David Pitlyuk

A couple weeks ago I picked up a 99′ Honda Accord coupe as a new beater car. Now a couple weeks later, I’ve also picked up another motorcycle, a 2002 Honda CBR600 F4i. My first bike was a 1998 Honda CBR600 F3. It was a great starter bike, but it was time to move up a bit.

Utilizing my “Drive a Dodge Viper for Free” methodology, I managed to buy the original CBR600 F3, drive it for a year and a half, and sell it for more than I paid for it. Pretty much all of my insurance, tax, and gas was over the past 1.5 years was made in bike profit, allowing me to have a 100% free bike for that time period. You can’t beat that!

While the old and new pictures look pretty similar, there are some major improvements on the F4i that makes the upgrade well worthy:

1. An updated look, mainly rear and front end makes the bike look more current of todays time. The F4i’s updated front end looks 10x better than the F3 in my opinion.
2. The i in F4i stands for fuel injection. The F3 is carburated. This makes the shifting much smoother, among many other improvements.
3. It’s a lot faster!
4. The bike is much lighter and smaller, that makes the handling a night and day difference. I feel much more comfortable turning on the F4i.
5. The rear compartment on the F4i opens with the key, so I can actually store little things in there. Not a huge deal, but a big convenience factor for me.
6. The gauges are digital now.

The only aftermarket part the bike has is a Jardine exhaust, which sounds great. Check out the video (Note: It sounds much louder in person):

There were a couple of issues with the bike, which ended up costing me about $250 to fix, but it’s basically as good as new now:

1. The brake lever was bent
   1. New lever ordered: $27
2. The guy I bought it from did a burnout unfortunately right before he sold it. Because of this, it needed a new rear tire
   1. New rear tire: $135 + $35 to mount/balance
3. A few bolts were missing from the windscreen (previous owner must have had aftermarket windscreen).
   1. 3 new bolts: $3.50
4. The air plastic air duct cover has a small crack in it
   1. New panel: $29
5. One of the handlebar weights was broken
   1. New weight + bolt: $12.50

Shipping was free. It was pretty minor stuff, and it’s part of getting the good deal to make the cost of the bike over time minimized as much as possible.

I’ve updated my progression of vehicles post with the new bike, make sure to check out all of the vehicles I’ve owned since being able to drive.

Here’s a few pics of the bike before I made all the above fixes:

Here’s a picture of all my vehicles currently (Sold the other bike last weekend):