DeepSix

I've never been able to get good results with a spray can but I'm also not a talented painter. Maybe I just need some practice.

I'm hundreds of miles from my bike for the next few months or I'd take pics bit I'll try to explain the best I can.

1)I had the same problem initially. I mounted the horn to the fork in a very standard place. It's nothing special at all and there are probably a few options up under there.

2)I ditched the included piece of hose and purchased a much longer piece. I routed this back through the faring, under the tank, over the battery and... (here's the slick part) I was able to mount the pump to the under side of of the metal bracket where the seat lock is.  To do this required the following steps:

• Remove the plastic cover from the pump to make it as small as possible (if I remember correctly)
• Trim the plastic below and behind that metal bracket so the pump can be slid in between the plastic and the metal bracket
• drill an appropriate size hole so you can bolt the bump to the bracket.

I hope that makes sense.

Awesome price on an Ohlins Rear shock. This shock came with the correct spring rate for my weight sag estimate already tuned. (REMARKABLY close without me and the bike.) I looked at every option including acquiring and rebuilding a GSXR shock. It's more than I wanted to spend but you can screw around putting crap on a bike and spend $500 like nothing before you even know it. No mods or farkles will transform the bike like suspension. Did I mention it came in 3 days from Italy?

Yamaha tracer 900 2017 ohlins shock absorber stx46 street ya 335

WWW.EBAY.COM

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MODEL YEARS 2015, 2016, 2017. MODEL TRACER 900. PRODUCT CODE YA 335. S = single tube shock absorber. T = twin tube...

I purchased these knock off crash bars. The caps don't fit but I couldn't care less. I would never use them anyway. I have a lot of welding and fab experience... (well, to be honest, I can evaluate it better than I can do it) and these cheap bars are absolutely fine and there's no aspect of them I would pay more to change.

Hope this helps someone.

DeepSix

Motor Engine Guard Crash Bar Frame Protector fit Yamaha MT-09 FZ-09 FJ-09 14-16

WWW.EBAY.COM

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Radiator Protector Guard. Type: Engine Guard Crash Bars. Chain Guard Cover. Slider Protector. Levers Guards Protector...

I don't normally post ebay links because they die quickly but here is the rear shock I purchased. For obvious reasons, I'm a little chapped with the other seller and don't wish to advertise what I feel are shady selling practices. Just check for negative feedback.

Yamaha tracer 900 2015 ohlins shock absorber stx46 street ya 335

WWW.EBAY.COM

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MODEL YEARS 2015, 2016, 2017. MODEL TRACER 900. PRODUCT CODE YA 335. S = single tube shock absorber. T = twin tube shock absorber. E =...

It a lot better with the preload maxed out. Still soft though.  I actually don’t know if it came with springs or if the mechanic reused my stock ones. I never looked at them and I haven't been able to connect with him. 

To be honest though, I was 100% satisfied until I found out. They're still an amazing improvement over stock but it just leaves me wondering what it would feel like at the correct spring rate.

Maybe I'll redo it someday but for now, I just need to forget about it and enjoy my new ride.

 Just learned something disappointing. The cartridges I installed didn’t have a corrected sprig rate. It’s still a ton better but very frustrated that this part wasn’t done right. Now they are in and I’m not redoing it. 

So I suppose it’s not as good a deal as I’d hoped. 

I’ve been trying to do everything on a budget. In another post, I talked about drilling the CAT to improve the exhaust note... I ruined it and had to replace it. Lesson learned. 🤣

I just posted this because every time I tried to put together a decent package, I was looking at $2000-2500. I just wanted to lay it out so I could say here it is “all-in” for a great setup. 

DeepSix

**** BEFORE YOU FOLLOW ANYTHING I'VE DONE, PLEASE READ THE A FEW POSTS DOWN. THIS WAS A MUCH BETTER DEAL UNTIL I FIGURED OUT THE SPRING RATE ON THE CARTRIDGES WAS NOT CORRECTED TO MY WEIGHT. I STILL LOVE THE SETUP BUT I'M DISAPPOINTED IT COULD BE BETTER AND IT'S NOT.****

I purchased my 2015 FJ09 w/600 miles on it in January for $5500... I know the resale of these bikes sucks so I want to put as little money into this thing as possible. At least into things I can't remove from the bike. However, I LOVE this bike and I never find myself lacking, riding with my brothers who have a KTM Superduke GT and a Monster 1200. (Not to shabby against $20k bikes) HOWEVER, the suspension is just terrible, especially for me at 290lbs.

