The Virago in motion

Video didn't work out completely as planned, so we will have to do it again.

Vincent's Ducati

A while back Vincent, the guy I built the Virago and the CX500 chopper with, bought a Ducati Cagiva Pantah 650. He sold his Yamaha R1 for it and that was a wise decission. The Ducatis isn't even finished yet, but I'm pretty sure he's already done more miles on it, than on the R1 in 3 seasons....

Although the bike is not finished yet, it is taking shape nicely. At this moment it has custom made exhaust pipes with modified mufflers, Emco air filters, air-supension at the back, a CX500 C gas tank, a seat made of a CX500 C gas tank, Tomasselli clipons, home made headlight and license plate brackets, after market headlight, Honda speedo and a seat made by the same guy (Raymond) that did the seat on my CB750.

Vincent took the Ducati for a test ride yesterday, while I tried to fine tune the Virago

As I said, it's work in progress. Heat shields on the exhausts are on his to-do list (though it's not a big problem)

And the engine needs some tuning (it's running a bit lean). 

All in all the bike is great fun and is nearly ready for the summer season.

We also did a short video, time was running out a bit and I filmed it from the Virago which was a surprisingly hard platform for filming (it's way easier on my BMW or the CB). The engine noise you hear is 100% the noise produced by the Virago, shame, cause the Duc sounds great too!

Virago update

It's been a while. Vincent managed to make something that's even louder than the Virago: A child. Cool kid though, Max.

Anyway: That was the reason for not working on the Virago and the SR500 for such a long time. I found a manual for our carb online, so I really wanted to give the Virago a tune up, while Vincent had some work to do on his Ducati.

I took the CB to get there, so we had quite a nice collection of bikes sitting in the sunlight.

Time to take the bikes for a test ride and of course: The Virago broke down (it only ran on 1 cylinder). As usual: it had nothing at all to do with anything else but bad luck: The rear spark plug didn't spark anymore. Every time the Virago has a problem we immediately start suspecting our home made inlet manifold and the carb and everytime it is something else.... (air hose, fuel problem, rubber inlet etc...) 

Anyway: the Virago ran very well and the Duc still has some work left on it.

Virago

That's it.

That's it. That's it for the photo's I made of the Virago last Tuesday, but that's also it for the Virago build. It's finished. We had to look it up, but we bought the Virago at the end of 2008 and now it's finished. It was the second build Vincent and I did together and we're both very happy with the result.

When we set out, we wanted a more radical bike that had a better finish than our first bike and would be more thought out. (For instance: To remove the saddle of the cx500 chopper, our first build, you had to disassemble about half the bike). The photo's won't show you that it is better thought out, but believe me, it is. I'm pretty sure the photo's do show that the bike is more radical. We were never sure the carb would work, but it does. So do the exhausts. Raking it did not make the handling dangerous and hardtailing it did not make it uncomfortable. It amazes me every time we start it. Now on to the next build!!

The bike as we bought it. Bikes don't get much uglier than that!

2 minutes after we started on it :)

Starting on the inlet manifold

We made the inlet manifold out of old car exhausts that we got for free out of the waste bin of the local Kwik Fit store

We used the carburetor of a classic car (Opel Kadet B)

Construction of the side fairing. We used material we got at the local old iron dump. The problem with that is that it's not always the most suitable. The metal plate we used here is about 3mm thick and MAN was it hard to get it into the right shape. The spring under the seat also came from the same place. We later replaced it with the leave springs of an MG-B classic car that we got for free too.

Making the exhausts was on of the most fun things we did on this build

With the Virago being a Virago, the starter gave us quite a bit of trouble.

We made the rear light entirely ourself. We shaped the alu on the lathe and soldered every LED. The latter was a bit of a pita and we had to do it again because someone (not me ;p) blew them up at the first try.

We really like the result!! 

The electrics were a mess, so we did it all over again, from scratch.


The very first test ride. It actually all works!

Welding......

Tinkering

More welding.... (glad we replaced that welder half way through the build, it was pretty crappy) 

The forward controls are home made too.

One of the first test rides. Always exciting!

The end result exceeds what we thought we could ever do

XV920 Virago

XV920 Virago

And then all of the sudden...

... It is finished. We finished the Virago last night. All the painted parts are back on the bike, all the electrics are hooked up again and we ran the bike for a few minutes. Feels a bit weird now it's finished, but we're looking forward to riding it. And looking forward to starting on the SR500 that is already waiting for us.

The beam of the headlight penetrating the smoke and kicked up dust after the engine start

The beam of the headlight penetrating the smoke and kicked up dust after the engine start

No shots of the completed bike since it was already late and very dark.