Hey guys, thought I might wait to start this Thread until all the parts were in but have a fair amount of pics and info already and always enjoy having a Thread going during a mod just in case somebody has an important input before it's too late.

I always like to give credit to guys that help me out or just inspire me with their mods: Thanks to O-Town D for his wheels/tire upgrade, you have cost me big $$$! , EricInNCa for answering questions about his awesome bike, and mattVA for his technical expertise!

My upgrade parts list:

18" Black Testament wheels from Southern Motorcycle Works
Composite rotors and pads from Matrix Brake
Avon tires from American Motorcycle Tire
ARP bolts from Summit Racing
Ride On tire sealant and balancer from Amazon
Couple other small tools from Amazon....

Anyway, everybody likes pics, so the first thing that showed up was the tires. They arrived in about 2 days with a nice note from one of the sales persons.




If you cannot read the labels: Front AV71 130/70R18, Rear AV72 180/55ZR18
I decided to stick with 180s vs the 200s because I am happy with the stock width and do not feel 200s would help with handling.

 

Next the wheels came in, took about 1 week. Southern Motorcycle went ahead and shipped them even though my new matching rear pulley would not be ready for a few weeks. My pulley is not stock and is a bit unusual so they did not have one available and had to order a 68T wide enough for a 1 1/8" belt. I have to say the wheels were packaged very well with expanding foam, heavy duty plastic, and other throw in material.

As a bit of a reference, stock Fat Bob wheels are (F) 16" x 3" (R) 16" x 5" and my new wheels are (F) 18" x 3.5" (R) 18" x 5.5". I thought about going 17" on the rear but that would have been a custom type order and I just kinda felt if you are going to drop the coin on wheels, mine as well go big so they can be seen more.

The wheels came with new bearings installed:

 

Next came the composite rotors from Matrix. I first pursued Lyndall rotors through Hog Pro and other retailers but just was not getting decent availability anywhere. I even tried contacting Lyndall but they never returned my call. After hearing other somewhat "sketchy" posts on getting Lyndalls I decided to go a different route that does not seem to be very well known - Matrix.

I had heard that Matrix actually makes the composite friction rings for Lyndall, still not positive about this but seems to be the case, anyway the little feedback I did find about Matrix was 100 percent positive. So I gave them a call and talked to Brian and I started to fell pretty confident in their product. Probably the only downside to Matrix is their very limited choices in carriers - 2. At least I really liked one of them, and decided to buy them and the pads that go with them.

Some technical stuff: stock rotors weigh about 4.9lbs, Matrix rotors weigh 1.9 lbs so for my Fat Bob I am dropping almost 9 lbs off my unsprung weight. I have to say that when you hold one of these rotors, not only is the weight impressive but they look stunning.

 

Oh Hell Yeah

Wheels look killer, bike is going to be smoking hot when you get this done!

 

I should have mentioned you and your wheels/rotors too!

I'll tag on the next pic of the tires installed by my local Indy:

 

Those look like the All-Balz bearings; did you install the bearings or did they come with spacers and bearings installed?

 

They came preinstalled with the sleeve/spacer. The bearings say KML 6205 RD on them, may not be top of the line...I almost feel a little cheated, was kinda looking forward to installing the bearings. I am thinking about playing with my old wheels a bit by uninstalling and reinstalling the bearings. A little sick, I know....

 

Ohh man. Get those completed pics up.

Can you get a good shot of the rear from some distance. Looking to see how that 180 looks

Wheels look great. If I get some extra bucks I'll be buying wheels from them too

 

Just some added info for tire width: Even though a tire may say 180 the actual width can vary quite a bit. In my case the stock Dunlaps are actually 182 mm and the new Avons are 184 mm. So I will be 2 mm wider in the back.

Up front the stock Dunlaps say 130 but are actually 135mm but my "130" Avons are 127 mm - 8 mm narrower.

May take awhile to get installed pics, I think I still have a couple weeks to wait for my rear pulley but I will post a pic from behind!

Southern Motorcycle prices are hard to beat, they sell directly unlike many other wheels so no middle man mark up. I paid $1690 for the 2 wheels and pulley - not bad at all compared to most.

 

Too funny

I picked up the Heartland (I think it was) tools when I did mine and I agree, this is some kind of sick pleasure to do it all yourself