I've been exploring fork swaps, revalving options, shock swaps and rebuilds but everything seemed like a lot of money to spend on getting things to an acceptable level. $1355 is more than I wanted to spend but it doesn't feel as bad knowing what it would cost (roughly $700-900)for other options that wouldn't be nearly as good... On to the story.

I don't know why this situation is the way it is but there are sellers in Europe that seem to have pretty amazing prices on high end motorcycle gear. In this particular case, I was able to find GREAT prices on Ohlins stuff and it was all coming from Italy. Both orders came from Fleabay which I don't love but sometimes I hit home runs with.

Ohlins YA355- $540 with free Expedited Shipping (Ordered Monday night and it was delivered Thursday, with the correct spring rate and estimated adjustment for sag which was remarkably close.)

Ohlins FKS504- $770 with $45 Expedited Shipping (Ordered Thursday Night, delivered Tuesday)

Rear shock was a 25 minute job. Hint: Don't remove anything. Put it on the stand, remove the 14mm nut from the right side of the front shock bolt and use long thin socket extension and hammer to gently tap out the bolt, Remove the 14mm nut and bolt right beneath the rear shock bolt (through the round hole in the swing arm, on the linkage), lift the rear of the shock enough to remove the 14mm nut and rear shock bolt. Slide the old shock out and the new one in. Reverse the process. It did require a little lifting and lowering of the rear wheel to help things line up.There are some decent videos on YouTube but look for one that isn't telling you to disassemble anything, it's unnecessary.

Cartridges- I found a motorcycle mechanic on Craigslist that installed them for $150 plus parts. I guess I should add $150 to my total but if you can do the work yourself you can save that cash.

HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: The bike is absolutely transformed. It is SO MUCH BETTER, it's staggering. Even if I swap this bike out in two years (which seems to be my habit) and lose every dollar I put into the suspension, (which I won't) it would still be worth that investment.

Hope this benefits someone,

DeepSix

I'll try to upload some pics later.

I ride in an AGV Sport Modular. It's a fantastic helmet but a little louder than I'd prefer. That said, I have very sensitive ears.

betony- Thanks, I just wanted a little bit of extra detail.

Wordsmith- Your Panniers should be a reasonably easy job. I would just use the adhesion promoter/primer to make sure you didn't get any lift. Another trick is to start with a piece of vinyl that is much larger than necessary. This helps you be able to stretch the materials and move imperfections off of the part if that makes sense. My panniers have a small compound angle and stretch and they came out nearly perfect. The REALLY hard ones are the pieces around the tank.

On a side note, I ordered a custom color matched rattle can of paint one time and it worked perfectly. It never seems to have the "depth" of factory but maybe if you clear coated it a few times and wet sanded and buffed it.

EDIT- Proceed with caution. After drilling my exhaust (Read below) the bike sounded much better and ran great on the couple of short test rides I did. HOWEVER, when I actually got it out for a real ride today, it felt like it was missing something. I turned off the TCS and it will no longer do a wheelie in 2nd gear A mode. This MOD appears to have killed the torque. It still rips through the revs like normal but has just lost a lot of grunt. I'm going to weld up the holes and see if I can confirm this is what's going on.

JCG- Thanks for the idea. I didn't realize it until I'd posted a different thread tonight but your question is what got me started.

I did as much research as I could online but most examples were FZ-09. I honestly didn't care if I made a mistake and the exhaust was destroyed, It's not worth anything anyway. So why not take a stab at this before spending $600-1200 on a new exhaust?

I drilled seven 3/8" holes under the guard in the back of the muffler. Here are the results although it has a deeper, more throaty tone than my phone could capture. I'm thrilled with this ZERO $ mod and it took 20 minutes start to finish including test drives.

I wrapped my bike and I will tell you, you have to make a choice if you’re not a pro, either don’t do it or except that it will have flaws and be ok with it looking great for a short distance. 

