Carbon Fibre Power!

I've always wanted to try the vinyl carbon fibre wrap on something, so after I got my WeeBR and noticed the mat black spots I decided that that was a prefect place to try it! I didn't like the mat black look anyway so a little fake carbon fibre shouldn't look any worse.

The vinyl I bought from eBay 3M Carbon Fibre, just search it and it'll come up. I bought a 2'x4' sheet, which is more than enough and watched a few videos on YouTube about how to apply this stuff.

Getting started was tricky to say the least. I must have restarted 4 times from 3 different spots before I really got going. I used an electric heat gun, but i would recommend a hair drier because it has less power and you're less likely to burn your fingers. You might want to consider having someone else around to help you hold the drier well you try and get the bubbles out. This stuff is pretty forgiving if you make mistakes. All you have to do to correct yourself is heat up the area that got messed up and stretch the 3M vinyl out. TAKE YOUR TIME!! This is not a rush job! I rushed one part (no pictures) and now I'm going to have to redo it. It was so bad I didn't want to take pictures to show people. Give yourself a few hours to do complex pieces and an hour to do simple flat surfaces. I have enough left over to redo both parts I did (which I plan on doing) and some small pieces to wrap the turn signals and maybe mirror backs. It ended up looking really nice! (looking past the ugly and imaging it if it was done right.) You can get the vinyl carbon fibre in a few different styles. I recommend '3D' but you can also get silver and others. The good thing about the 3M vinyl is that it has texture to it and is not smooth. There are actual weaves in the vinyl. Also, it's pretty strong and weather resistant for the most part.

So! Find your style, buy it, install it and show it off! There are many kinds of vinyl out there too, not just carbon fibre so look around for one that fits you and your bike!

Here are some pictures of the process and finished product!











Until next time,'Live to Ride, Ride to Live'

Oh THAT'S my speed, I see it now!

Ever look down well riding and say to yourself, 'damn! the amber glow of the gauge cluster really really sucks!' I know I have! And that's when, during the start of another mod I was working on, I saw an opportunity to fix this. I had several left over ultra white LEDs from when I wanted to make the cyclopes light white. They just so happened to fit (bulb type 168) and I had just enough, after I dropped on inside the gauge that I couldn't rescue...

Anyway, it's VERY simple to do. Pick a colour you want your gauges to be, blue, green, white, whatever. Then take the two plastic parts around the handle bars off (4 screws each) then take the bolts on either side of the gauge cluster out and lastly, pop out the pin holding the centre in place. (It's right behind the High Beam light area under the cluster.

From there just start (gently) pulling the rubber boots that hold the light bulbs out of their places. The middle two are for the high beam and neutral light. I left those cause I didn't have enough bulbs, but because the plastic cover on the front of the cluster is coloured a new bulb shouldn't change anything.

The gauges came out great but did have a tint of green. I believe that's the plastic of the gauge, I think it has a greenish film on one side. I'm sure you could remove it, but that would mean taking apart the cluster itself and I'm not doing that! (too lazy)

Here are a few pictures, more can be found, as always, in Kenna's Picasa Web Album!







Until next time,'Live to Ride, Ride to Live'

Grab your Snorkel we're going under!

Not that kind of snorkel! This kind!



The snorkel 'mod' is one that is still, on occasion, debated as to whether it does anything power wise and whether the 'deeper' sound is good or not. I've read people associate the new sound to a loud duck quack lol. That being said, my take on this 'mod' is, in the lower RPM range 4k-6k there is a definite more 'throaty' sound with a lower tone. At higher RPMs 7k+ to me she does sound more aggressive, more race bike like. Over all she is louder and even drowns out my music during some songs. For me it's fun for now. I'll probably get one too many headaches from it and put it back by the end of the season. But until then I'm just going to pretend she's bigger than she actually is and rev her at red lights just to be that much more annoying to the person in the car next to me on their cellphone.

To do the mod is simple;
1. Take off the plastic piece on the gas tank (4 screws)
2. Take out the Riders seat (1 bolt in the trunk at the back of the seat)
3. loosen the pivoting bolt at the back of the gas tank
4 Lift the gas tank up, front to back and use a bungee or friend to hold the tank up.
5. Pull the snorkel out using your hands or if you must take out the screws that hold the air box in place and then proceed to remove the snorkel.
6. Check the filter! Might as well replace it now if needed.
7. Lower the gas tank and tighten the pivoting bolt
8. Put all the bolts, pieces and screws back.

