The Pipe

I was looking around at getting an Akropovic, or maybe even going back to Roo Racing, but I wasn't in the market to drop another $700+ on a pipe for the bike.

It was on eBay where I stumbled upon an English company called Fuel Exhausts. They do a bolt-on pipe for the CBR400 with all the hardware and clamps, for about $500 delivered. I ordered online that very day.

The styles they had meant that I could buy a "new-look" design so the bike didn't look as dated. I ended up ordering an oval pipe with blue coloured titanium exhaust.


The pipe has not been bolted on yet as I am getting the headers ceramic coated, but that's another story :)

Ying Yang Plastic

I had a mate once refer to Chinese fairings as "ying yang fairings" which made me giggle.

eBay was the source of the fairing kit as trying to buy from an Australian so-called distributor was a joke. I picked a set of Konica Minolta fairings for about $500 delivered. At first I wasn't keen on the blue/black/white/gold colour scheme, but after seeing more and more photos of replicas, I was beginning to see the potential of this new creation.


Once the tank is painted, the Dremel will need to come out and there will be many beers consumed trying to get these to fit well. At this stage, the front of the tail piece may need some work, and the front fairings near where the indicators sit will need some loving.

The reason for the ill fit is that they are vacuum pressed and will always form around the original shaped fairings and be a few millimeters larger than factory fairings. Believe me, I'd rather they be too big and have gaps, than be too small and not fit at all!

Other than that, the finish on the fairings is actually really good for the price. The paintwork was done professionally and the pinstripe (gold) is very smooth and accurate. I'm looking forward to getting them on the bike.


For now, only a photo from eBay of the kit and Robin taking to the box with kitchen scissors.
I will take some progress fitment shots soon.

LED Burners

I picked up a pack of these from Victoria for about $133 delivered.

No joke, I got them in 24 hours.

Ecliptech make three different versions of their brakelight kits for the Honda CBR250RR/CBR400RR, but I went for the "burner" look so they are extra bright.


Fitting them was a bit of a pain in the ass. It's not a matter of pulling the tail off and whacking them in. You need to drill through the lenses. And considering its a 1992 vintage, the plastics tend to be fairly brittle. Robin did a very good job at getting the backing plate onto the lens with only the tiniest of cracks. I think he would have spent an easy 40 minutes drilling at about 10rpm to make sure the lens didn't crumble.

Here's the before photo (tail light only), you can barely tell they are even on
And with brake applied
Now with the LED brakelight (tail light only)
And with the brake applied

The Evolution of the 400

Here is the first (well, maybe not really the first) installment of a new series called "The Evolution of the 400" in the attempt to make it more desirable and road-worthy.

Don't get me wrong, the CBR400RR is registered and has no mechanical faults, it just looks tired.

So, let me start off with a list and I will work from there.

• 4 x orange lens factory indicators
• Konica Minolta fairing kit
• Re-painted tank
  
• LED burner brakelights
• Pazzo levers
• Driven grips and bar ends
• Rearsets
• Barnett clutch kit
• Fuel Exhausts titanium muffler
• Front fender mounting
• Rear brake fluid reservoir
• Fuel hose
• Lightech pickup spools
• Ceramic coated headers
• Teflon heel guards and screen brace
  
• Keiti tank pad
• Recovered pillion seat
  

As I go, I will post up links of what I have purchased and hopefully photos of how they have turned out.

One thing that I have noticed over the years is that, even though factory parts are hard to come by on a grey model (import) bike, the beauty of this is that the CBR400RR was huge in the UK and in Singapore, and those markets are full of awesome aftermarket parts like exhausts and fairings and rearsets.

It is a little more difficult to match things up like levers, where I had to use a clutch lever from CBR600F '99-'00 and a brake lever from CBR600F '87-'98.

The Wind-down

There were only two days left on Ko Samui for us, so Robin and I decided to do some more sightseeing of "the essentials". We headed to the Zoo and Water Park on the south part of the island.

