2007 Monster S4Rs















Bike was brought to me as a low-side victim on the left with some cosmetic damage to all the associated bits you would expect (bent bars, bent wheels, fubar'd radiator, etc).  Customer wanted all that repaired/replaced...but wanted more to it.

Ok, no problem there...

I wasn't asked to build the motor or do any performance mods there, and the bike already has the best suspension on it from the factory...so I began with the asthetic mods.

I knew the S4Rs was the most powerful Monster, but it just didn't look like it was all that powerful.  In fact, it looked like Ducati hired a circus clown to do the color scheme for the parts.  Carbon fiber here, black this & that, yellow shock spring, poop brown udder....  uh....  yeah. 

Well, in order to make the bike appear more powerful, I focused on 'silver'ing up the engine so the CF belt covers were painted engine silver, the clutch cover got the same treatment, I stripped off the black p'coat from the swingarm and left it natural aluminum and powdercoated the shock spring in a silver to match as well.  For contrast, the clutch pressure plate was painted Ducati Red to match the bike and it plays against the clutch spring holder which was done in engine silver.  I even had the headlight bucket painted silver.

Ok, now we're getting 'there'.  The larger the 'chunk of aluminum' look, the more powerful the bike became visually. 

My customer specified BST CF wheels, but I didn't want the large black wheels to make the bike look too heavy so I had my painter paint the wheel lips in silver and for contrast and to bring some red into the wheels, I had him add a red pinstripe between the silver and CF.  After that, the wheels got a coat of clear.  BTW, BST supplies a spacer for the rear wheel to clear the Brembo lettering on the rear caliper.  I didn't want to use the spacer so I disassembled the caliper and ground off the Brembo logo so it would clear the spokes without using the spacer.  I continued the factory paint scheme onto the stock CF front fender.

I moved a few wires around on the engine and flipped the fuel feed and return lines to the alternator side of the bike.  BIG visual improvement there.  Painted the coolant overflow bottle black so it would disappear in the V of the engine.

Rizoma rearsets and triple/clipons were specified but I didn't want the black mucking up my silver theme so they got disassembled and clear anodized instead.  Brake-Tech floating iron rotors stop the bike up front with CP211 pads in the stock calipers.  Rizoma master cylinder reservoirs were used throughout coupled with 6mm Brembo clear brake hose.

The exhaust?  Well...customer specified using the stock udder but I couldn't leave well-enough alone on that.  Got some stainless tubing and angle cut a couple small pieces.  Welded them onto the udder and had it Jet-Hot coated.  HUGE visual improvement over the dirty-brown udder with the stock end-caps. 

I did paint a lot of the CF on the bike, but I added some back to help with the big-bad-bike effect.  CF ignition cover, front chain gaurd, rear chain gaurd and rear hugger were installed to go with the stock CF side panels.

The bike is not 100% finished so I don't have a ride report yet.  Still have to bleed the brakes, mate up the new gauges to the ecu, and build the reservoir brackets for the front two but I wanted to share what I've been working on since it's nearly finished.

Enjoy! 

 

Very nice work, Stew.   

Rockin'!!!!!

As always very tasteful mods and well finished.  [moto]

Too many things I like to even start to mention.

I'm sure it will inspire some flat silver look a likes.

Looks great, Stu.  Very simple, very clean.  Looking at it, at first blush, it's hard to tell what's different, but you know right away that it's not a stocker.

The engine looks much more unified.  I particularly like that the silver makes the belt covers stand out.  The 4V engines have always looked "big" in the monster frame and it's weird that Ducati tries to hide the engine (unsuccessfully).  The silver makes it stand out and makes the L-twin really pronounced.  Me likey.

I also really like hiding the BSTs a bit.   

Eidt:  The more bikes I see with those silver CRGs from Bevel Heaven and those Rizoma Mini turns signals, the more I'm surprised that more bikes don't use 'em.  They're both great.   

  painted CF bits

Nice addition to your portfolio  

it is soooo clean looking.

Quote from: ato memphis on May 03, 2009, 12:39:56 PM
it is soooo clean looking.

first word that came to mind!

Nice work

nice to see a different take on things.. this looks like its exactly the opposite of the recent trend of making bikes "dark"  by making everything black.

definitely is a clean look and has a very simple appearance.  nice.

stu you going to put any sort of exhaust cans on the bike or a motogp style shorty exhaust?

Want. 

Quote from: sbrguy on May 03, 2009, 01:03:59 PM
nice to see a different take on things.. this looks like its exactly the opposite of the recent trend of making bikes "dark"  by making everything black.

Thanks man...  I acknowledge the trend, but don't like it...

Quote from: sbrguy on May 03, 2009, 01:03:59 PM
stu you going to put any sort of exhaust cans on the bike or a motogp style shorty exhaust?

Nope.  The high-mount factory tab to hold the exhaust cans has been removed and the udder will be the only muffling device unless he decided to go with an Ex-box later on...

Thanks for all the 'clean' comments...I guess it's become my calling card! 

Beautiful.  In the first picture, it almost looks like the frame is mounted to one central mass that was carved out of billet.

Sharp 

damn taht thing must be ear bleading LOUD!!!....

with the engine all silver like that, that cool thing is that it reminds me of a model motorcycle  (mainly the first pic from a distance), i'm trying to tie this into the thread about the model tank where there was a posting on how to make real life things look like models.

I like how you didn't go overkill on the carbon fiber. 

hey stu, have you ever tried to fabricate an under center exahust for a monster? i know there is not a lot of room to do much but you know sorta like how the versys, or how on the motogp ducti the exhaust that comes out right before the rear tire.