Suspension Upgrades

[Syscrush]

These guys might have something that's a good match for your brake lines:
Magnum Braided Plug Wires

EDIT: These guys have orange braided, and I like the look of their wire ends better:
US Kool Lines

[asacuta]

I use Taylor wires on my bike. You can get them in almost any colour. Mine are blue; you can just make them out in my Avatar pic.

[wyly]

I use Taylor wires on my bike. You can get them in almost any colour. Mine are blue; you can just make them out in my Avatar pic.

did you find them in Calgary, I've been searching for orange to match my brake lines.

[asacuta]

Bought mine from Mopac on 16 Avenue NW.

The plug end has a moulded connector; cut the coil end to the correct length for each wire. Since the insulation is 8 mm instead of 7 mm, you'll have to enlarge the centre hole in the little plastic hat under each coil cap. I don't recall modifying the caps. I have OEM coils; aftermarket coils may accommodate the thicker insulation with no modification.

You'll need aluminum terminal nuts for the tops of the plugs. I think I got mine from NGK.



One other thing: use a little dielectric grease on each plug connector, or after a month or so, you will never get them off.

[wyly]

Bought mine from Mopac on 16 Avenue NW.

The plug end has a moulded connector; cut the coil end to the correct length for each wire. Since the insulation is 8 mm instead of 7 mm, you'll have to enlarge the centre hole in the little plastic hat under each coil cap. I don't recall modifying the caps. I have OEM coils; aftermarket coils may accommodate the thicker insulation with no modification.

You'll need aluminum terminal nuts for the tops of the plugs. I think I got mine from NGK.



One other thing: use a little dielectric grease on each plug connector, or after a month or so, you will never get them off.

hey thanks for the tip!

I went to Mopac but they didn't have orange in stock so I'll need to order them. With my oem cracked coils, an overbore and raised compression aftermarket coils are a necessity, the Dynacoils will work well with 8mm taylors. The price quoted was $76 which is competitive with what I've found found on the internet.

[Syscrush]

Incidentally, the rotor upgrade meant that the stock speedo drive could not be retained. Someone planning similar modifications should consider that and plan for it.

I was pretty disheartened about that because I am very fond of the stock gauges. However, I found this place:

Speedhut

Which gives the buyer a tremendous amount of flexibility in specifying every element of the look and a lot of the functionality of the gauges. They will also do custom graphics, logos, text, etc. on your gauges. I decided to go for something that has a similar feel to the stock gauges, but not trying to pass it off as an exact copy:



I decided to go with a 200 kph metric-only speedo since the bike is strictly for the street and spends very little time above 150 kph (in Ontario our highest speed limits are 100 kph, and getting caught going 50 over means roadside impoundment and a mandatory court appearance). I chose a speedo with built-in high beam and turn signal lights since there's a chance that my GPS may obscure some of the stock idiot lights when it's mounted.

Incidentally, they make a GPS speedo, so all you have to connect is power, and there is no configuration to do. Just put it on your bike and start riding. I definitely liked the idea of not having to mount a sensor somewhere, but I didn't like the idea of my speedo being unreliable in tunnels (which I very rarely ride), or the high rise corridors of Toronto (which I ride fairly frequently). Still, it's a neat option and one that others might find appealing.

Speaking of sensors, the ones that Speedhut sell are car-focused - they're way too big. Motogadget gauges are notoriously expensive, but I was surprised to find that their sensors are in line with the cost from other sources. The mechanic who has the bike now uses Motogadget as a first choice for gauges, so they have a source for them, and have experience mounting their sensors. TBD if they'll use a reed switch or hall effect sensor, but it's going on the rear caliper mount and will take its signal from some part of the rear brake rotor. That will let me keep all of the nicely-machined custom parts on the front end unobscured.

I also decided to swap out my voltmeter for a clock, because the vast majority of the time that I'm on the bike I care more about what time it is than about the exact details of the charging system - plus as wired stock the voltmeter has some accuracy issues. Of course, I definitely care about if the battery is being kept healthy, so I will be using one of these little beauties:



Single-LED voltmeter

It just needs a single 1/4" hole somewhere to mount the LED. It indicates a variety of charging or discharging conditions as follows:

• Flashing Green Above - 15.2V
• Steady Green 12.9V - 15.1V
• Steady Amber 12.7V - 12.8V
• Steady Red 12.1V - 12.6V
• Flashing Red Below - 12V

I have used this thing on every one of my bikes for quite some time. I love the combination of lots of information and very little space.


