spartacus

Welcome! Northern Bmore County here. Maybe I'll seeya around

It should be a blinking sticky at the top of each page. If anybody complains about a snatchy throttle or janky fueling, this should be the only reply until they do it. It's not hard at all and completely changes the bike's livability for me—especially because I'm in traffic when I commute. I just wish we didn't have to do it to achieve what it should have been stock since it's the adjustment of a sensor already on the bike.

I was tired of my Cortech saddlebags sagging so much, especially when I had them packed full for commuting to work. Gym bag, lunch, laptop and such. They unzip and expand so I might as well use it, right? Grabbed two pieces of 1x12x3/16” steel and two pieces of 1/4” or 3/16” (I can’t remember) steel rod from the orange Depot. Cut the steel strips to length (about 12”) and drilled two holes to mount. Used the stock hardware and spacers. Heated and bent the steel rod to shape, by eye for the most part. I went back to the bike constantly with the bags mounted to make sure the shape was right. Then I welded the rods onto the bars, ground down the monstrous boogers that I call welds down nice and smooth, and shot it with a few layers of gloss black. They work great and I’m very pleased. I don’t really load them down that much, not compared to if they were hard bags, so I don’t think I need a cross bar for support. The stock is thick enough and I believe my welds were good enough that they aren’t going anywhere. I’ll monitor and add one or two if need be.

How exactly did you hack the stock exhaust? You take a drill and drill small holes in the baffle or something? I removed the exhaust, cut a window in the rear top portion behind the mounts, and removed the tubing connecting the muffler wall to the exhaust tip. Then we cut an additional 1.75" dia hole in that partition wall that basically leads to the catalytic converter. It makes it more straight through, with the expense of a few pops and bangs (coming to a stop, downshifting into 3rd and 2nd below 3k rpm or so).

I hacked the stock exhaust for a little more volume and a lower overall tone. I achieved about 80% of what I wanted—could have been louder and deeper! But it worked out fine for a free mod.

I adjusted my APS ... let’s see if it truly smooths out the on/off snatchiness of the throttle. Went quick and easy.

Thanks guys! I'll find me some FZ-09 bar ends to thread on there. Got the fender off, ready for the tidy tail. Also took the wheels off for the first time. Pilot Road 5 rubber ready to go on! Installed but not tested: Amazon mirror extenders.

Got rear-ended on Friday riding home from work on my first commute! Arg! First in line at a red light making a left turn—person behind me lets off their brake and rolls right into the back of me. Bent up the stock fender and plate, knicked the tire, too. So I'm waiting for an Amazon tail tidy with LED turn signals front and rear and a set of Pilot Road 5s! I also got a bunch of small things: rear spools, Grip Puppies, front preload adjustment knobs, and some extenders for the stock mirrors. I still need to figure out some weighted bar ends since I removed the stock hand guards, but can't be sure that the threads are correct since no one lists them for the Tracer unless they're universal. Guess I'll just be removing the threaded inserts and going universal: I kinda wanted to find a pair that'll thread right in.

How about a mix of both ideas: a cutoff windshield Stock windshield deserves to be trimmed down to minimal so as to reduce the awesome wind tunnel it creates. That's definitely the plan as I think it's the only way to really "get rid" of the windshield without leaving empty holes and support brackets visible. I don't know how it left the factory the way it is, unless all the test riders were 5'6" and under. It's a shame the bike doesn't come with a cheap plastic fill panel from the factory to install in the windshield's stead. That'd be too much to ask at this price point I guess—to the work shop to mod some plexi!

I couldn't stand the stock windshield, so for my first "mods" I removed the windshield and stock hand guards and I'm running naked for now. Coming from a naked sportbike I don't mind the wind at all——I just couldn't stand the noise it caused in my helmet. I'll be cutting and painting the stock one soon and getting a larger aftermarket windshield (and hand guards for that matter) in the future.

I'm located in Baltimore, MD. Bought my FJ in State College, PA so that probably wasn't too far from you, noonegreen.