Putting On the Frame Sliders
I'm going to be taking this bike to track days,
but even if I didn't, I'd still want to minimize the damage in case of
a dump. So, I need to mount some frame sliders.
Well, before I could put them on, first thing was to find some. I
did a lot of searching around on Google, which mostly pointed me to
Ebay, but it became clear that I basically had two options; get the
typical sliders, which required drilling holes in the bodywork, or get
the ones that don't. Apparently Shogun Motorsports
not only races bikes, but they also make frame sliders for the
CBR1000RR which don't required drilling of the bodywork. It seems
they're the only ones that make these type, or at least they were the
only one's I could find by searching the Internet. I got mine
through Ebay, but there are other places that sell them, like Moto911.com . You just need
to search via Google for "NO CUT" frame sliders and I'm sure you'll
find them.
The concept for the no cut sliders is simple. With the CBR one of
the main engine supports is a couple inches from the point where the
lower fairing meets the middle fairing, and where the lower fairing
ends, so by making a short bracket that offsets the slider just outside
the fairing, no drilling is necessary.
If I had my preference I would like the sliders
significantly further forward and a little higher. I'm tall, have long
legs, and when I lean off, my knee comes real close to the slider, but
the CBR doesn't have an engine mount further forward and higher up, at
least not one you could mount a slider to. Until I got the
sliders put on I never really thought about that before; the
relationship of body position to slider position. We'll see how
it works out once I'm out on the track. It's hard to judge
hanging off the side of the bike in the garage, on the side stand,
while my daughter is standing on the outside peg to balance me.... Yup,
I did, and yup, she did. That's what kids are for, right? I
think her words were... "Dad, you're weird." I take that as a
compliment.
Well, the sliders look like they'll do the job, but let me tell you,
the hardest part of getting them mounted was the damn fairing.
When I first got the bike I wanted to take the middle fairing off on
one side. How difficult could it be? So, I got all the
screws undone, and all the little push snappy things, started pulling
the fairing off, and I'll be danged if I couldn't get it off. It
was loose, but it just wasn't coming off and I didn't want to pull too
hard. That was about the time I went back to that handy dandy
owners manual in that little compartment under that
sad-excuse-for-a-passenger-seat and flipped through it. Well, the
manual didn't
shed any light on the problem, so being as it was colder than a brass
witches... I decided to put the screws back in and leave it for a
warmer day.
This was also right about the time I went back to Ebay and found
someone selling a CBR1000RR factory service manual for $10.00.
Can't beat that! By the time the frame sliders came, the manual
had come, and I saw why I couldn't get the middle fairing off. In
the front, where it joins the nose piece, it has these finger/tab
things that interlock to the nose, so to get it off you have to pull
straight back on the middle fairing. Simple enough, but until you
have a good picture, not very obvious, especially if you're trying to
not wreck that nice metal flake paint job.
Well, I got plenty of practice getting the fairings off while I was
mounting the frame sliders, and I'm thinking Honda could have made this
process a lot easier and less tedious than it is. Particularly
stupid are these screws that are at the very bottom of the fairing;
holding the two lowers together. There isn't eough ground
clearance to get a screw driver under there, so I had to work with a
little stubby socket/screw-driver thing. I think my next trip to
Google is going to be for a search on quick release fasteners to
replace all those annoying screws.
While I was at it I also installed some swing arm sliders/spools, which
I got off Ebay... of course. So, I think I'm set as far as
sliders go.. But don't they make sliders for the fork tubes too?
Modifying the Sliders
Why did I need to modify the sliders? Well, seems the no-cut
Sato's have a problem. On the left side, directly behind the
slider bracket is a cooling system elbow. And if the bracket
bends, which it does, it crushes the elbow and you end up with leaking
coolant and having to pull the engine to replace the elbow.
Actually I haven't looked it hard enough to see why you
couldn't just replace the elbow with the engine in place. But,
who wants to be left stranded just because a housing crushed. So,
I was thinking of just removing the sliders but instead I came up with
this.
In the picture above you can see the standard position of the slider on
the left side. Here is how it looks now with the mid fairing in
place and with it off.. Basically I've cut a slot into the slider
to clear the mid fairing. That allows me to rotate the slider up
so that it clears the elbow, without needing to cut the fairing.
And the slider is sturdy enough that taking that material away is
really not going to effect how it functions. The bracket could could
bend down, but that will be away from the fairing.
Well, hopefully I'll never need to find out if this works better or
not, but at least I know it wont crush the elbow if it falls over on
that side. Yeah, it's still possible that it could rotate out of
position if it got a really high twisting load. So, it's not perfect,
but it's better.