Thought I’d show one of my 1000s I finished a wheel swap on. VTR1000F Firestorm rear wheel. 5.5x17 with a 170/70-17. I made custom spacers and machined a VF500F hub to center the wheel and sprocket.
CBR929RR Fireblade caliper bracket with machined sleeve to bring it down to 20mm and custom brake arm and bracket.
1991 VFR fork lowers and brakes with 1991 CBR1000F fork tubes and front wheel.
Handling is unlike any of my other 1000s. Planted and confident.
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Hi captain,
Bike looks great with some really interesting mods, 
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Tidy work Captain,I like the use of a torque arm on the rear brake.
if GaryB sees this it will solve a problem for him
Best regards Bif
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It most certainly does! Looks really good captain, you’ve given me plenty to think about.
Garyb
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Lovely work there.
Seems to have gone together very nicely.
How are the brakes?
Thank you! Brakes are great and are definitely an improvement for this heavy bike while still keeping the style of wheel I wanted to match the rear and fit the fork set-up.
There are much better brake and fork combos out there, but more modern forks are simply too short and I knew all of these parts would play nice together. And I have a ton of this style caliper parts and rotors from other builds.
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Drilled and tapped the caliper bracket. Plenty of material for good, strong threads.
Smushed and radiused my own torque arm from aerospace certed stainless (from work).
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Top work captain.
Was just wondering about the torque arm. Anything less than the material used would likely be a bit weak when pressed and creased.
Nicely done.
Thanks. I use aluminum blocks that have a slight radius on the edge so as not to produce too sharp a crease when smushing just for that reason.
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Oh, and of course I didn’t keep the original boat anchor in back after doing all of this. YSS +5mm shock.
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Here’s how she’s looking now. Had to replace the clutch and shift shaft. Then replaced the counter shaft seals, shift shaft seal, clutch rod seal and water pump o-ring.
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Would a 180 section tyre fit in there? And did you need to use an offset front sprocket?
I did not use offset sprockets. A 180 from some manufacturers could be too wide to clear the chain as configured. I have an Avon 170/60 that measures 180 and it is the limit. I have found Pirellis run pretty true to size, the 1000F I did a similar wheel swap on has a 170/60 that measures 168, and It’s a great fit.
180/55 are easier to find and usually less expensive, but I do like the 170/60 profile, and is what I calculated my clearances for when determining if it was doable.