MCN Fleet: 954 Fireblade modifications. The results are in...

Last month I asked for advice on which upgrades I should fit to our 2002 Honda Fireblade, and you didn’t disappoint. With over a hundred responses on email and social media the suggestions ranged from “nothing at all” to fitting a manual cam chain tensioner. Some mods were understandably more popular than others…

As you can see from the chart, the most popular suggested mod was a steering damper with a whopping  20.8% of owners recommending one. I have to confess that in the limited time I’ve owned the bike it’s not a mod I’d thought of as an essential upgrade. I might have only covered a few hundred miles on the bike but I’ve yet to suffer any kind of tank slapper, perhaps I’m not riding it hard enough. After a few more miles and a track day at Brands maybe I’ll change my opinion. The second most popular mod suggested by owners is ‘nothing’. A suggestion that’s music to my ears as it’s not only cheap, it’s also requires minimal time and no specialist tools.

TOP STORIES

• Yorkshire police crackdown on anti-social motorcyclists
• Barry Sheene RGB500 going for £120,000 on eBay
• Rider pleads guilty to riding at 135mph
• Something to ward-off bike thieves?
• Moto Morini Corsaro 1200 ZZ revealed

Here’s a selection of the great advice sent in and pics of the owners bikes. Thanks to everyone who contributed:

Cosmetically it should stay stock, even the screen. Why not just refresh the front fork, install a K-tech piston kit, and refresh the shock?
GC

---

---

Steel braided brake lines at the front and 1 tooth sprocket smaller at the front (before I had additional 2 teeth more at the rear, I did like that even more). 
Mike Greez

---

Best mod I did was fit the Honda seat cowl.
Eyan Clements

---

I have to highly recommend a Gillies gear support bracket , these are for sure the best mod for £70 to protect the Honda fragile gear box. The front brakes are very good , but just to more braking power, I’ve gone for an ACCOSSATO. 19×20 front brake master cylinder, with EBC sintered pads with braided hoses.
A must is a steering damper, as this blade is very light front ended and does shake its head on full throttle speeds. Power commander 3 with custom map – with Healtech IQSE -1 quickshifter huge difference in riding with having the options to adjust settings on an app on your IPhone.
Raise the rear end by 25mm for a big improvement in turn in. 43 Tooth rear sprocket for quicker acceleration.
Miguel pimenta

---

Get a steering damper, decent brake pads and a gear shaft support, then come up to the NC500
George Macdonald

---

Get it standard as possible, Honda know more about bike design than aftermarket accessory companies.
Scott Gaunt

---

The best Mod I’ve done has to be the K-Tech 20SSK Fork internals. Wish I’d got the whole forks done gold though.
Steve Wiles

---

Looking for the perfect two-wheeled companion? Visit MCN Bikes For Sale website or use MCN’s Bikes For Sale App.