GS to Caponord & loving it again

vilguy

vilguy

Registered user
Joined
Sep 30, 2008
Messages
819
Reaction score
0
Location
SW Scotland
Well the GSA went last saturday for the price i wanted, and have brought a caponord.

Got an 03 plate - crash damaged for £2100, a little on the high side for a crash damaged one, but i knew that the damage is very superficial, ive already fixed the headraces, clutch, footrest etc .. only thing to sort is the r/h fairing which is all scuffed up.

It rides brilliantly and is super smooth. Engine is a cracker and is considerably faster than the gsa. I would compare it to a dl1000 but without sounding like its going to blow up like the dl always did. The handling is also sublime with sportsbike esque riding a pleasure. First time out on it i took a slip road that i could only ever get 75mph on before grinding out the pegs on the gs at ... a bit quicker than that... :augie

overall very pleased, the build quality on the aprilla is esquisitte, and in my opionion much higher quality than the GS. Some of you will no doubt argue against that ... but hey thats my opinion. Neat little machining touch's everywhere just give it that ...nice... feel :)

Only thing i dont like is a very bad off idle stutter and fuel consumption is a bit high, but these things are easily solved with some dyno time and a tuneboy to reprogramme the ecu.
 
Brakes on them are dire though, front pads down to zero in 5000 miles, and I'm not hard on brakes either.

I found my Capo more manic than my GS, but both achieved similar results in totally different ways. For the price they're a belting alternative.
 
brakes seem fine to me

easily capable of rolling stoppies should you desire and i just see brake pads as a consumable to be honest.

It is a bit quick, and last night i purchased a falco motor to slide into it. helllloooo 20 bhp.. with a bit of work :augie
 
:mmmm mmmm....
curious about them tings.
~ build quality is good, you say?
~ spares availablity?
~ tech info / servicing = simple for the amateur?
~ bling :blast oops - i mean sensible mods, like panniers, screen, handguards etc.
a good range? cost effective?

Keep us posted please.

and a Falco motor :eek:
i like that :green gri
 
Interesting.

I had a Caponord for a while and didn't really get on with it. I agree about the build quility. It seems pretty good and I never had to test how good spares availability was. :)

They are great value for money so if you wanted a a good big trailie for sensible dosh they are worth a look.

What I didn't like was the suspenion was way too soft and bouncy. Mine had a centre stand fitted and that grounded with minimal provocation. An extremely irritating feature was variabel tickover (closed throttle) revs. Other owners also reported this problem. As a resut on ocassion more brakes were needed than expected as you didn't get the expected engine braking.

Oh, and I just remebered I wasn't keen having to keep the engine "on the boil"

I had a Falco a while later which had Aprilia "race" pipes which are supplied with a matching chip. Now that was fast and grunty !
 
vilguy said:
brakes seem fine to me

easily capable of rolling stoppies should you desire and i just see brake pads as a consumable to be honest.

It is a bit quick, and last night i purchased a falco motor to slide into it. helllloooo 20 bhp.. with a bit of work :augie
Click to expand...


Brakes compared to my GS were appaling, and consumables, yes brake pads are, but I expect more than 5000 miles out of a set of front pads, Fazer 1000 13,000 miles on original pads when sold, 1200GS 13,500 on original pads when I sold it.

I also found the motor not as flexible as the GS, it hated being in the wrong gear.

Out of the two, the GS wins hands down for me.
 
Ming said:
Whats a rolling stoppie ????:augie
Click to expand...


there fun is what they are! I was never brave enough on the gs, i tried it... but gave up before i killed me'sen :)

Build quality is very VERY good, paint finish and machining is excellent even down to the little tiny details. Little things like the gear & brake levers are lovely little machined items.

Spares backup - unfortunately the caponord wasnt the most popular bike so spares take a little time. Usually around 2 weeks. Theres plenty of good stockists around though of course because of forums they only tend to get slagged off, never praised. I can recommend aprilia spares in yorkshire / ultimate parts. AF1 racing in the us can work out cheaper .. on some bits and can get you them quicker as they carry it all in stock.

The machine i brought was a quite famour one off the af1 forum by a gentleman known as capograndad. Had all its electrics modified to improve the charging, polished rims, stainless spokes/nipples and polished everything else. Its a fine example, unfortunately the following owner from him was a clot and didnt look after it very well. it was one of the filthiest bikes id seen for a long time when i picked it up and an audi had smashed into it. Its pretty much sorted now, i just need to order a new r/h fairing panel. At £150 i didnt think it was too bad, not far off japanese prices - thats fully painted and 'stickered' up.