The problem is all the compound curves and angles on this bike. The parts are small but they are an extreme pain in the butt to get wrapped and have them be perfect. I’m pretty happy with mine but closer than about 5 feet and you can see all my blunders. I’m good with that because I don’t care if it’s perfect and it didn’t cost me $500 to have a pro do it. 

If you do it yourself:

1) Don’t by cheap wrap. I used Vivid wood grain vinyl on on some cabinet doors. Just flat surfaces and it was a bastard to work with. It also had questionable adhesion at times. I used 3M perfect Blue vinyl with a diamond white stripe down the middle (seamed together, not one piece) on my bike and it was AMAZING to work with. 

2)use primer adhesive on any inside radius to prevent lifting. I use a lot of it to avoid one spot ruining a whole job. 

Hope that helps. 

The wrap is just a vinyl material that has a lot of stretch to it when heated. Everything I know about it, I learned on Youtube watching others and their tutorials. The biggest trick I've found for any of this is cutting your starting piece much larger than you actually need. It's wasteful but it allows you to move the "stretch" around more easily and get imperfections off of the piece and onto the discarded material.

Panniers would be a very good place to start. Most shouldn't be that complicated.

Sorry for background, I have a CX500 build going on and my garage is rough at the moment.

My bike is actually the grey/black color scheme which is a little too plain for my taste. I wrapped it in 3M "Perfect Blue" with a "Diamond White" stripe down the middle. I know it's probably not for everyone but I love it.

Wrapping is an EXTREME PITA on this bike with all the pieces so this is really a crap job if you look closely. However, I'm liking the bike so much (Originally I was just going to ride it while I looked for the right BMW S1000XR) I may have the same wrap done by a pro.

Here's the crazy thing that was totally unintentional... when I ride on the freeway, 4 out of 5 cars will pull over and let me by thinking I'm a police officer.  IT"S AMAZING!

Hope you like it,

DeepSix

I'm here in Vancouver WA. I know I'm late to the party for the April ride but always looking for people to ride with.

I do have day time running lights and ride during the day with high beam on. I was reading a thing about how people are looking for cars and their brains sometimes just don't recognize motorcycles... sounds strange but I can see how it could be true. I'm not sure how she didn't see me as I was as visible as I could be.

DeepSix

Today was my second ride with a Denali Sound Bomb installed on my bike. (I'll have to do a post on the install because it worked out pretty slick. The pump is mounted to the under side of the metal bracket with the seat lock.) Anyway, I was plugging along a really nice country road and out in front of me about 40 or 50 yards, a woman started to pull out of her driveway. She just flat didn't see me. I blasted my horn, she slammed on her brakes and stopped and I was able to go around her. It wasn't that close a call but if she'd pulled out all the way and crossed into the oncoming lane like so many do, I wouldn't have had much place to go. It definitely got my heart racing though.

Anyway, It's crazy embarrassing when I accidentally bump the horn trying to turn off my blinkers but it's totally worth it. (I'm just recently back on street bikes after a 20 year layoff.)

I'm not shilling for this brand, I just think stock horns are so damn insufficient and I was super happy with being able to put part of the horn under the seat. Even happier with having a massive horn blast when I needed it.

Hope that helps someone,

DeepSix

Thank you!

...I feel like an idiot.

Please forgive this if it's been posted before but I did search... A LOT.

I'm a new FJ09 owner. It's a like new 2015 with about 1.5k on it. I had the ECU reflashed by one of the guys on here everyone talks about and the bike runs good. I had it done so early that I can't really tell the difference though to be honest. I rode maybe 100 miles before leaving for two weeks on a work thingso that was the perfect time to send it off.

Here's where I run into a problem. The bike is pretty fast. Nothing crazy but it has enough punch I should be able to do a wheelie... I CAN'T DO A DAMN WHEELIE. (This shouldn't upset me but somehow it does.) Yes, I'm fat... well I more big than fat but still tip the scales at 280lbs though much of my weight is up high in my chest and shoulders so wouldn't that be better? Even in first, it will not power up a wheelie as the nannies kick in (I think) , even in A mode. (Which I thought had no nannies) I see all these people talking about how this bike is a beast and a wheelie machine and I'm worried mine is screwed up or something.

Can someone sort me out? I swear I spent an hour or more looking for advise on youtube and this forum.

Thanks,

DeepSix