Maybe this is something that mostly only vintage racers do but I am curious. Maybe the modern bike guys have a good enough selection of parts they don't need to. So who does it? I get a major kick out of making my own mods or parts. On TZ250 I made new foot peg mounts. On my vintage supermoto I shortened the rear shock stroke and modfied the front for sv650 forks. Who's doing this stuff?
I wanted a top mount stabilizer for my 87 FZR750RT... so I drew up a schematic and a member on the bbs here cnc a nice aluminum mount for me!
I was just starting into machining back when I was still racing, and made a few things for my bike. Triple clamps, rearsets, footpegs, clip ons and a few brackets here and there. I'd love to remake a bunch of the stuff because I'm a much better machinist now 15 years later lol. That's actually how I got started. I wanted to learn how to run the CNC machines to make parts for my bike, and in exchange would help out when things got busy. Now I run the dept, and have grown it into a new building addition, with 5 machines and 3 guys, from 2 machines and 1 guy. All because I was tired of bending stock F3 triple clamps every time I crashed and wanted to make some stronger ones. They're not fancy, but they're strong .
Simple stuff off the top of my head but they fit the OP's parameters so, why not? On my '95 FZR1000... - lightened OEM rearset assemblies by removing anything that I thought didn't need to be there. Mostly, I removed material between casting webs on the mounts, ankle plates and pedals. Having cut off/removed the bracket(s) related to the rear brake return spring, I installed a clutch spring on the m/c push rod. Buffed up the finished results a bit and they looked like bike pron. IIRC, I cut 15oz off each side. - drilled the rear disc and removed material between mounting holes. From 3 lbs to 1.5 lbs. - fit R1 front calipers. 6-piston to 4-piston. Had to remove some material from the mount bracket that, coincidentally, followed the radius of the R1's calipers...it's like Yamaha knew what they were gonna do before they knew what they were gonna do. - spec-ed some spacers for the rear axle/brake carrier to be used with a YZF swingarm. - re-routed the charging system circuit to energize the "field coil" alternator only when the brakes were applied. I was ahead of my time with the whole "recovered energy/regeneration" thing. This all happened before 2000. On the '01 996S... - tuned the 996 ECU with a multimeter, gained 1-1.5hp. Wasn't much but it was free. For a bike with only 112hp, everything's a plus. - took a piece of my carbon tail assembly, cut it to fit between the tank and head stay, mounted a push-button on/off switch and installed it as the main switch. Not hidden, but it's barely noticeable. I feel like there are other, significant, modifications I've made to these bikes and others but they elude me atm. Could be that they're standard fare for today's bikes.
On old bikes, if rules allow there is always swapping to 17 inch wheels and better brakes. I've done this on three bikes now. As much as I would love to have more bikes, I should concentrate on further developing the ones I have. I am considering putting a remote control winch and better/wider ramp on my trailer to make loading easy.
as my wrench buddy says "bastardizing bikes"...lol Fork, swinger, & wheel swaps are much easier when you keep the factory stuff together as a unit.
When the originals are unavailable at a reasonable price there is nothing that works better as a dust cap for the fork yolks than the top off a pickle/jam jar.
Probably a good chance I would be on a different path. So THAT'S where it all went wrong lol. I was more on the engineering/design/metrology side before. No regerts.
When I was still racing (1998-2010) I built a new Frankenbike about every two years. I had a 88-89 GSXR750 front end that went on three different racebikes before I traded the FZ600 it was on for an FZR400 with bad intake valves. The very best and last race bike I built was a cheater Thunderbike FZR600 with CBR600F3 front end, YZF600 rear swing arm and gas tank, some kind of Fox shock, PM CBR900 wheels, GSXR1000 bodywork, and lower frame rails welded in place and a 2" square tube welded across the frame just behind the carbs. I still have a coffee can around somewhere full of mismatched sets of taper roller steering head bearings.
1985-89 Fabrications; '76 KZ-900 forks/triples/brakes onto a Yamaha XS-650 (with stock Kaw springs, because I am a delicate little guy) Round slide 34's mounted with Marine cooling hoses onto spigot mounts. Shell Thuett Head pipes (with locally rolled reverse cone megaphones). You da man Ricky! 18 x 2.15 rim laced up to the Kawi hub to end up at the correct front ride height. 14" shocks to get to the correct rear ride height. Ran it in ARRA-AHRMA-WSMC
89 gs500 with a sv650 front end with sv650 rear wheel, r6 rear shock, 93 gsxr750 pegs which allows the shift pattern to be flipped as well as moving the pegs up and back to eliminate dragging them.
05 R1 (5 valve) with 08 YEC electrics and YCCT intakes and a custom airbox. Custom harness with custom cams to get the reluctor cut out in the right place. 07 Slipper machined to fit the 05 transmission (An 06 limited edition thing). The front is a variant of an 07 and and 09 (long stroke with the later separated rebound and compression). I built this thing because I was riding an 03 R6 and everyone around me bought an 09 R1. Road Atlanta was our (track days) main track, got tired of the HP on the back straight. Now every time time I ride this thing it still tries to murder me. After a very eventful highside over the bridge at Barber where I landed back on the seat, I was flagged in (already was headed to do a hot pit) the marshal just asked me if I needed to check my leathers. I built evil.