We saw an awesome bird show, tiger show, seal show and even some otters performing tricks.




The next day we decided to try and find a bay near the yacht club and go for a swim. The water was crystal clear, no jellyfish or anything creepy in the water, just some small fish and I even saw a Nemo!

Joel and I swam out to do some bombies off the rocks off the coast and then headed back to wade in the calm waters of the bay. The water was so warm....


In the evening, we saw some interesting creatures...

The Day the Sun Shone

After spending the entire day indoors, Robin looked a million times better on Tuesday. It was a beautiful day as now the sun had come out after a couple of overcast days. It was going to be a great day.

While taking a taxi from the airport to our resort on Sunday, Robin and I had eyed off a shop that hired "big" motorbikes instead of scabby scooters. It was now the mission of Joel and Robin to retrace our steps and try and find this place so we could go for a cruise around the island.

While the boys were away, Jess and I went for a walk down the main strip of Lamai checking out the shops and having a cocktail. We then headed back to the resort for a dip in the pool. It was magical! The water was so warm and delicious.


It took about two hours of faffing about, but we had the goods. $30 a day, two Hooooondas on an island that has a 45 km/hr speed limit.

No rules, no helmets and no real plan, we set off to head clockwise around the island, stopping where we felt and taking the road less travelled.

Our first stop was to get some tourist stuff out of the way, the 80m Na Muang waterfall complete with elephant rides.

We didn't do the elephant thing (they smell pretty wicked) but the climb over the steep hills was pretty epic. It was stinking hot and the humidity was in the high 90's. When we reached the waterfall, I climbed up one of the rockfaces and enjoyed the breeze coming down and washed the sweat off my arms and face. It was so hot!

It was time to kick-on and we did so by heading south. We headed towards the coast again and followed one of the secondary roads off the main highway to Bang Kao . The roads were twisty and the scenery was green and tropical. Robin tried a few wheelies in the straight parts but the bikes were too clapped out to even lift the wheel. The maintenance on the hire bikes is next to nothing. They get fuel, and that's about it. Bikes with 7,000km on the clock have the rattles of bikes that should have been around the clock...

Let's race!

Jess and Joel still kept up on the scooter

Robin hit the anchors near a small restaurant on the side of the bay where the serve "Noname" for 70BHT. I later found out that it was a soup, more like a clear broth made of chicken stock, rice and some vegetables.

I'll have the noname please. Mmm, very appetizing.

The beautiful view, and not another tourist to be found.

After our home-cooked Thai lunch and icy cold Cokes we jumped back on the road and got lost and followed a road to a restricted area which we found out to be the Naval Base at Laem Chon Khram. We did a U turn and went back up the road we came down only to notice that we were travelling along the coastline and there was a beautiful beach through the palm trees. Now we were off-road! Robin managed to bury his CBR1000RR in the beach sand whilst taking photos. Jess, Joel and I were off in the ocean, enjoying water the temperature of a bath, without jellyfish or any other sea animals and all with the seabreeze. It was delightful!

After shaking the sand off ourselves (and off the bikes) it was cruise time again.

We headed up the west side of the island and then across the top towards Phra Yai where the Big Buddha is.

The view from the Big Buddha was breathtaking, but little did I know that what was about to happen next would leave me... speechless.

Robin grabbed my hands, looked into my eyes and asked me to be his wife. I don't remember a lot of what happened next, but I do remember asking if I could sit down and saying something along the lines of "wow, this is the sort of thing that happens to other people"! I cried for ages but you couldn't have wiped the smile off my face. I finally said "YES!" and cried some more. Robin had surprised me like never before, and with the most pleasant surprise ever.

About 10 minutes after we walked down the Big Buddha hand in hand (and still in tears)

The day was not over yet! If you thought you couldn't possibly cram more into your average Tuesday, then you are mistaken! Bar Ice was next, near Chaweng, but not before an ice coffee at Starbucks.

