[vignesh.cv]

The bike was parked all this time as there were no track days coming up. We were supposed to have one this month, but that fell through due to unavailability of dates and then the rains in South India also put things on the back foot. So I thought of using this opportunity to do some work on the bike. I finally took the plunge to get a set of race fairings - I got them from Carbonin, a Slovenian company that makes fairings for various race teams including the BMW WSBK team. They offer two kinds of race fairings - one called Avio fiber (which is supposedly light weight when compared to the traditional glass fiber fairings) and then carbon fibre.

I would've loved to get the carbon fibre one, but that was very expensive and I wasn't really looking at the last gram of weight savings. Also, the thought of getting it repaired in case of God forbid a crash was in my mind. They have a distributor in the US - Hustle Hard racing and I placed my order through them. The whole thing took about 10days to reach me. The shipping was done via FedEx and they handled the customs for me. All I had to do was receive the shipment at my home and pay the FedEx guy the customs amount. Can't get any better than this.

I got the fairings installed at IndiMotard's GreaseHouse yesterday and the whole process was finished in a few hours time. The fairings came with pre-drilled holes and Dzus quick turn fasteners supplied as standard. They had also fitted the appropriate rivets for the quick turn fasteners. They are extremely light weight and come re-inforced with carbon fibre in the pressure points and flex areas. The build quality & overall fitment was top notch and except for two areas, we did not have to touch the fairings in anyway. The seat pan & the belly pan had to be trimmed a few mm in order to fit flush. The guys at the shop had fitted race fairings by another brand recently and they mentioned how much work it took as holes had to be marked and drilled and this installation was such a breeze compared to that.

They helped pack the OE fairings neatly into the same container and this should result in losing a few more kilograms of unsprung weight from the bike. The fairings come primed ready for painting and I intend to replicate the OE colours onto the fairings.

Box containing the kit


Seat unit


Front view


Left view


Right view


Tail unit


Rear view

[doga]

Originally Posted by vignesh.cv

That was a treat to the eyes Doga ! The bike looks mint for its vintage. Love the clean and original looks on the bike. I can only imagine the torque wave on this monster. Hope your situation settles down soon and you get back to enjoying life in general. And please don't be sorry, it was a wonderful addition

Thanks Vignesh!

Originally Posted by vignesh.cv

The fairings come primed ready for painting and I intend to replicate the OE colours onto the fairings.

I'd go for a crazy race paint scheme and not not the OE colours. Perfect opportunity to go for something different? Think of it this way- you'd have two bikes almost. One for road and one for track

[vignesh.cv]

Originally Posted by doga

I'd go for a crazy race paint scheme and not not the OE colours. Perfect opportunity to go for something different? Think of it this way- you'd have two bikes almost. One for road and one for track

Thank you for the nudge I was thinking of the OE colours as the tank is going to be stock. There a are a couple of colour schemes from the past WSBK seasons that I really like.

2010 Alitalia colour scheme



2013 Black colour scheme




There are online stores that sell these decals. Have to figure out wrapping the stock tank to match the scheme.

[narula123]

Awesome upgrade Vignesh. Moving from the orange 600 to a fire breathing dragon. That Aprilia is such a potent machine that its sad to see how under-represented and under-appreciated it remains in our country. I wish there were more around honestly. Enjoy the bike and see your trackside soon!

[vignesh.cv]

Originally Posted by narula123

Awesome upgrade Vignesh. Moving from the orange 600 to a fire breathing dragon. That Aprilia is such a potent machine that its sad to see how under-represented and under-appreciated it remains in our country. I wish there were more around honestly. Enjoy the bike and see your trackside soon!

Thanks Narula ! Haven't seen you in a while at MMRT, last I remember was in 2017, the time I high-sided and ended my weekend prematurely. Hope you are doing well and hope to see you see you sometime at the track on your green mean machine.

Someone said that Aprilia has a great engineering division, but their marketing & sales side is the complete opposite. That seems to be the general consensus. Them winning the twins championship in MotoAmerica and launching a special edition RS660 to commemorate the same gives some hope. Hope things change for the better.

[narula123]

Originally Posted by vignesh.cv

Thanks Narula ! Haven't seen you in a while at MMRT, last I remember was in 2017, the time I high-sided and ended my weekend prematurely. Hope you are doing well and hope to see you see you sometime at the track on your green mean machine.

Someone said that Aprilia has a great engineering division, but their marketing & sales side is the complete opposite. That seems to be the general consensus. Them winning the twins championship in MotoAmerica and launching a special edition RS660 to commemorate the same gives some hope. Hope things change for the better.

I remember you becoming a UFO in C2 at that trackday . Scary memories. I have been visiting MMRT since then but unfortunately our schedules havent matched. Hope to see you there sometime in Feb next year.

