So three ninjettes later, I really wanted a different bike. I intend to keep the Ninja 300 as my commuter but wanted a fun bike to go with it. About two months ago, after throwing around different options for the good part of a year, I bought a 2015 FZ-09.
Woo this thing has plenty of power everywhere. @
CycleCam303 told me to only ride in A mode so test riding the bike was an interesting experience. It just wanted to wheelie all the time haha. Standard mode is good enough for me. Stock fueling is as annoying as all the reviews say it is. Throttle is very much on/off. That will be taken care of soon.
I bought the bike bone stock. Not even rear spools, which was annoying when I wanted to tinker on it right away. So far I've thrown on rear spools, tech spec tank grips, and a wind screen. I learned quickly that I hate the freeway on this bike if there's no wind screen.
The bike came with a broken high/low beam switch which resulted in no high beam; attempts to switch to high beam only left me with no lights at all which I discovered riding the bike home the night I bought it. It didn't seem worth it to buy a whole new FZ-09 switch though because for some reason Yamaha decided to swap the usual positions of the turn signal switch and the horn button. I was hitting the horn a lot on accident lol. I decided to pick up an R3 switch instead to use on my bike. Switched some pins around, soldered on a whole new wrote for the low beam, either lengthened or shortened wires, and put on a new sheath to make it fit like the stock switch and look clean. The whole switch fits a bit tight on the handlebar so the turn signal switch doesn't spring back to the center position but it works and isn't a huge deal to manually move the switch back to center.
I made the rear fender less obnoxious by removing the extender that comes with the bike and just bolting the actual fender part directly to the bike. I also cut off the lower-most portion of the fender and the reflectors. I could have just removed the bracket but it would take away am easy license plate mounting point and I liked how I could angle the license plate further away from the wheel with the bracket.
Mods I have planned for the near future:
- ECU flash (to fix the twitchy fueling)
- Full Akrapovic carbon exhaust (I already have it but I'm waiting until I get the ECU flashed)
- LED turn signals
- ???
I swear I'll remember to take more pictures eventually lol