THIS STUFF IS ILLEGAL SO DON’T DO ANY OF IT!
Oh yeah man. Dukes are the way to go. Actually Duke, Freeway, and Jockey are the same bike with different plastic bodies.
The gears are located in the far back of the bike. You have to remove the wheel and there’s a plate you take off to expose the gears. There’s two (one big and one small), they come in a set. Sometimes you’ll see them change the gear oil (not engine oil) by removing a small drain plug near your brake adjustor.
I’ve done all the mods listed… I got 150km easy, but I changed to low gears a couple months ago and WOW this thing eats anything (within reason of course hehehe). NSRs VFR RZs at least the stock or poorly modified ones. Reliability??? Don’t worry about that I’ve got lots of miles on this thing without any problems. The only thing you’ll run into is snapped drive belts 180nt (for the good ones) and that will only happen if you’re heavy and kick the piss out of it all everyday like I do. I’m not joking, I’ve literally kicked the snot out of this thing for over a year. I have a highway in between my house and work which I’m wide open for about 20mins straight each way everyday. I’m trying to kill it so It forces me to go bigger and better on the rebuild. I change the oil and filter but this thing shows no sign of weakness yet.
You can also get soft compund tires from the right shops they make a huge difference with heavy braking and hard cornering… if that’s not your bag don’t bother with them because the stock ones are decent.
Oh yeah one more nice mod is to dump the old forks with the stupid trailing arm suspension thingy and get the straight forward type with a disk brake. $4000 includes the brake lever and hydraulic master cylinder for your handle bars.
If you’re REALLY serious about speed, you can get the forged piston and a stroked crank/rod set which will give you huge torque. I’ve got that crap but it wasn’t cheap or easy, so don’t bother.
Make sure you tell the guy how far you’re going with it so he sells you the right pipe and cam for your application. Those two items alone will make you smile the first time you crack the throttle and then you’ll be hooked.
Now here’s the dumbest mod of all!!! if you get the forged piston and crank, for $8000 you can add a NOS (nitrous oxide system) and then you can really hurt yourself. I built my bike for the NOS but I never got around to doing it because my bike had already reached it goal (to waste anything). I think there’s a couple DIOs in town that could take me but so far I’m the mighty whitey.
Oh yeah. RIDE SAFE. There’s a time and a place for rockin’. I don’t like seeing people making low percentage moves thinking that that makes them a good driver. A good driver can evaluate the situation and recognise the possibility of a problem before it happens. If you can’t see EVERY LITTLE NOOK AND CRANNY ON EITHER SIDE OF THE ROAD slow down, if there’s even a high frequency of crossroads… it’s not worth it. WAIT and get them when it’s in a safer place.
Good times.