Engine was its rather different from a gs, it has a pneumatic slipper clutch so engine braking is limited, but after a while you get used to it and its great fun. Almost like riding a big 2 stroke! none of all the rotax aprilias ive had liked being in the wrong gear. But with some fuel map modding it can be improved drastically, my futura used to be a swine but after setting up you could plod around town in th at 1500 rpm and it would pull quite happily. Took a while to set up though. The caponord is presently all to cock in the engine department, as mentioned by others the idle is funny, sometimes it sits around 2k others 1k. I need to load in the futura mapping and get a tuneboy on it to edit the ignition mapping.


Suspension is a bit soft yeah, but ive got a set of cartridge fork emulators and hyperpro progressive springs in a deal on order so that should sort the front and a rally raid rear shock will be going in to increase the rear ride height.

The falco engine will be coupled to a one off 2 into 1 custom link pipe with a titanium or carbon akropovic hexacone can. And im going to fit it with sw motech luggage. Ill need to modify a set of pannier carriers to carry them though as swmotech dont do the carriers for the nord. I got a set of bigger throttle bodies as well last night so they will be going in and some dyno work should sort it all out. Im happy with the brakes at the minute so they can wait. If needed too with the extra power ill get some falco / futura brakes on it.

accesory wise - its got this little led battery status monitor thing (single simple led changes colour from green to orange to red to indicate battery charging status. (not my sort of thing but its fitted)

Foglights - being taken off as not needed.

h4 hids will be fitted when i get around to it but the headlights are the best ive ever used anyway.

its been fitted with 1150gs handguards and i put a givi maxia box on the back the other day and a new givi screen. The oem screen gave me some terrible buffeting. The givis not amazing, but much better.

It has got this nice little box on the handlebars which supplies a 3v power supply for charging satnavs etc via a little pin connector, very neat :)

Overall im very pleased with it. Just like the gs's its possibly to ride them straight out of the crate but with a bit of money they can be transformed to something more fun :)

Presently it will 'just' touch 140. With the falco motor and pipes id like a little bit more out of it, but its more the out of corner acceleration that im after.

:beerjug:
 
That sounds like an excellent review and pretty much lines up with my own thoughts on a "standard" one. I wasn’t prepared to spend the time and money on fiddling about improving mine !.

I had forgotten about the weak charging system was (or just the amount of oomph needed to start a big twin). I recall trying to bump-start it more than once with no luck Grrrr. Bump starting my VFR was a doddle !

Good luck. I sounds like an interesting project for someone who clearly enjoys a challenge :-). It should be spectacular if it all comes together as well as it could !
!
 
cheers matey, fingers crossed ;)

Its coming together, its just eating money like the cookie monster likes dough based treats!... ahh well, better than it sitting in the bank! :comfort

:thumb
 
sounds great fella, so i guess shortly it will be in the "for sale" section along with the others eh mate :)
seriously though i did contemplate getting one, but the gs won for me.
good luck with it, get some pics up soon eh
 
There isnt room in the garage! which is a bit of a pain in the a*** at the minute. I really struggle to get from one side to the other and the best/worst bit... its not even my garage... the joy of having parents eh ;)

dsc0002t.jpg


dsc0004q.jpg


Need to get the rim welded to fix this damage

dsc0005m.jpg


And the bike still has slide damage down this side.

Cant decide whether to go down the new panels route (trying to get a matching colour to respray the panels would be a bugger i think) or respray the whole bike metalic white.... not sure yet. Panels are going to be around £350!!!!!!

New offroad footpegs will be going on soon off a ktm xc. :)
 
Vilguy will you shut the f**k up about how good these are !!!:blast:blast

why do you think they are so cheap :augie:augie:augie:augie:
so don't go spoiling the myth :cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:
 
sorry... they are shit and i wish i had never brought it.. peice of crap. :aidan

Anyone who wants to get rid of theirs i will happilly remove said peice of crap from your drive. :augie
 
Now that's better.:thumb2:thumb2:thumb2 However if I'm closer i would gladly removed said shite bike from there drive too. Just to be helpful of coarse.
 
The ones on the capo and futura are funkeh. You can even adjust the contrast of the screen on it to make it easier to ride at night. How .. useful... is that! The mille and falco clocks look far more 1980s car clocks ;)
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

2013 LC.....Got it and Loving it!!
Replies
6
Views
2,089
Skid06
Skid06
New to the GS, loving it!
2 3
Replies
57
Views
11,735
scotia_steve


Back
Top Bottom