It was a very cool -7 degrees Celsius at Bar Ice, but the flavoured vodka shooters went down a treat.

When we left Bar Ice, the sun had set and night had set upon us. Jess and Joel had decided to retire for the night, but Robin and I decided to celebrate our future as fiancees and rode to The Cliff Restaurant. We had seen in the magazines and heard around the traps that The Cliff was "the" seafood and grill restaurant to eat at in Ko Samui.

Robin and I decided on the seafood platter of the day. Even though we were quite hungry and had strong appetites, this meal would have sufficed a table of four. There was squid, fish, deep fried crabs, oysters and bugs, all with a crisp salad and delicious spanish paella. Lucky we didn't order and entree or any side dishes. Dinner was topped off with a Tiger beer toasted by candlelight and a sweet kiss.

When we got back to our bungalow, it hadn't sunk in yet. I just went to sleep in a happy daze next to my man with a full belly and a smile on my face.

In Love with a Lady-Boy

I guess a trip to Thailand wouldn't be complete without the lady-boys. On Sunday night Jess and Joel (who we had planned our trip with) invited us to Rocky's Beach Resort for a buffet dinner and "a show". Anyone that knows me, knows that I would never say no to a buffet at the worst of times and to hear that there was going to be a lady-boy show, I was as excited as Big Kev!

Robin wasn't feeling too well so he had some of the entree and left to lie down for a bit. We were joined with another couple from Melbourne who turned out to be great company. We hoved into the buffet and I must say it was the best food I've eaten in a very long while. There were prawns and chillies everywhere and they soon became my two favourite foods.

The show began and out came our entertainers for the night. Even though they are men (boys), they sure look good as women! And they certainly put on a show. There were laughs all round and the room was soaking up the fun.

Britney and Whitney can eat their hearts out! These boys sure know how to dance.

^^^ It's a dude
^^^It's also a dude

Robin had missed the show and it turns out he had a bout of food poisoning. He was cramping up and had gone white as snow so Joel and I rushed to get him some antibiotics and something to stop the pain. One thing I do like about late night chemists, is that you can get anything over the counter.

I had spent the next day with Robin in our bungalow just relaxing, napping and looking after him. In the evening he had fallen asleep so I took the chance to check out some of the nightlife around Lamai with Jess and Joel.

We found a dodgy bar with pool tables and cheap cocktails so we entertained the bar staff with our bad pool, played with the puppy roaming around the bar and generally mucked around in The Jolly Frog.

Thailand with a Tiger

It certainly was going to be a long day. A departure from Perth at 2135 to Singapore meant that we would land around 0300 and be stuck in an airport that wouldn't be open for another few hours. Whilst sitting at Perth International Airport sitting Absolut Pear on ice, little did I know of the pain that Robin and I would need to endure on the five-and-a-half hour Tiger Airways flight.


The plane was old. It was cramped. But the drinks were cheap. This plane had about 10 rows of passengers too many. It was chockers. What can one expect for a $150 flight to Singapore? Apart from tiny plane being extremely old and uncomfortable (clapped out is a suitable word for it), we landed at Changi at 3am and had to wait another three hours before anything other than McDonalds was open. You have never seen such a massive airport so very cold and empty.


After our non-bacon bacon and egg McMuffins, we headed over tothe Koi ponds for an hour to watch the fish and relax after the flight. When 6am came, we walked to the shopping districts and checked out the Formula One displays (it was the weekend of the Singapore F1 Grand Prix).
There were still two more flights to go, but this time in "normal" planes with service and leg room! The flights were only a couple of hours and the hard part was out of the way. We continued our next sectors with Bangkok Airways.

We landed in Ko Samui in the early afternoon and took advantage of the fine weather and walked down Lamai Beach for the rest of the day. We walked a few kilometres down the coast and back again to crash out in our lovely bungalow.