HOW-TO: Remove the Kickstand from your YZF-R3
An easy mod that will reduce the weight of your bike by approximately 3 pounds. This is one of the first modifications that you will want to do if you plan on converting your bike to a track-only machine. You will need to have a bike stand or wheel chock to do this work. Removal of the front sprocket cover and the bodywork (i.e. left fairing) will also be required. Removal of the kickstand is not simply a mechanical operation, you will have to bypass the kickstand switch by either buying a bypass connector or cutting 2 wires and connecting them securely together. If you don’t feel comfortable with splicing…
HOW-TO: Tidy up the Wiring Harness on your R3
If you are like me and spend lots of time at the race track, you’ll understand how much easier it is to service your bike when you don’t have a bunch of extra connectors and wires that continuously get in the way when you mount your bodywork. While researching this topic, I was surprised to see that some racing organizations won’t let the riders modify the OEM harness. I was also surprised to see how many people are reluctant to alter the wiring harness on their bikes – This fear is quite often related to a lack of understanding and knowledge. An additional interesting discovery was that most of the info I found was on websites or YouTube channels that were focusing on building custom bobbers, choppers, and café racers. If track day enthusiasts modify their harnesses, they certainly don’t advertise. All of these revelations were enough for me to start documenting the process of modifying the wiring harness on my Yamaha 2018 YZF-R3. I definitely had to follow the 80/20 rule for this project. I spent 80% of my time researching, learning, and testing. Doing the actual hands-on work was the easy part. I first started the project by purchasing a digital version…
