Some custom bike owners drive us up the wall with their fear of actually riding. It sounds rather bizarre to most of us-why build a wild ride that's destined to sit on a trailer? Though there are the fearless few with nice bikes who rip wheelies and smoke up the rear end, the majority of custom sportbike owners tend to shy away from really getting down to business.
We said most, not all.
When SSB first spoke with bike owner Bruce Parker and builder Bob Fisher of Roaring Toyz there was a collective agreement to keep plenty of distance between this bike and the trailer queens. But, the initial idea of creating a sick custom CBR to help promote Parker's new Honda apparel company, Project H, evolved into something much grander than just a mildly tuned street bike.
If you're not careful, the...
If you're not careful, the turboed CBR will snap you off instantly.
The plan was to build the CBR1000RR into a beautiful street killer without sacrificing ridability and function. It sounds easy enough, right? The idea evolved and soon included a turbo and a single-sided 240 rear as part of the formula. That's when some shit hit the fan, but we can only blame ourselves for creating the extra work.
Roundtable discussions for finding direction in the build repeatedly came back to avoidance of the same notion-wimpy riders on pretty bikes. Nobody wanted a chromed-out boat to soak up attention without getting its tires dirty, and with that in mind the final attack details were set-build something hot enough to grab eyes but with performance that would rip your arms off. OK, so it'd be easy with stock wheels and swingarm, but now we had to source the custom parts, and quick.
Project H was built from the...
Project H was built from the ground up-in less than a month!
That predictably led to problem number two-stretched or stock wheelbase? Again, the collective agreement was made that a stock (or as close as possible) wheelbase with a 240-rear tire (only because Pirelli now has its Diablo performance rubber available) would be the best option for style and performance. Nothing super-stretched and no ba-donk-a-donk rear, because this bike was ultimately going to be ridden around a track at the conclusion of the build.
With the blueprint in hand, Fisher set to work. There was yet another issue, however-the timeline. Parker planned to unveil the bike at the Laguna Seca MotoGP alongside his Project H apparel, but Roaring Toyz didn't even see the bike until June. That basically meant there was less than four weeks to build it.
When we told contributors Cycle Logic (turbo), Gregg's Customs (swingarm) and Performance Machine (wheels, rotors, calipers) about our plan to build the sickest CBR around they were indeed excited...until we dropped the deadline on them, that is.
If you've ever sent out your wheels to be chromed or even simply ordered a part online you'll understand how comical the scenario must have been to these shops-these things take time, ya know. Not only did the three aforementioned companies have to fabricate custom parts, but they had to get them done in a matter of days.
 The stock damper works fine,...  The stock damper works fine, but we had to dress up the dash. |  Detailed custom paint is just...  Detailed custom paint is just as important as the high-performance parts. |  A custom Penske shock was...  A custom Penske shock was dialed in for the track by GMD Computrack. |