Aprilia really needs to get their sales & marketing act going if they want to make a dent in a market like ours. Most folks dont look at the RSV4 for the fear of wafer-thin service (Mr. Apte being the lone warrior) and hence dont realise that among the european litres the RSV is actually on the cheaper side. That chassis is special and most folks who learn to set it up well refuse to part with the bike.

[niranjanrvce]

Originally Posted by vignesh.cv

Thank you for the nudge I was thinking of the OE colours as the tank is going to be stock. There a are a couple of colour schemes from the past WSBK seasons that I really like.

Yet another lovely addition to the bike Vignesh!

I think the silver fireball paint scheme from 2014 WSBK winning RSV4 will really go well with your silver tank.



Or, just go crazy with your own colour scheme and do something like this:


Don't ask Anand for advice, he'll point to the chrome Norton commander poster above his office and tell you how hot chrome will look on your bike

[GreasyCarb55]

Originally Posted by vignesh.cv

Thank you for the nudge I was thinking of the OE colours as the tank is going to be stock. There a are a couple of colour schemes from the past WSBK seasons that I really like.

2010 Alitalia colour scheme


2013 Black colour scheme


There are online stores that sell these decals. Have to figure out wrapping the stock tank to match the scheme.

I know I'm skipping manufacturers here but given the Black/Silver colour of the stock tank it should play well with the 2019 Oxford Racing Ducati livery used in British Superbike.

Or if you want to make your own livery from scratch why not go full italian with an Alfa Romeo inspired livery?

[doga]

Vignesh, I like the Alitalia livery you posted, that'd look gorgeous.
There's another livery which I like a lot, although it's not a MotoGP but a limited run Aprilia RSVR special- Bol D'Or

[vignesh.cv]

Originally Posted by niranjanrvce

Yet another lovely addition to the bike Vignesh!
I think the silver fireball paint scheme from 2014 WSBK winning RSV4 will really go well with your silver tank.
Don't ask Anand for advice, he'll point to the chrome Norton commander poster above his office and tell you how hot chrome will look on your bike

Thanks Niranjan ! Yes, the 2014 silver fireball colour scheme is a good option as well considering the stock tank. Haha, Anand was telling me to just paint it white

Originally Posted by GreasyCarb55

I know I'm skipping manufacturers here but given the Black/Silver colour of the stock tank it should play well with the 2019 Oxford Racing Ducati livery used in British Superbike.

Or if you want to make your own livery from scratch why not go full italian with an Alfa Romeo inspired livery?

Thank you GreasyCarb, the Oxford racing livery does look very nice.

Originally Posted by doga

Vignesh, I like the Alitalia livery you posted, that'd look gorgeous.
There's another livery which I like a lot, although it's not a MotoGP but a limited run Aprilia RSVR special- Bol D'Or

Thanks doga, that Bol D'Or livery is special indeed. The Tuono X had something similar. Will check with the painters on these options.

[Rachit.K.Dogra]

Originally Posted by niranjanrvce

Yet another lovely addition to the bike Vignesh!

I think the silver fireball paint scheme from 2014 WSBK winning RSV4 will really go well with your silver tank.

Wow!! I personally liked this one the most!!

[vignesh.cv]

They say idle mind is a devil's workshop. As the year ended, I saw a few online stores running sales and I wanted to add a few more bits to the bike. It was parked at IndiMotard's Greasehouse, waiting for the fairings to be painted and the trackday at MMRT is still a few weeks away. Placed orders via the online stores I frequently use, and I got the following items:

Thermal Technology "Pro" tyre warmers






Thermal tech is a relatively behind the scenes manufacturer when it comes to tyre warmers. They've been supplying tyre warmers to a whole bunch of professional racing teams including the Aprilia Gresini team and the Ducati Corse teams. They have a nice catalogue of offerings catering to novice as well as professional usage. I went through them and found the sweet spot to be between the "Pro" and "Performance" variants. I've used CarpiMoto.it in the past to source products from Europe and I used them this time as well to source the tyre warmers. They are very professional, helpful and responsive. I wrote to them when my credit card payments were declined and they helped with an alternative means of doing a wire transfer. They shipped the warmers as soon as I sent a confirmation and it reached my hands in just about a few days time. The shipment was sent via DHL, so customs clearance was taken care by DHL.

I was also going through HSBKracing to see if there were some unique and useful stuff for the bike. Ended up getting these.



Spider captive spacers for the front and rear wheels

These are very useful if you end up changing tires often, which is mostly in my case as the tires last for about 3-4 days of track riding.

