Project NCV
Clive’s latest project might just be the coolest thing we have ever seen!
“Iguess I get a bit bored when my hands aren’t tinkering,” beamed Clive when explaining his latest creation. If you’re a regular reader you’ll have come across one or two of his masterpieces over time, but in the words of Tina Turner, we reckon this one’s “simply the best”. “Where did the idea come from? I’m a racer, a racing fan and I know I’ll never own a MotoGP bike, but where’s the harm in making something look like it could be off that grid? I did it before with a Vinales-rep RGV250 and this V4 powered Honda just seemed a no-brainer. My missus has got an RVF and I’ve always thought it’s a great little bike, with loads of features, which made it a great starting point for a special. It’s just a bit different, but as brill as they are they’re looking their age nowadays. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’ve seen people do all these sketches of how a modern-day classic could be built
– you know the ones I mean? I figured rather than drawing something, I’d get stuck in and make my own.”
After scouring the net for many months,
Uncle Clive eventually stumbled across an RVF that was worthy of some TLC. “You can find a scabby RVF for not too much money, but I was really picky and wanted a nice clean example that hadn’t clocked enough miles to have been around the world a dozen times. Even the fairings were mint, which is probably why I paid such a premium, but it was the exact bike I was after – it’d been looked after.”
Clive’s first move was to get the Honda back to his spray shop and strip it right back. Off came the bodywork, the lights and even the loom. “Every bike’s built to a budget, but it bothered me that the engine wasn’t painted on the ’35. The NC30, the model before it, had a really nice motor, sprayed like the RC30, but the RVF’s wasn’t even lacquered. I had to do something about that to stop any corrosion in its tracks and get the bike looking as decent as it could. To be honest, it wasn’t the ball-ache I’d expected; whipping the engine out for a lick of paint. The carbs just lifted out from the top and the only real bugger was removing the manifold link pipe from the rear cylinders. The engine sits so
tightly nestled in its frame that you have to remove it and before you know it you’ve skinned your hands back to bone.”
While he was busy giving the engine a good seeing to, Clive sent all the motor’s nuts and bolts off to be zinc plated. With only 19k on the clocks and sounding as sweet as a nut (like most NCs do), there was no need to go delving into the guts of the engine, so once it was all bolted back together that was it as far as the powerhouse was concerned. “I was really impressed by the state of the frame too,” Clive went on. “To say it’s a 25-year-old bike, there are very few scuffs or marks. If it’d been a bit battered I wouldn’t have thought twice about blasting it back and giving it a coating while I was at it, but it just didn’t need it. As for the electrics, that was a different story. I don’t know who’d been working on them, but it looked like someone had sliced and diced them in the dark, with a blindfold and a butcher’s knife. I know my limits so I actually got my mate to take a look at the loom and make it right. He set to and a week or so later gave them back all neatly re-worked so all I had to do was plug and play.”
With the frame bare the opportunity was taken to tidy up a few other areas of the bike. The RVF runs its rear brake line across a plastic chain guard that comes as standard. The tacky look hurt Clive’s eyes so he decided to route the rear line through the frame and swinging-arm, just like racers did on the RC30s back in the day. “It’s a minor detail, but that’s just how I like to do things. All I needed to do was slightly widen a couple of casting holes in the frame and swingarm and that meant I could route my Venhill braded lines tidily out of sight. Another thing I did was to get the forks re-chromed by Brook Suspension and to get them gold nitrated at the same time. My Aprilia RSV4 has coloured stanchions and I really like them that way, so I thought why not?”
If you’ve ridden an NC, or any bike from the mid-90s, you’ll probably appreciate the suspension’s not exactly top draw. The solution in this case was to kit the bike out with a fork re-valve kit up front, while a genuine Öhlins rear shock was sort for
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the other end. “It’s something not everyone realises, but the RC30 rear shock fits in the NC35 a treat. You can spend forever trying to find decent shocks for an RVF, but this little hack helped me out no end.”
Other mods included the fitment of a Brembo RCS master cylinder and a full, stainless steel Super Monkey exhaust system. “You can still buy new systems for the NC, but I wanted something from the era, and this is what I found. It’s a pukka piece of pipework, made in Japan and designed to get the best from the RVF’s motor and exhaust note. I cut the can down by a couple of inches because it looked almost too long for the bike, but it’s one of the first things that draws my eye – it’s mint and sounds so good. I also thought I’d lag the pipework in fibreglass. It’s horrible stuff to work with, but it gives the bike a more exotic look. I’ve been told it improves the gas flow through the system, but I didn’t do it to find extra ponies – I just liked the look.”
For peace of mind and to add a few more shiny bits to the mix, Clive also got his mitts on some brand new radiators from Japan, complete with performance hoses to give it that extra racey look. Clip-ons and rearsets, with folding pegs, hammered that look home even harder, but without doubt the sexiest bolt-on of all was the Tyga Performance body kit. “When I kicked this project off I knew two things for certain: I’d be spraying the bike as a Marquez Repsol rep, and that I’d be kitting it out with Tyga fairings. They are the masters of body kits and the best thing about Tyga is they can often provide the lighting and brackets to completely transform your bike with minimal effort. The RVF kit was not cheap, but I loved the look it gave the bike and I knew that I’d be able to work with the profiles to really punch out the paintwork. Ok, there were a few adaptations needed, like to the front subframe that kept hitting on the ’bars when they were turned, but that was just a case of cutting and welding the metal for extra clearance. The exhaust can was supplied in the kit, but it wasn’t intended for the Monkey system I’ve fitted, so I had to get a bit creative with that, too. There was nothing serious to worry about and, having got the kit on the bike and solidly fixed, the only thing left to do was sketch out my design for the paint.”
For a pro painter like Clive, he was now in his element and kicked things off by spraying all the panels in a white basecoat. “Because I was set to use a range of pearl and fluorescent paints, it meant a white base was essential. I used HRC’s own colour codes to make sure I was mirroring the exact look of a Repsol bike, which actually has a pretty simple design to it. It only took an hour or so to fine-line the zones, making sure I was 100% happy with the look before going anywhere near my spray gun. I lost count of how many times I tweaked around, but eventually everything looked just right, so it was time to unleash flo, day-glow orange. Red soon followed after and then it was time to add in a black basecoat that was topped by a dark blue pearl – a metallic colour that really comes alive when the sun hits it.”
One of the final jobs was the design and application of the graphics, which Clive had made himself. “With the whole bike sprayed it looked a treat, but there was one last thing left to do before the lacquer coat got added: to get Marquez to sign it. Thankfully, I’ve got a mate who works in the GP paddock and he got the Spaniard to sign the tank cover, finishing the job off a treat.” That was one of those nice little touches that have made this bike so special. As good as it looks in these pictures, it looks a whole lot better in real life, rammed with enough colour and trick bits to get anyone’s juices going. Clive, take a bow.