*There are pegs on each side of the gas tank that need to be pride out gently as well. See photos.

That's it! I've noticed a LITTLE higher RPM at idle, and to me it sounds like she runs richer, at least at idle. Total time to do this, 10-15 minutes... It's not hard at all and entirely reversible. You get used to the louder sound pretty quick and at higher speeds she sounds great!

Here are some photos of the job, more are in Kenna's Picasa Web Album.











Until next time,'Live to Ride, Ride to Live'

Want more HP? Try Rim Stripes!

Want more HP? Try Rim Stripes! They help your tires go around faster!

Well obviously they don't. But how cool do they look!?




After deciding on the Black/Green colour scheme from getting Charlie to the green LEDs, the next step for me was rim stripes. I bought these off eBay to save a few bucks, cause I was in no hurry and could afford to wait. But if you buy them local the price really isn't that bad for no wait time. I obvious went with K**i green. (I dare not speak the 'enemy's name lol) I have two things to say about applying rim tape before I post some photos.

1. Clean you rim REALLY well even as you go wipe them down to avoid taping over something. Even the littlest piece of dirt will leave a bubble in the tape.
2. IF you don't have much patience or are not very detail oriented, do not do this yourself! Get someone else to do it! (I mean a friend, don't pay for this job unless you have money to burn) I got my girlfriend to do it :D she did a great job, took her time and still got all four sides done in less than an hour.

If you look closely there are some wavy parts, but the tape wasn't cut specifically for my bike so it's ALMOST unavoidable, though if you try really hard or buy 'better' tape you might be able to avoid waves. They're not viable when standing back and looking at the whole bike, or even well riding so don't stress to much when applying them.

Here are a couple of photos, more are in Kenna's Picasa Web Album. Total Horse Power increase, 7+ (in my head lol)












Until next time,'Live to Ride, Ride to Live'

Cyclops - From Yellow to White to Green!

For those of you with sports bikes, essentially a CBR, or to those who have looked closely at one, you may have noticed accent lights on the front. Some have two one in each corner, others may have them at the top close together, or the bottom stretched far apart. Either way, changing them to a colour you like is a great cheap way to make your bike more 'your own.' For the CBR 125r the accent light is a cyclopsed bulb at the top between the headlights. I've seen many different colours from stock to blue, purple and white. How it came to be that I changed Kenna's accent light was unexpected, at least for me. I noticed one night well reving the engine (before I actually rode I just sat on her listening to her purr) that the license plate light was out. Know this was considered illegal and that I knew eventually I would be riding at night, I went to Canadian Tire in search of a replacement. I didn't have the bulb code but I knew someone should be able to help with that and point me in the direction of a whiter glowing blub as well. After buying the whitest bulb I could and receiving the bulb code I was excited to take the light housing off and do some 'work on the bike.' After replacing the license plate bulb it got me thinking, 'maybe the accent bulb is the same!' Sure enough it was! After replacing that I didn't notice a difference in the orignal blub and my $2.50 replacement from CT. So I decided to hit up eBay and buy an 'ultra white' LED blub. I also looked for other places I could use a bulb this size because the eBay sales were all for 2 or more bulbs. I found a few places on my car so I bought 4 white LEDs, two for Kenna, license plate and accent, and two for the car license plate. Here's a photo of Kenna with the 'ultra white' LED.



These are the LEDs




I rode with that light for a few weeks and showed people and everyone seemed to think it was cool and made me a little more visible from the front and also differentiated Kenna from the other CBR 125s on the road. But after I got Charlie from my girlfriend I decided that the white LED was just too regular and I wanted something that looked uber cool! From there I bought two green LEDs from eBay. One for the front and one for the license plate area that is on my new CBR 150 tail light, not where the actual plate is, that should stay white. Here is a photo of what it looks like. It's not the best photo, I'll put more in Kenna's album later. With the new addition of a green cyclops light I had to go one further! Rim stripes to come...!










Until next time,'Live to Ride, Ride to Live'