Hello, BLIGHT from the USA here. I have owned a beautiful 1986 VF1000R for about 16 yrs. I bought it used on Craigslist from a seller in Redding CA about 340 miles away. I live in Monterey/Salinas CA, about 1 mile from Laguna Seca Raceway. I drove my Ford F150 pickup up to Redding with a heavy-duty motorcycle rack mounted to the trailer hitch receiver. The carrier rack has a 600 lb rating, so I pushed it to the limit with the portly VF1000R. Carried it home safely and cleaned the bike up a bit. It ran just fine and was in good condition. I entered it in the Quail Lodge motorcycle gathering and received a 2nd place award in the SuperBike category. It’s an engraved silver-plated Tiffany dish. The only mods I’ve done to the bike are the removal of the resonator chamber and replacement with a noodle-type 4 into 2 collector from NL. The bike came to me with period-correct F1 dual aluminum slip-on canisters. It also had a K&N low restriction air filter. I removed the carbs, did a bench-synch and installed a DynoJet jetting kit. The hardest part there is re-installing the carbs on new rubber boots. it’s a PITA!! Very hard to get it all lined up and pop back into place. Right now, I’m having fuel delivery issues, I first believed it was the fuel pump, but the restriction seems to be the fuel tap/petcock or internal strainers. That’s the current thing to fix. It will only barely start and run poorly on full enrichener, indicating to me a poor fuel supply. I tried blowing out the fuel line back into the tank, and that helped flow some, but there is definitely a clog or restriction inside there. I’ll work on it this weekend and I also ordered a new fuel tap selector and gasket kit. Additionally I ordered a generic low-pressure electric fuel pump that I will install in place of the new pattern part pump that I installed that is not getting enough fuel.
I’ve used the same generic pump type successfully on a few other of my bike projects that need a fuel pump vs. gravity feed. It fits inline, suction on one side, pressure side on the opposite side.
I did send the carb lump to an expert for ultrasonic cleaning and reassembly + bench synch. I have high hopes it will run well again after all this fiddling and provided with some actual fuel. I’ll post a couple of pics from that 2012 Quail Lodge motorcycle Gathering show after I figure out how to post photos here. May not even be allowed for a newbie here like me!
That sounds like a lovely VF1000R, and 16 years of ownership certainly qualifies you as part of the furniture rather than a newbie! Being only a mile from Laguna Seca isn’t a bad place to keep one either.
Congratulations on the Quail Lodge award too — a 2nd place in the SuperBike category is something to be proud of. I’d definitely like to see the photos from the 2012 gathering.
Your fuel problem does sound as though you’re narrowing it down in the right direction. Hopefully the new tap and a properly flowing supply will finally let those freshly cleaned carbs do their job. And yes, getting the carb bank back into the rubbers on these bikes is one of those jobs that makes you question your life choices!
You should be able to post photos, so please give it a try. We’re always happy to see another VF1000R, especially one with a bit of history behind it.
Welcome aboard, Brian — and keep us posted on how you get on with the fuel issue.
I forgot to mention that I did add the tubular boonstra.nl 4 into 2 exhaust header collector in place of the restrictive and heavy OEM resonator box.
Somewhere I have some pics of that beautiful exhaust collector. It came nickel-plated, and it was very nice looking. I ended up painting it with flat black exhaust hi-temp paint so it just sorts of blends in under the bike like the OEM resonator did.
I’ll post up some pics of the VF1000R at Quail Lodge. and see if I can find the Boonstra.NL collector pics too.
Hopefully I can get it running well enough this weekend to go out and ride it around some. I’m actually toying with the idea of selling it to a good home. I’m not going to give it away though. The 1000R’s are a rare bird here in the states, especially good runners with excellent cosmetics.
I have 11 other bikes, so space is at a premium… and this one big motorcycle!
I just turned 71 yrs. old in July and big heavy bikes are getting difficult for me to maneuver about the garage.
It is time to “thin the herd” as they say. hard to even say, but it’s finally time.
Cheers, BLIGHT
I also have a “custom” 1986 VF500F that I fit with NC30 fairings, tank, seat and the NC30 rear single sided swingarm and 18" wheel. I can post Quail Lodge pics of that project bike too. It turned out better than I’d hoped, and was a ton of work to get it to all come together.