A couple years ago I bought a low mileage Seed (black/red/silver) '89 MC18 R5k with some light cosmetic issues. It did come with some new spares--basically reeds, a carb rebuild kit w/jets, and a whole top end except for the barrels and cylinders. I took it off the road to do a fairly comprehensive refurbishment. Here's a list of the mods.

Chinese fairings in the white/blue/red and a spare tank repainted to match (for a change of pace while I hunted down original Seed plastics).
Powdercoated the original MC18 wheels gold, the fork lowers in Ohlins silver, and bought an extra set of white MC21 wheels for the 17' rear (so I can mount Pirelli Supercorsas).
Ohlins fork internals with Tyga billet adjusters. Required cartridge style NC30 uppers to get rid of the archaic damping rod system.
Ohlins HO206 shock.
Ohlins steering damper.
New DID ERV3 520 chain and sprockets.
Tyga billet rearsets, clutch and brake levers, and steering stem nut
I've rebuilt the calipers and installed stainless brake lines and EBC HH brake pads.
I've refinished the top triple, handlebars, clutch perch and various brackets.
I've got a JHA exhaust which I haven't mounted yet. Should I? I had the chambers refinished satin black and I rebuild the cans myself with carbon fiber sleeves and gloss black endcaps.
I've also been accumulating original replacement Seed fairings and lots of spares from Japan, including a crank.

How it arrived:


The reason it took me two+ years:






I also was recently transferred from Chicago to northern Utah for the next year. The riding is spectacular and there is an amazing canyon road practically out my front door.

How it looks now:

Here's that JHA exhaust I refurbished. Should I mount it or keep it stock?



I jetted the bike and it's decent, but needs a bit more clean up. I've took it out in my local canyon this weekend, but didn't take any video yet. Here's one I shot a couple weeks ago on my 996R. Pardon the vibes and make sure to toggle to 1080p.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nNmHcHjyo

nice,where did you find rwu ohlins forks?

Built them. Stock R5k bottoms, NC30 uppers, Ohlins cartridge with custom valving, new springs and seals.

Very nice, do you have a product code for the ohlins cartridge kit?

No, it is a one-off by a certified Ohlins shop. Completely custom shimmed.

Well, the valving should be custom for your application and rider needs. But they didn't machine you a damper rod and a cartridge, they used off the shelf parts. I think he would like to know the part numbers of the damper rod and cartridge.

There is no damper rod, it was converted to cartridge--hence the NC30 upper tubes. Don't know the part numbers, the valve and shim stack was put together by Superbike Suspension in Naperville, Illinois.

A cartridge fork has a damper rod. The "cartridge" is just a piston valve with shims. For forks they generally either come in an open bath design where the bath oil is also the damper oil. Or they can come in a closed chamber design that separates the two. Your fork would be the open bath variety more than likely.

No big if you don't know the part numbers. As long as you're happy with what you have then that's all that matters.

On a separate note, the nsr uses 41mm forks. I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to grab a cart from a newer 41mm fork and slap it in the nsr without much work. Just need to make sure the forks you take the cart from are as long or longer than the nsr forks. Most forks also use a 8mm bottom bolt so that isn't an issue.

Very nice! Love the subtle upgrades.

JHA exhaust look nice... difficult to decide.
Would need a visual with them on

Obviously still waiting on the chambers and tuning, but here's a 4 minute taste from a blast through the local canyon Saturday morning (better if you toggle to 1080p):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THO_mYW3jSs&feature=youtu.be

This is just 1 minute long. Not exciting--mainly just showing the view as you descend to Bear Lake:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNfUaTZC_Qc&feature=youtu.be

Last week I installed the braided front brake lines and removed the clutch perch, clip-ons, and top triple for powdercoating.







Saturday morning I took the bike through the canyon and up to Bear Lake for breakfast (80 mile round trip.) I had picked up a 32GB card for the GoPro and took video of the ride (see post above). The bike has outstanding compression (119/120), and the powervalves and everything else look great, but the jetting still needs a fair amount of clean-up. I've decided to have the JHA chambers dug out of storage and shipped here so I can just install them and do everything right, once and for all.

After the ride, I replaced the rear caliper with a spare I had already rebuilt and fitted with new EBC HH pads. It was time:



Refurbished caliper and pads, filled with fresh Motul RBF600:



Got the new tires fairly scrubbed in, although eventually I'll get the 17" MC21 rear on there so I can run Supercorsas instead of the limited selection for the current 18".



Next jobs will be mounting the JHA's and getting the flatslides dialed in, followed by powdercoating the front master cylinder once I the rebuild kit arrives.

Looking great!

The R5K pipes work really well, but as I am sure you already appreciate, they are very very heavy! In my humble opinion, the Jha's just look plain weird on the MC18! You'll see what I mean once they are mounted. The problem is the chassis is rather narrow, and the shock linkage takes up rather a lot of space... right where the pipes want to be!

I think it's a double edged sword... the weight saving, and possibility of a tad more performance is countered by the odd looks of the Jha pipes. The only ones I know of that look right, are the HRC ones, but as Andreas found out in another thread, they don't fit properly without the HRC shock and linkages! That's HRC for ya!
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Andy.
NSR-WORLD.COM

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Great job with the mc18. Got to disagree with Andy though, I really like the quirky look of the mc18 JHA pipes but they are a bit of an aquired taste!

Someone have pictures or a link so I can see what you guys are referring to? =]