2007 Vmax modifications

So yeah I'm a newbie to the Vmax. Owned it for a couple weeks and its a lot of fun but I want more out of it and its 100% bone stock.
Let me know what your ideas are for making it into an even better performing street bike. I'll ride 50/50 solo and with a passenger.

My list of mandatory mods asap are;
Clutch rebuild (2200 miles - previous owner didn't know how ride a bike and was deathly afraid of the bike)

Exhaust / jetting / air intake

I'm going to either fab a backrest if I get time in my shop or I'll just buy one from Sean at Morley's. He seems to be a good person to deal with.




Aside from that I'm open to suggestions as I haven't owned a street bike in approx 16 years, I'm been in the woods on KTM's & Yamaha's doing enduro's / harscrambles.

Springs, Emulators, 1" lowered, Fluid Change to Front Forks... 1st.... And, be sure the neck bearings are properly set....
The bike will actually handle fairly well after this is all done..

Then, you can go on with the other Mods...:biglaugh: The fun ones....

Seat. Stock one sucks.

Brakes and suspension. Both are lacking on the Gen 1 IMO.

Chris

Shift light and oil pressure gauges are a must have also. A lower profile windshield would nice to deflect at least some of the wind. I'm 6'2" so I'm catch a lot when upright.

4gasem said:

Brakes and suspension. Both are lacking on the Gen 1 IMO.
Chris

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What do you recommend for the brakes? I assume its a caliper swap from an R1 or something along those lines.

midmoraider said:

Seat. Stock one sucks.

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Agree with the seat but I think that will be after i get it handling / performing to my liking. Corbin seat are soo pricey. High end off road buggy / suspension seats don't typically cost as much as a seat for these.

SpecOps13 said:

Springs, Emulators, 1" lowered, Fluid Change to Front Forks... 1st.... And, be sure the neck bearings are properly set....
The bike will actually handle fairly well after this is all done..

Then, you can go on with the other Mods...:biglaugh: The fun ones....

Click to expand...

As for the fork upgrade......... which route would you go. Big difference in price for the two companies.
http://store.ricorshocks.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=043-20-1001VMAX
or
http://www.vmaxoutlaw.com/tech/cartridge_emulators.htm

What springs do most of you find to work best and what do you do for the lowering "kit".

Are these known for neck bearing races not being seated properly or what this about?

.

For suspension, I went with Progressive front lowered 2" internally and 11.5" 430's out back. 15w fork oil and tightend steering nut by doing the bounce test. Also put on Sportmax frame braces recently. Ran the bike up to 135-140 this weekend and was rock solid.

I got my seat reshaped by Morley, night and day difference. If you are over 200 lbs. get a mid cut instead of the full, so there's more padding left in.

jkoz10 said:

Shift light and oil pressure gauges are a must have also. A lower profile windshield would nice to deflect at least some of the wind. I'm 6'2" so I'm catch a lot when upright.


What do you recommend for the brakes? I assume its a caliper swap from an R1 or something along those lines.

Agree with the seat but I think that will be after i get it handling / performing to my liking. Corbin seat are soo pricey. High end off road buggy / suspension seats don't typically cost as much as a seat for these.


As for the fork upgrade......... which route would you go. Big difference in price for the two companies.
http://store.ricorshocks.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=043-20-1001VMAX
or
http://www.vmaxoutlaw.com/tech/cartridge_emulators.htm

What springs do most of you find to work best and what do you do for the lowering "kit".

Are these known for neck bearing races not being seated properly or what this about?

.

Click to expand...

Shift light and oil gauges are NOT a must. They're a nice "to have" item IMO.

There's nothing wrong with the stock calipers. HH pads and braided lines will suffice.

Suspension on the cheap, but decent is progressive springs and 15wt oil. Better yet is the same with Ricor's installed. I have Race-Tech springs with their emulators installed and I love them. Rear shocks: Progressive 418 or higher. Works are also VERY good.

Do a search on head bearing adjustments. I put a link in the "VMF links" page that shows you a step by step procedure to testing and tightening. It's SUPER easy.

