Finally back to naked

[vinmansbrew]

Wrapped up the switch this weekend. Honestly, the hardest part was figuring out how to mount the speedo and where to put the harness, specifically the relay and 2 connectors. Almost all of the harness is wrapped up in the headlight bucket. The connectors and relay are currently zip tied to the loop for the throttle cables. It is a little messy, not horrible. Only really noticeable up close. I will be tidying those up and finding a rubber bag to put them in for water protection.

The bar end mirrors are a bit close for my fairly large hands. I take up the whole grip pretty much, xxl glove. Take a bit of getting used to, but I think once I have them tweaked for vision, they will work better than the stock mirrors. And they look pretty damn slick.

New grips cause the stockers really stink. Not much grip on them, nor vibration absorption. The new ones will wear faster, but I would rather have good grip and isolation. Grips are cheap anyways.

4 led signals. Only 2 wire up front but I am not worried about that. Not overly bright, but then the stockers weren't either really, not wen compared to my CB lights. Fast flash, but a new flasher will solve that. They are a "shark tooth" style.

Finally, a 7 inch round headlight. Using a glass lens with what looks to be a good cutoff.

So far, overall noise while riding is MUCH less. There is no bastard wind flow smashing me in the upper chest and helmet. Also, without that buffeting, control is so much better. Had a 20 or so mph crosswind, barely knew it was there. With the screen on, I would have been getting pushed everywhere.

The front end is much lighter. I would guess that the fairing with mount and all has to weight close to 20 pounds, if not a little more. That is now gone and so the front is quick to respond and doesn't feel undersprung.

I wish I had done this when I first got the bike.

 

[TheMicahLay]

Got any pics?

 

[vinmansbrew]

Got a couple I shrunk down.

Still might tweak a couple of things, but overall I am quite pleased with the changes.

 

[TheMicahLay]

Nice! I just finished my naked build last week.

 

[vinmansbrew]

Lookin good. I see you painted the front fender. Looks nicer than I imagined in my head it would.

Did you move the ignition switch, or were your mounts long enough that the bucket didn't hit it? I had that issue and so my bucket is lower than I initially wanted. I can move it up some, so that may still happen.
Also, the bar end mirrors, are those complete units, or did you find mirrors to clamp to the yahama bar ends? I like how mine look, but yours give much more room for the hands. I have limited room. Not a big deal once my hands are on the bars and it is not completely closed in, but my hands pretty much take up the whole grip. Your mount would give much more room.

And how did you mount the speedo? I used flat aluminum stock and cut it and drilled it. It bounces some, but I can strengthen it, but the bounce isn't horrible.

Little tweaks here and there. Seems that mpg may be down some though!

 

[thisisbenji]

Love the round headlights! I just put mine back to naked yesterday as well. I was on the fence about which headlight to use, I really thought I was going to do a round one like you two. However, when it came down to it I went with a more "traditional" FZ6 setup.

 

[vinmansbrew]

I thought about it too. Couple things swayed me to round though. Round is classic, you just can't go wrong with it. It also uses a fluted glass lens which controls light cutoff much better than any reflector set up I have seen, and it doesn't really care what bulb you put in. Finally, the bucket allowed me to not cut the harness at all. I was able to coil it and put it in the bucket with plenty of room to spare. My only gripe is I thought the bucket was going to be a matte or flat black. It is actually a gloss, but it doesn't stick out too bad!

 

[thisisbenji]

I thought about it too. Couple things swayed me to round though. Round is classic, you just can't go wrong with it. It also uses a fluted glass lens which controls light cutoff much better than any reflector set up I have seen, and it doesn't really care what bulb you put in. Finally, the bucket allowed me to not cut the harness at all. I was able to coil it and put it in the bucket with plenty of room to spare. My only gripe is I thought the bucket was going to be a matte or flat black. It is actually a gloss, but it doesn't stick out too bad!

I see, my setup actually has really good cutoff. The harness in the bucket thing is pretty neat, that was always one of my main issues. With my new setup the light is far enough from the frame that I don't have issues with where to put wires, but in the past it has been a nightmare. I'll still probably end up cutting my harness at some point.

 

[TheMicahLay]

I left the ignition switch where it was and used the Puig screen to cover the area between the speedo and the top of the light. The speed is mounted with two bar mount brackets with the swivel ball mounts so I could tilt the speedo to where I wanted. It doesn't wiggle or vibrate. The vbar end mirrors are mounted to the factory bar ends themselves. I put a spacer in each one so they would be able to tighten without smashing up against the grips, especially on the throttle side so that the throttle operates smoothly.

 

[vinmansbrew]

I see what you did. Yeah, my speedo sits right next to the switch. Tight fit to get to the key with my thick fingers. I have more stock left so I may redo the mount, but it works. I probably have a bit less gap between the bucket and speedo than you have. The screen would be an idea for me but part of the whole goal was to ditch screens altogether. Got tired of my screen beating me up on the road.

How do you have the ends mounted so they dont fall out? They screw in but you would have to have them partly unscrewed. Loctite?

 

[TheMicahLay]

The screen rotates forward so I can access the ignition. This screen has no buffeting that I can tell. It's just big enough to block the main brunt of the wind from hitting me in the chest, but keeps the airflow smooth unlike the factory window that these come with. It's nice to not have all that wind pressure pushing my body back, reduces fatigue. I put rubber spacers in each side so it keeps the bar end out far enough to mount the mirrors, but still allows me to tighten them against the rubber.

 

[thisisbenji]

They sell aftermarket bar ends that will thread into the handlebars as well. They'll let you mount the mirrors no problem.





You can see them in these photos, they're made by RhinoMoto, top quality kit.

 

[vinmansbrew]

It makes you wonder if yamaha ever tested the screen on these bikes.

Those mirrors look pretty nice. I have to admin, I went cheap on things as I just wanted to get it done. There was always the chance I might not like it, so I went low cost. Kinda floors me how expensive mirrors can be. The ones I have are not overly heavy, but they actually have very little vibration.

 

[TheMicahLay]

I'm sure people under 5'5" would be totally protected from the wind Haha. My mirrors are just the cheap $12 ones from eBay, but they work. Those integrated ones are nice.

 

[thisisbenji]

Haha, yeah my whole naked setup is $$$. I didn't really spare much expense on it. My mirrors + bar ends had to be about $275. The glass on the mirrors is even better than OEM though, they're quality pieces that's for sure. Probably have close to $1000 of aftermarket goodies on the front end of my bike and I haven't even done levers yet!

 

[TheMicahLay]

Dang. I think in total including repaint mine's about at $600-$700 for the conversion.

 

[thisisbenji]

Mirrors $200
Bar Ends $80
Headlight & Brackets $450
Speedo Bracket $55
Speedo Back $15
Total $800

My iPhone mount setup cost me about $200 also, so that brings me to $1000 for front end goodies.

 

[TheMicahLay]

I bought the actual FZ6N headlight kit but ended up not using it, so I guess if you add that in I'm up there at a grand. Maybe I can find someone who wants it haha

 

[thisisbenji]

I bought the actual FZ6N headlight kit but ended up not using it, so I guess if you add that in I'm up there at a grand. Maybe I can find someone who wants it haha

Ah yes! The kit! Those are garbage. I went through two of them prior to my current setup.

 

[TheMicahLay]

The headlight assembly itself seems solid, but the bracket made no sense to me. Only thing I used from it was the speedo cover. Is that the MT light you have?