bobaintstoppin

This is the screen I have and really like it.

Here's a photo from my recent trip south to the Barber museum.  Taken on route 144 in PA just south of Renovo.  One of my favorite roads with no traffic!
 
 

Well! FrankQC is my new best internet buddy.     You can tell from his avatar that he knows what he's doing.  Don't mess with the led circuits.  I always take my switched voltage from the tail light, but there are other sources.  Thanks for the good advice Frank!

I gave mine a bath... 
So everyone, what do you use to get the chain lube/crud off of the rear wheel?

WD40 works great for this.

Please note:  With red locktite you need to use heat to release it before undoing the fastener.  No heat means a risk of damaging the threads when you try to remove the nut.  Just heat with a heat gun or propane torch until you see the locktite 'pop'and then the nut will come off normally.

A quick attempt at cross reference for the NGK 2308 gives Denso 5363 IU27 Iridium Power Plug at sparkplugs.com.  Will post up if I can find anything else.
 
Edit:  Then if you cross reference the Denso plug  you get NGK NGK 3521 CR9EIX IX Iridium Plug.  Is this the plug that was giving trouble?  Or a different one?

Now we're starting to make some progress.  My point was that the spark plug does not affect the mixture in any way.  The heat range is pretty well described by xlxr above.  If the iridium plug is in fact a match to the spec plug there would be no effect on the combustion.  The plug would just last longer due to the higher spec materials in the electrodes.  
 
There are other things to consider in the plug match.  Heat range, of course, but also the dimensions of the plug.  How far it extends into the chamber etc.  For the most part a spark is a spark as long as it's enough to light off the fuel mixture.  A bigger spark (higher voltage etc.) can provide more consistent ignition.
 
Sounds to me like the NGK plug used by the OP might have more reach into the chamber and could be causing some overly fast lighting of the mix simply because it's in a different spot.  That might also  imply overheating the piston if it's too close to the piston top during a hard run.  you might want to check the other dimensions of the plug before assuming it's a good fit on our motor.

xlxr:   How is it that you feel the iridium spark plug makes the fuel mixture leaner?  I don't get it?

This cracking is very common on this type of fastener (called well nuts among other things).  The rubber is just natural rubber and deteriorates with time.  Cheap to get replacements at the hardware store.

Another thing you could try is to turn off the traction control and then ride as you have described.  If the front wheel starts to lift, then you know the TC is doing it's job.  If not, sounds like the sensor clean/adjust might be the fix.

Bugs, The bars are aluminum, so tapping is real easy.  You'll need an M16 x 1.5 tap, which casts about $25.  If you've never used a tap before, they are pretty straight forward.  Use lube (I used wd40), and you also will need to back the tap out several times to clean out the chips that collect inside the bar end.  An air hose works well for this.  When tapping, you go forward a turn or two and then back up a half turn or so to break off the chips.  Keep doing that until you can put the black adaptor in all the way without bottoming.  It takes about 5 minutes to do each bar end.  The inside diameter of the bar is a decent fit right out of the box.  I didn't bother to ream the hole to the exact drill size for an M16.

So I installed the Renthal Street Naked bars today.  It's pretty straight forward as described in an earlier post by fjindy.  I ground off the bumps on the switch gear rather than drilling the bars.  Except that I did drill for the throttle as it has very little purchase via the clamp effect of the housing.  It's hard to show the difference in the pictures, so I did it a little different than fjindy did.
 
Here are the two bars on the bench showing the different bend.  More sweep:
 

 

 
Also a different angle from the horizontal.  I suppose this is more droop:

 
Here are the two installed bars back to back.  First from the top:

 

 
Then from the rear at seat height:

 

 
Will go for a ride this weekend to see if this solves the poor wrist angle issues.  Oops!  I forgot to put on the left grip puppy :-)

I'm in the middle of the install of Street Naked.  Will have some pics and a report when done.  Having to wait for a tap for the bar ends.  I don't know about other areas, but here in western Mass there is very little metric stock around.  Tap will come in Monday for me.

Thanks for the rating not the naked, oldguy. I took the plunge this morning and ordered one. Will have pics to campmare with the stock bar when I do the install. Fingers crossed. So far, every mod I've done has improved an already pretty great bike.

I went for a full morning ride today, and am coming into agreement on this need for more sweep on the bars. Looking at the Rental site I'm tending to agree with snowflake that the Street Naked bar might be even better than the Fighter. Looking at the pictures from fjindy, the Fighter bar doesn't look to be all that much more sweep. But it is hard to tell form the pics. Fjindy, do you think the naked bar would work? Looks to have more room for the grips and gear on each side by a little bit, but I'm not sure about all the other stuff. Comments anyone?
 
I'm getting ready to ride cross country, so I have to make a choice pretty quickly here.

Don't forget that gas is formulated differently in the winter to assure better cold starts. Plus lower temps = poorer mileage. Sorry Wessie, but denser air works both ways. More wind resistance, colder oil etc.

This looks like a screen I could like. Waiting for a few more ride reports and then I'm gonna jump on it. Thanks for posting these pics.