Project Honda Ruckus Part One

To give our Ruck a touch of JDM flavor, we added a Kijima headlight and turn signals in addition to a dry carbon Password JDM front fender

This trick piece is economical, giving you a lot of lameness fixing hardware for a decent price.  The NCY front end features a really good fork with honest to God hydraulic damping and spring rates meant for something other than a little kid or an anorexic import model.  We chose their Ti/carbon model which had titanium nitride coated stanchion tubes just like your 1098S with carbon wrapped alloy sliders.  Pretty tricks stuff, orders of magnitude better working and lighter.  To make things cooler, the NCY front end comes with an alloy oversize 12mm axle and an alloy wheel with hydraulic disc brakes! The Hydraulic disc brake features a slotted wave rotor, alloy bolts, a fixed twin piston caliper, braided steel brake line and a master cylinder with a billet clamp.  We installed the front end with a sticky Michelin Bopper semi slick front tire from Bowls in 120/90-10.

These are way cooler than the Peewee's big top stock bars. An Easton MTB stem is used with a Password JDM adapter, Easton Carbon bars, Scott grips, NCY billet levers, Daytona BSC mirrors and an Acewell electronic multi gauge grace the front end.  We relocated the stock speedo to the battery box as well.

To eliminate the lame bar situation we used an Easton gooseneck from a Mountain bike and Easton carbon fiber mountain bike handlebars from Jenson USA, an online bike shop with a large inventory.  Since the Ruckus steerer tube is smaller in diameter than a bike, we used a Password JDM adaptor so it would all bolt right up.  The longer stem and lower bars gave a much more comfortable roomy rider position and looked a ton better.  To round off our control upgrade we used NCY billet folding levers from Rucksters Customs with the stock Honda and NCY disc brake perches. We cut the stock perch off of the Honda throttle housing with a bandsaw and filed, sanded and polished the housing after to make way for the NCY master cylinder and brake lever. The folding levers will swing in the event of a crash and hopefully won’t break.

We cut the perch for the stock brake lever off of the original throttle housing to make room for the NCY brake lever and hydraulic master cylinder.  To make it look clean, we filed, sanded and polished the housing so you would never know we cut it.

We wanted to get rid of the Ruckus SUV brush guard look front end with the bugeye lights and the insect like turn signal stocks.  We used a Bowls supplied bracket with an ultra bright Kijima big light front headlight and Kijima turn signals flush mounted in our battery box.  We used a diode in series with the low beams so we could rig the light so both the low and high beam bulbs would illuminate when the high beams were triggered.  This really lit up the night.

The Acewell gauge featured an ultra accurate electronic speedometer and a tach, two important things needed for future tuning.  A real fuel gauge helps as well.

Since the stock mirrors were so painfully dorky looking, we replaced them with some billet Daytona BSC mirrors from Bowls.  The stock grips were given the axe for some comfortable Scott grips from BattleScooter.com.  To clean up the bar area, we relocated the stock ECU with spacers and relocated the factory speedo to the battery box. Since the stock Ruckus instrumentation consisted of a very inaccurate mechanical speedo with warning lights for fuel level and temperature, we added an Acewell multi purpose gauge from Bowls that featured a highly accurate calibratable speedo, tach, fuel gauge, odometer, and warning lights for temperature and indicators.

The KN Kikaku rear shock features real hydraulic damping, a spring rate for an adult rider and adjustable preload.

The stock rear shock consisted of a sring wrapped around a piece of pipe.  It nearly bottomed when you would sit on it and would do its best to throw the rider completely off the bike if a dip or other bump was encountered at speed.  To improve handing we decided to replace this pathetic boinger with a heavy duty shock from Bowls by KN Kikaku.  The KN Kikaku shock is much stiffer and features honest to God, hydraulic damping.  No more flying W’s.

The billet NCY frame extender kit lengthens the Ruck by 4 inches.  It installed between the frame and the engine.

We also decided to stretch our wheelbase 4 inches with a NCY billet aluminum frame extender kit from Rucksters Customs.  This piece bolted between the frame and the rear engine/transmission to lengthen our wheelbase for improved stability and rear suspension action.  To help rear cornering grip, we installed a Dio rear alloy wheel from Bowls with a Bowls supplied Michelin Bopper in 130/90-10.  The Dio wheel comes pretty close in matching our NCY front wheel.  To clear our future performance exhaust, we also got rid of the bulky and ugly plastic stock coolant overflow reservoir and used a trick slimline billet Kijima part.

Kijima's coolant overflow tank not only looks better than the ugly stock tank, it gives clearance for our future exhaust system.

Cool looking Dio alloy wheel replaces the ugly and heavy stock wheel.  The Bopper tire is sticky and has lower rolling resistance despite its dumb name.

As a final touch we canned our plastic ugly front fender for a cool looking dry carbon part from Password JDM.  The front fender is quite flexible and strong and weighs about 1/4th of the stock part. It is much better than some of the wet layup carbon and chopped glass imitations currently on the market. We used a Type II street style front fender. 

So as our first segment comes to a close, we have cured our handling and braking ills and have cleaned up the look of our bike.  It is still pathetically slow though. Stay tuned, in our next segment of Project Ruckus, we will give it enough beans to get out of its own way and maybe even make it capable of commuting.

Sources

Bowls LA

Rucksters Customs

Password JDM

Battlescooter

Jensons USA

www.totalruckus.com

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