… must begin with a single step. I continued, today, the motif of doing various smaller tasks. Starting by taking out the stock brake pads and replacing them with a set of sintered metal Vesrah RJL pads (bottom). These are actually going into a pair of ’09 CBR1000RR monoblock calipers (more on those later). Next, […]

Did a few odds and ends on the CBR today. First thing I did was put back the front wheel to lower the bike. Then I removed the front intake assembly. The agenda was to gut the insides of the air intake. I didn’t take a picture of the before, but Honda included a bunch […]

It’s been a while since I had a chance to get on my bicycle, it’d be a lot better if I could keep it consistent. Woke up this morning and rode out another usual, around the back of Coyote Hills and then to the boat and back. While taking a break at the park, I […]

I continued progress on the CBR today, going through a few tasks. I’m purposely going slow with all this, not only to be meticulous, but also because I’m still waiting on some key parts… I received the body fairings last week, but I got sent the wrong stuff: ’09 upper and lowers instead of ’07-’08, […]

Next up, it was time to get a bit more dug in. I decided to tackle the PAIR system removal. What is the PAIR system? Honda CBR’s have this valve that opens at a certain RPM and injects the exhaust port with atmospheric air. This essentially masks the real emissions coming out of the exhaust, […]

When I returned home from Virginia, I was greeted with a nice box from SuperBikeSupply… and its contents inside: There’s still a handful of stuff I have not received yet, but this will keep me busy for a while. I decided to get the tire situation taken care of first, which meant taking off both […]

I’ve been eagerly waiting this moment. Today, I got to do some wrench turning again in the garage. It was almost therapeutic because thankfully nothing went wrong. Here is my bike. Here is my bike after only an hour’s worth of work. Abdicating the nonessentials. I posted those parts up yesterday on a local Motorcycle […]

Okay, so I lied when I said I was done working on the Previa. It seems like more work and problems are always just around the corner. This time, it was an expensive one. The brakes on the van were a bit weird. The brake pedal feel was good, but if you braked too hard, […]

Given my previous smog failures 1 | 2 with the Previa, I was left in a bit of a predicament. I had changed virtually everything I reasonably could, that was related with emissions, and the van still wasn’t passing. The only thing it was failing in was the 15mph NOx test. The maximum allowed was 1100, but […]

I hate smog, but I don’t hate the environment… while that is contradictory, it’s still true. Yesterday, I went over to a Muffler shop to get all the exhaust related parts I’ve collected installed. They had to make and weld together the cat-back section to the muffler. Here is the old factory exhaust ready to […]

Pushing along with the Previa, the next batch of parts include a set of NGK Iridium spark plugs, universal K&N cone air filter, and a Magnaflow Race muffler. I decided to throw in the sparkplugs first, which meant taking out the passenger seat, folding over the carpet, and then unbolting a metal cover. All of […]

Started off the day by going to various stores to pick up some goodies for the Previa. The items included new windshield wipers, 6 quarts of Mobil 1, distilled water for coolant flush, Fram oil filter, Seafoam, Bumper coating for wiper arms, Bosch O2 sensors, and a new battery. On the way back home, I […]