But what I can tell you of the whole process, is it's best left to somebody else, if you have "ANY" doubt's as to whether you'll be able to do it successfully, and I must admit to nearly throwing it all in the bin on several occasion's, when it seemed to be going nowhere fast, the manufacturers say it should take 4 hours to fit one of these which I feel is a bit optimistic.

Luckily I had a spare original underguard unit from the crash in 2002, which I had glued up in places, where it was cracked, I'd have been pretty annoyed to have to cut up my only mudguard, if it all went wrong, which seemed likely at numerous times.

The instructions that came with the tray, were a little, less than comprehensive to be honest, being a Photostat A4 sheet. Which stated that the new undertray should be mounted to the original underguard once the rear mudguard part had been trimmed off but there was no explanation of where to actually place or screw the undertray in comparison to the old unit, once this had been done.

There is also no diagram, of where to drill the holes required, to affix the undertray, but then there wasn't really anywhere to do this once all the old plastic had been removed, now whether this was because I'd gone a bit to mad with my trusty Stanley knife or not isn't really clear to me, but once I'd trimmed the bit's I needed to, there didn't seem to be anywhere to screw it to, also the Power Bronze tray also needed quite a substantial amount of plastic trimmed off the rear to get it to line up with the seat side pod's and the rear light unit, if it wasn't to leave a huge 3 inch gap where it met the rear light surround.

Once I'd trimmed the original underguard to within an inch of it's life, the tray did seem to find it's own level, but it took ages to get to that point, and it seemed either to be too far forward and too low at the front and not shaped right at the rear, or too far back and requiring a lot of trimming off the rear, where it meet's the seat side pods. Eventually when I got it high enough at the front so as not to hit the hugger on full suspension travel, it seemed to go on fairly easily, but still needed a lot trimming off the rear to get the seat unit and rear light to fit properly.

The other aspect of the undertray which I wasn't particularly happy with, was where the new number plate bracket bolted through was a bit flimsy, and having watched a mates number plate wobble about, I added a support plate inside the undertray then bolted the number plate bracket through the tray and this support plate, which made it a lot more sturdy, and less likely to break the plastic of the undertray, job done.

Well; after a day and a half of all this plastic madness, I think you'll agree the end result was worth all the blood (well almost); sweat and extensive swearing, but I assure you its not a quick D.I.Y job, and is also extremely daunting, especially when you've just mullered your mudguard, with a hacksaw, and the new undertray doesn't seem to fit AT ALL where it should, and the instructions are absolutely no help.

In the end I mounted the undertray to the original underguard using 6 very large and strong (hopefully) cable (zip) ties, and after filing off a lot of plastic around the rear light, to get the seat side pods to line up properly, it seems pretty sturdy but might well need further bracing once it's been jiggled about on the road for a while, and I might well end up taking it off and gluing it together for strength, but time will tell.

I've recently fitted a Factory Pro 2 degree ignition advancer, and since fitting it I'm pretty surprised how much difference it's made
to the power delivery..

On top of the Dynojet kit, the Yoshi Zyclone end can, and the BMC 'street' air filter, the ignition advancer has further improved the power delivery, and power is just totally seamless, no dip's or glitches in drive what so ever, not that there were any before but the bike now just rev's and rev's and rev's well into the red zone, right too 12,000 rpm in fact, which is one thousand rpm more that where the red line starts, without hesitation or the rev limiter chiming in, which is very odd, and I'm not entirely sure why this is, or if this is how the bike is supposed to behave with the advancer fitted.

But I'm now having to watch the rev counter like hawk as the power just doesn't seem to drop off, At All where as before power died when the limiter come on and I haven't had the nerve to try to take it any higher to see if the limiter will come in, just in case it all ends up going horribly wrong and having a huge meltdown.... One of two thing's is going to happen, either the engine will carry on going like a rocket or it'll blow it up like one, which is obviously something I don't want to happen.

I'm not sure how this mod would work in isolation, but with the other mod's I've done works very well and I'm very happy with the outcome, At £45.99 it's a reasonably priced performance mod, and well worth doing I'd say if you already have other mod's done; like an exhaust, carb & air filter mod's and it only took around 30 minutes to fit, and came with a replacement gasket for the timing cover.

I still haven't had the time to get the bike to a dyno, but I'm reasonably confident RRV, must now be putting out somewhere in the region of 135-140bhp judging by what I've heard from other Blade owners I've spoken to, with only a filter and end can fitted.

Having bought my Dainese 'K' 2 piece leathers back in the dark distant past..... Err December 1999 to be precise, and having had a half hearted attempt at trying to clean the assorted accumulation of bug spatter and
road crud off about some time in 2001, with little or no effect..... I thought it was about time to let the experts have a go.

So having read excellent reports in the biking press of 'Scrubbers' cleaning process, I packed my cruddy leathers into a box, and sent them off on a long journey, after about a week and a bit they came back, and eagerly I ripped open the box to reveal.... Err, surly these weren't the same cruddy bug spattered Dainese's I'd seen only a short time ago.

Damien at Scrubbers had given them a proper cleaning, and leather treatment process, plus a waterproofing process, which left them looking and feeling more supple than ever before.

Scrubbers can also carry out any repairs which may need doing, at extra cost, on top of the cleaning price £30.00 (2005 price) for a 2-piece suit, which is extremely good value, given that it would probably cost almost that amount to buy the proprietary cleaning stuff to do it yourself, then you have, to have the time and patience to actually carry out the cleaning, now personally I'd rather let the experts do the bizz...

Would I use Scrubbers again, Absolutely without hesitation.

Scrubbers can be found at www.scrubbersleathers.co.uk
or Telephone 01706 340 001.

Product Quality 10/10
End Result 10/10

HONDA-FIREBLADES Rating Overall 10/10