Spider brake lever guard - this is more of a whimsical purchase than a necessity


Spider adjustable billet folding brake and clutch levers




Why the levers and not some Brembo RCS / Accossato stuff like people usually do. The stock master cylinder is more than adequate for my needs, and has also been tested by PerformanceBikes magazine to stand itself against Brembo's RCS 17 & 19 units. The AF1 forum also had good literature on how the stock PRS16 master cylinder is quite capable and has that good balance of feel vs. power. But why these billet levers. The stock brake lever is cast aluminium and does flex a bit when holding close to max brake pressure. The billet ones offer more stiffness and therefore transmit that feel a lot better. The folding lever is more of icing on the cake.

I'm not dissing on the Brembo RCS products in anyway, just that they aren't needed unless your stock bike came with a really mismatched master cylinder (or) a non-radial master cylinder. Most of the newer generation bikes come well equipped so it is better to spend the money elsewhere. The RCS units are more for street application and if you really look at professional usage, they would be using the billet ones which are quite a lot expensive.

Saving the best for the last - finally decided to take the plunge and got the UpMap T800 with Gabro's map. I've read so much about Gabro's work via the forums and consider him to be one of the best aftermarket tuners when it comes to the Aprilia V4 platform. In the past, if you wanted Gabro's tune on your bike, you had to either purchase a pre-flashed ECU from him (or) send your ECU to him to get it flashed. Neither of those options works out well for us as shipping a sensitive unit like ECU back and forth did no go well with me.

The approach is simple enough. UpMap sells their T800 unit which is capable of flashing a tune to your ECU. They then sell a bike specific adaptor cable that plugs into the T800 unit. You download their app from the App Store and then it pairs with the T800 device. You can then proceed to flash Gabro's off the shelf map (refined over the official Aprilia Race map) or purchase his specific map (air filter / exhaust combination) which is a lot more refined as fine tunes them over a dyno using individual lambda probes for each cylinder and refines the aTC logic to make better use of grippy slick tyres on the race track. He basically takes the stock TC levels (8 in number), discards the levels from 4-8 and expands the levels 1-4 into 8 levels to give you a lot more fine grained calibration. This also takes into account greater levels of lean angle that one would achieve on the track. The bonus is this map also transmits a few more parameters over the diagnostic, so the AIM unit will see a few more channels now. Obviously, I went with the bespoke map - he had a specific map for the combination of stock motor, sprint filter and Akrapovic full system exhaust. This also means that warranty is now in my head. But this is a price I'm willing to pay for the refinement and track only usage.



Without the skin, fairings are sent for painting/stickering/wrapping work.


Flashing the map is a 20min affair. The UpMap device itself gets updated with a new firmware upon the first time connect. And then, you purchase a map as per your needs which can then be flashed. The flashing also takes care of resetting your throttle learning (ride by wire). All you need to do post flashing is run the aPRC calibration once and then enjoy the ride.



I hope to ride at MMRT towards the end of the month if things go well (omicron, lockdowns etc). Will post up my feedback post that.

[Cyborg]

Thanks Vignesh for your detailed post/s, even though most of the technical stuff is way, way over my head, it’s extremely enjoyable to read. Love the passion and dedication to your bike and riding which reflects through your posts.

Hope you manage to ride on the track soon and look forward to reading about your experience, with lots of photographs please

Ride happy and safe

Cheers

[no_fear]

Originally Posted by vignesh.cv

The UpMap device itself gets updated with a new firmware upon the first time connect. And then, you purchase a map as per your needs which can then be flashed. The flashing also takes care of resetting your throttle learning (ride by wire). All you need to do post flashing is run the aPRC calibration once and then enjoy the ride.

Hi Vignesh, I have the UpMap also. The only drawback I find for Upmap is that its bike specific. Once you pair it with one bike, that's it. You cannot use the device to pair with another bike and tune it.

For every bike, you need to buy a new device, although you can control all devices with one app. I find it to be a serious pain when you have multiple bikes that you want to work on....

[vignesh.cv]

Originally Posted by Cyborg

Thanks Vignesh for your detailed post/s, even though most of the technical stuff is way, way over my head, it’s extremely enjoyable to read. Love the passion and dedication to your bike and riding which reflects through your posts.

Hope you manage to ride on the track soon and look forward to reading about your experience, with lots of photographs please

Ride happy and safe

Cheers

Thanks so much for the kind words Cyborg

Originally Posted by no_fear

Hi Vignesh, I have the UpMap also. The only drawback I find for Upmap is that its bike specific. Once you pair it with one bike, that's it. You cannot use the device to pair with another bike and tune it.

For every bike, you need to buy a new device, although you can control all devices with one app. I find it to be a serious pain when you have multiple bikes that you want to work on....

Hi no_fear, yes, unfortunately this is the only way the tuners are able to protect their IP in some way. Having said that, I agree, wish they make some allowance for those who own multiple bikes.