Good luck!

Chris

i THIS GUY HAS A BACKREST ! .. ACAMMER , POST #6 http://www.vmaxforum.net/showthread.php?t=17182

jkoz10 said:

Corbin seat are soo pricey. High end off road buggy / suspension seats don't typically cost as much as a seat for these.

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The best bang for your buck on the seat is to send the front section only to Sean Morley and have him reshape it. He can re-use the OEM cover and the cost is very reasonable. Well worth it!

midmoraider said:

For suspension, I went with Progressive front lowered 2" internally and 11.5" 430's out back. 15w fork oil and tightend steering nut by doing the bounce test. Also put on Sportmax frame braces recently. Ran the bike up to 135-140 this weekend and was rock solid.

I got my seat reshaped by Morley, night and day difference. If you are over 200 lbs. get a mid cut instead of the full, so there's more padding left in.

Click to expand...

Having dragged parts via enthusiastic cornering on a stock suspension & being well-over 200 lbs ready-to-ride, I assume cutting the suspension down 2" /1.5" f/r would greatly negatively affect cornering clearance. Yeah, I know, it's not a sportsbike. I have been acquiring parts to upgrade my '92 & will be installing them shortly. I have not bought shorter shocks or an internal shortening kit for the forks. Why should I do that if it cuts down on cornering clearance? I have read various post threads about the lowering, but I want to hear from people here who read this to comment. Perhaps I will be convinced to install shorter stuff f & r! Thanks in advance to those who take time to weigh in.

Fire-medic said:

Having dragged parts via enthusiastic cornering on a stock suspension & being well-over 200 lbs ready-to-ride, I assume cutting the suspension down 2" /1.5" f/r would greatly negatively affect cornering clearance. Yeah, I know, it's not a sportsbike. I have been acquiring parts to upgrade my '92 & will be installing them shortly. I have not bought shorter shocks or an internal shortening kit for the forks. Why should I do that if it cuts down on cornering clearance? I have read various post threads about the lowering, but I want to hear from people here who read this to comment. Perhaps I will be convinced to install shorter stuff f & r! Thanks in advance to those who take time to weigh in.

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I'm also interested in hearing more feedback about this as I too am a not a petite guy and will also ride 2 up a fair amount. Not sure lowering is the ideal thing to do so I looking forward to hearing more about the suspension on these. I completely agree the forks suck and needs emulators or the Ricor intimidator active dampening.
Trying not to compare it to much to off road riding but damn the suspension on these is old school.

[email protected] said:

The best bang for your buck on the seat is to send the front section only to Sean Morley and have him reshape it. He can re-use the OEM cover and the cost is very reasonable. Well worth it!

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Good to know. Sounds like Sean does a lot of stuff with his business on these bikes.
I'm concerned with having the seat cut down shorter as I'm 6'2" and have long legs. On all my offroad bikes I run a taller seat. Look forward to hearing more thoughts on this too.


Appreciate all the feedback!! Hopefully I can minimize making mods that I regret and change 2 more times before I get it dialed in.

Fire-medic said:

Having dragged parts via enthusiastic cornering on a stock suspension & being well-over 200 lbs ready-to-ride, I assume cutting the suspension down 2" /1.5" f/r would greatly negatively affect cornering clearance. Yeah, I know, it's not a sportsbike. I have been acquiring parts to upgrade my '92 & will be installing them shortly. I have not bought shorter shocks or an internal shortening kit for the forks. Why should I do that if it cuts down on cornering clearance? I have read various post threads about the lowering, but I want to hear from people here who read this to comment. Perhaps I will be convinced to install shorter stuff f & r! Thanks in advance to those who take time to weigh in.

Click to expand...