The machinist found that the Pro Taper CR High bars I bought can't accommodate the CBX's big switchgear, lever perches, and grips, so to keep the project moving forward I got some 7/8" Superbike bars and he made a bushing so they'd fit in my 1-1/8" clamps. I thought I might be able to live with that, but while the riding position feels pretty good, the look is f'n awful and I hate it. A normal person would never notice, but if I were a normal person I wouldn't have a CBX!!!

Enter LSL - they make a Superbike bend 1-1/8" bar. The clamp area might be too narrow for the KTM clamps I have on there, but the current mechanic is comfortable widening them if necessary. I considered swapping to some narrower switchgear, but I can't find anything that I think will look as good and work as well as the CBX stuff.

Finally, the shop that has it now (Kreater in Toronto) is going to make me a chainguard. The machinist who did the other work wasn't comfortable doing the style of guard I want, so hopefully Kreater can hook me up.


When the bars, gauges, and chainguard are done, I get the bike back. Then I'm going to have a small change done to the wiring of the keyless ignition (by the shop who originally installed it), and I'm going to take some measurements and order some new sparkplug wires. The over-long red ones flopping over the front of my cam cover will be replaced with some tidier ones in braided stainless with black boots. That should look better with my braided stainless oil cooler and brake lines.

When THAT stuff is done, there should be nothing left to do but start the test rides to dial in the suspension.

[EMS]

Phil: The stuff you are doing is truly amazing. It is almost too hard to track all the little things from your posts, so I hope I will have the opportunity to look at the bike in person one of these days. As Toronto is not THAT far from Cleveland, there may be a good chance for that.

[Syscrush]

Phil: The stuff you are doing is truly amazing. It is almost too hard to track all the little things from your posts, so I hope I will have the opportunity to look at the bike in person one of these days. As Toronto is not THAT far from Cleveland, there may be a good chance for that.

Thanks Mike, that means a lot coming from you.

The intent with this bike is to make every detail something I'm happy with, but from 20' it should look like a basically stock CBX with some very basic, period-correct mods. As for keeping track of what I've had done, I update the first post of this thread periodically with the details of what actually ended up on the bike.

I would love a chance to meet up - I was hoping to make it to Vintage days last year but it didn't work out. Hopefully this year I can make it happen.

[Syscrush]

Yesterday I went out to help finalize the placement of the handlebars and controls, and to confer a bit on finishing up my chainguard. Those LSL Superbike Fatbars look so sick - I'm really happy with them. I really hated how the 7/8" bar looked in the 1-1/8" clamp.

Hopefully I'll have the gauges in a week or two. In the meantime, they're going to have some test pieces anodized to see if they can get those rotor adapters to match the wheels. If not, then I'll probably look at having them painted.

[Syscrush]

My gauges shipped on Friday. Getting close!

[wyly]

My gauges shipped on Friday. Getting close!

tracking cbx parcels/goodies through the mail reminds me of when I was a kid counting the days until xmas.

[Syscrush]

Gauges are installed on the bike, and I dug up my voltmeter and GPS to take out to the shop and figure out where those things should go - I'm going out tonight and will snap some more pics. Then the bike is basically ready, except for coating/painting the new chainguard and the rotor & caliper adapters.

I want to get it on a dyno with a sniffer, which will mean getting it to shop #3, and have a few bits of wiring cleaned up at shop #4, but it's getting very close now...

[Syscrush]

I went out to the shop yesterday to check out the progress.

They were able to fit the new gauges into the stock locations, including reusing the stock gauges backs. This was a huge relief to me, the reuse of the stock gauge backs makes this a pretty subtle mod IMO.

Also, the test piece came back from the anodizer, and it looks like a very good match for the wheels. We're going ahead with anodizing the rotor adapters - I think that they're going to look like they're just part of the wheels to anyone who doesn't make an effort to inspect them AND have good knowledge of exactly what these wheels look like stock.

[jt]

Looks Nice ! Like the look.

What tires did you go with and size on the Boomarangs?
Thanks

[steve murdoch icoa #5322]

Phil, where are you getting the anodizing done?