Iraq Moto: Zagraniski’s F450 Blog, Part 4

First of all, let me say thank you very much to all those who voted for their favorite paint scheme on last moth’s Iraq Moto blog. You all made the decision quite easy for me! The overwhelming crowd favorite was Option #2. It was my pleasure to write back to Killeen Power Sports a couple of weeks ago and inform them of the people’s choice (and mine, too)! I am certain that your chosen paint scheme will look fantastic going down the front straight of any track.

Dustin and John–both mechanics at Killeen Power Sports–have kept me abreast of the progress made over the past month. As anyone who works in motorcycles will tell you, the summer can be a very hectic time for a bike shop. Even in a down economy, I hear the 2009 summer season was definitely crazy in Central Texas. Wish I could’ve been there! I’m certainly grateful these men found time to continue building my bike on top of everything else they had to do.

The first challenge we faced over the past month was pre-drilling and then mounting all of the bodywork onto the bike. For those unfamiliar with the process, it’s always important to ensure you can put your bike together without major changes before you send it off to paint. I learned that lesson the hard way on a much simpler project ages ago.

Well, the guys at Killeen Power Sports ran into some spacing problems. Namely, the upper mount was not compatible with the factory-installed steering damper that comes on every 2008 Honda CRF450X. As you can tell from this month’s pictures, though, the spacing issues have all been fixed. I give you the complete, pre-fabricated Formula 450. Isn’t it beautiful, even in primer gray?

Dustin also told me this month that a company in the States has just come out with an air box modification kit specifically for Super Single applications. We went ahead and bought one, and everyone is very excited to compare its performance to the stock bits. We expect adequate return on investment from improved airflow and hopefully some weight savings, too.

Our project consultant, Matt from AD Motorsports in Austin, TX, made another leap forward this month when he found someone to fabricate our rearset mounts. As you may recall, our project bike has yet to meet its Vortex rearsets, which are fully adjustable units designed for a YZF-R6. The interaction between lower fairing, frame tubes, rearset mounts, rearsets, and levers has caused some head-scratching since we first took delivery of the Vortex parts. It seemed as soon as we figured out how to get four of those things to work together, the fifth would just mess us all up. With help from Matt, I’m sure we’ll finally get it worked out.

In a weaker moment, I caved in and ordered a second set of bodywork, too. I just couldn’t bear the thought of throwing those gorgeous Operation Iraqi Freedom-themed stripes into the gravel at my first track day, so I ordered another set, which will remain mostly untouched. I plan to confine myself to the second set of plastics until such time as I am comfortable on my new bike. After all, it’s been ten months since I last threw a leg over a motorcycle, and the Formula 450 is only my second sport bike.

To wrap up our progress for the month, John sent me another email recently about his graphic-design work. If you’re lucky, next month I’ll have–if not a fully painted bike–an artist’s rendition of the final paint scheme to share. I just hope John is better with computer drawing than I am; all the artistic talent in my family skipped me completely.