A fairly rare beast – Honda’s VFR1200, fitted with a baffle-in Akrapovic can. The owner bought it in complaining of off-throttle and cruising speed jerkiness, especially in traffic. Suspecting the lambdas were at fault, we ordered up a Power Commander PC V with O2 Eliminator, dispatched the little swines and mapped the bike on the Dyno.
Out on the road after, the engine itself felt good – smooth, plenty of go. But this bike had a ton of lash in its drivetrain, and all you could hear when riding it was CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK! When the owner came into pick it up he was actually glad of this news; apparently, when he rode the demo bike it was lovely, and running his own VFR in early on he took no notice of the amount of play in the drivetrain. But as he’s used it he’s noted the slop getting worse and worse, and it’s something we really can’t do much about.
So he’s taking his bike back to the Honda dealer he got it from, to get it sorted.