

I Just bought my first race VFR400 ( i had a roadie many moons ago and fell in love with that V4. I've owned VFR800s since) and am taking it out for a club round at Eastern Creek in two weeks. As far as i know it has stock suspension so some mods like you've listed in this thread will be on my list this summer.

Some questions:

Did you port the heads when you had them off?
Did you check/replace the rings or did you only pull the heads off?
What is the HRC manual you mentioned?

Thanks again. Great thread.

Hi, thanks for the comments. It was fun doing. :-)

It has all been through a couple of race days and some track days and is pretty sweet. The GXSR / HRC linkage setup is great.

Re your questions:

Did you port the heads when you had them off? Nope. Just clean the carbon off things. I would have like to have them ported, but I don't think the HP of the bike holds be back - my racing technique needs more work than the heads. :-)

Did you check/replace the rings or did you only pull the heads off? I just pulled the heads off. The bike doesn't use any oil at all so I didn't deem it necessary.

What is the HRC manual you mentioned? A PDF of the HRC manual can be got from http://www.400greybike.com/docs.htm. Also, a forum member here sells a hard-copy translated-to-English version. I bought one of those. A good reference.

Thanks again.

GSXR/HRC linkage sounds like a great set up. I'll see about heading down that road after the end of the season. DId you finally settle on 130mm centre to centre with filled and re-drilled dog bone holes? or did you stick with the adjustable rose joint custom dog bone?

I did some furhter investigaions about the rings and to do that you'd need to split the case. Much bigger job than just doing the heads. Wise move.

Thanks for the info.

I have a spare RVF engine that came with my bike. I think i'll try and re-build it over the summer. I have no idea what condition it is in.

I stuck with the adjustable rod-end pullarms. Works just great.

Good luck with the RVF rebuild. Take you time and have fun.

awesome thread to read and inspiring for me to start work on my nc30 engine (which unfortunately sounded like the big end went). Just need to motivate myself to investigate the problem fully.

So... what happened?

Hi Benny, is that a question for me or barneyho?

If for me, then the bike went well all season. No issues to report - my best race year yet actually. The suspension felt great - miles better than it was and the 5.5" VFR 800 rim felt terrific - never once all season did I feel like I was wanting to for grip - disclaimer: but I am not Mr Marquez.

I get a fuelling stutter which drives me nuts - but even a carb swap and fiddling has not managed to solve that as yet.

The paint will get a refresh (hopefully) before next season begins.

StrayAlien wrote:Hi Benny, is that a question for me or barneyho?

If for me, then the bike went well all season. No issues to report - my best race year yet actually. The suspension felt great - miles better than it was and the 5.5" VFR 800 rim felt terrific - never once all season did I feel like I was wanting to for grip - disclaimer: but I am not Mr Marquez.

I get a fuelling stutter which drives me nuts - but even a carb swap and fiddling has not managed to solve that as yet.

The paint will get a refresh (hopefully) before next season begins.

it was for you :) good to hear good results. Fuel tap?

Did you keep the steering damper on?

Hi Benny,

Yes. It is a godsend at Phillip Island, not so much the (more local) Broadford track though, but I have left it on. :-)

Oh, and re fuel tap - I'll be dismantling that in the coming weeks for a look.