I think you'll find that once you install the upgraded springs in the forks that the scraping of parts will happen a lot less if your stock front springs are like mine were. My stock springs were so soft but I didn't really notice how badly they were sagging because of the soft stock brakes. The first time I did a hard stop after just adding HH pads I scared my self by how much my forks dived! I stated looking for a fix and found it via progressive springs but I got the lowering springs (2"). I still don't drag the pegs in the corners but maybe that just me. I kept the rear shocks at 13" (stock) even after I upgraded to Progressive 440's which I did for when I extend the swingarm. Typically you want to keep the front and rear within 1" of each other. EX. lower front by 1" means rear shock length should be 11" to 13".
EDIT: I forgot to add that I have Ricor Intiminators (fork valving like the race tech emulators but do not require disassembling/drilling of the forks to install) and 5wt fork oil per Ricor recommendations.

I was going to post my questions here, but decided to open a new thread.

The '93-up brakes were a lot better than the older ones, so try just using EBC's "HH" pads, which should make a good difference. If they're still not up to what you want, there's many options. 4pots from R6/R1/Warrior will bolt right on, 6pots from a mid-90s FZR750/1000 will also bolt right on. Busa calipers will need an adapter that Sean has. SS lines give a better "feel" to the lever as well. However I've heard that using R1/R6 calipers will end up being worse unless you get the master cylinder they originally went with also.

Oil pressure gauge....here Super easy to install works great. This is one of those things that bikes should at least have an idiot light for, since if it tanks bye bye motor. Yamaha put a totally useless "oil level" light on instead. It's typically a "wide open" indicator light instead.

Shift light...here There are other options available, this is one of the more popular ones though. These motors don't like to over-rev and once again Yamaha thought it would be funny to put a silver dollar tach out of sight.

Progressive springs and a slight drop (I have 1" internally), as well as good head bearings will make a world of difference. I also found switching to Metzeler ME880 tires helped a lot also.

Next time you need new tires, stuff a 170 in the rear....it'll help you hook a bit better.

PM "acammer" about the backrest...he's got one he's looking to part with.

RaWarrior said:

PM "acammer" about the backrest...he's got one he's looking to part with.

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That would be me, and these guys are right, I have a good condition OE backrest that I had sold on eBay, and my buyer has backed out. I am getting ready to relist, but if your interested I am sure we can work out a deal.

I have Race Tech emulators and springs (1.0) in the front and have lowered the triple tree about 3/4" on the tubes. Plus the 110/80-18 front tire is slightly shorter. Probably have about 1.25" drop in the front. Did this to quicken the steering. Have Progressive 418's on the rear which lowers the rear slightly. However, the 170/60-18 rear tire is slightly taller than stock. So the back is close to stock height.

My inseam is 30" so I would really like to lower the bike but my favorite thing about riding is the corners. Any lowering will cause scraping in aggressive cornering. I had some highway pegs that were trashed even with my current setup. Had to remove and use a different setup.

Lowering the suspension does knock down clearance, but you have to also remember that in most cases it's many times stiffer than stock so it doesn't compress nearly as much in the corners. I have it two in front and .5 in back.
I have a sport bike for the corners, but this thing does pretty well.


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Double DD mod first, then get a good set of Pipes. I did the Double DD mod on my 85 stock bike useing the same old plates (26 yrs old) and I think I could do a burnout in 5th gear if I had the horse power.

I'll have my EBC HH brake pads in 2 days. Hopefully a noticeable difference.

Next week I'll be getting my Christmas list ordered up, mostly from Morley's.
I think I've decided on Marks Exhaust instead of the UFO (think there's will be toooo loud).
Clutch parts if needed from Morley's (double D)
Dynojet carb kit stage 1 or 7 ???
Air filter kit or do I just mod my existing one ?
Shift light
Oil pressure gauge
Progressive coils and Ricor or Emulators (not sure which ones yet). If the Ricor's are worth the extra $$ I'd rather go that route.

I'll fabricate or machine my own frame braces and backrest for my passengers.


Does anyone make a replacement speedo with a tach in it?
Whats your thoughts on the stage 1 versus stage 7 dynajet kit?
Recommendation on air filter, go K&N or mod existing?
Still not sure if I really want to lower the bike.........
Do I even need to bother with the dreaded o-ring issue since mines a 2007?
What about modding for the "boost" adjustment something I can select or just on all the time?
What about the rear suspension?

Thanks again -- you all unk:unk: