At the time of writing, I currently own 3 Aprilia RS 125s. I've had this one for quite some time, well the frame at least. I've been sorting bits out on it for the last few years, collecting and buying parts that are needed for this project. I am in no hurry to complete this project, time is on my side.
After completing The Helios Project I was left with an insurmountable of spare parts, enough in fact to almost build a second Aprilia RS. In total, 4 engines, 3 swinging arms, subframes, tanks etc...
Whilst The Helios Project is based on the ethos of, "What I would have loved at 17", with no expense spared and modified. This bike is supposed to be as it left the factory, although as you'll see later I didn't really stick to this.
I got this frame in a bargain job lot for £220, it's an older Extrema Frame '98 spec and came with a horde of parts that are completely not needed (back on eBay they went). The result of my endeavours saw that this bike paid for itself, after selling the parts I didn't need.
You can't complain, for something that was free, however the frame appears to have been in a war zone. The side stand mount had a big crack in it. There were gashes and scratches on the frame and various other affairs.
I cut the side stand mounts off, and had new piece tig welded in its place. Buffed out the scratches and had it painted matte black.
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It's come out well and you wouldn't know that it was in a sorry state when I got it.
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I've ran out of room in my garage, need to shift some of these bikes elsewhere, so for the meanwhile, I'm fortunate to have a spare room in my home to build this one.
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Already ordered the fairings for this bike.
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A set of Genuine Fakes from Australia (China although they pretended to be from Aus...).
$900 buys you a complete set of painted panels. I've got to say, this is an absolute steal. The Helios Project cost me a few thousand to find all genuine panels for that, so for around £400 to have all the panels brand new.
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The panels are known to be brittle, don't expect OEM here.
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The painting is fantastic, the colours pop!
I can't recommend these copies enough if I'm honest.
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How it's sitting at the moment.
I did order a few genuine (albeit used) panels in some areas as the genuine parts are made of that plastic they use on car bumpers so are literally bullet proof. The new fakes went straight on eBay.
Along with some genuine panels, I couldn't resist buying some high quality carbon fibre panels.
Some lovely carbon fibre winglets from a company in Croatia.
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Ignore the mudguard, that's for the Raptor.
I did get some more Tyga carbon, including front mudguard, rear hugger and silencer.
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The generator cover is for my other bike as annoyingly it is missing!
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No fancy engine work on this build, I am trying to stick as close to factory as possible.
Stock Gilardoni Barrel
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All fresh ready to go into an engine.
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No fancy large carburettor on this bike (or so I thought), I wanted the factory one.
To my knowledge, this is the PHBH 28mm round slide. But I was aware that the later models featured EFI. Not sure what that stands for, but I assumed it was something that bolted to the carb.
[PICTURE TO FOLLOW]
But I was mistaken, actually the later models ran a Dellorto VHST which I managed to snag for a very good price. It was just listed as an Aprilia RS 125 carb and not the model. Managed to get it 50% RRP. This is a special carb that has a throttle position sensor in it. And like the carb, requires a different CDI (which I thought I had so that went back on eBay).
The carb works with the CDI to change certain parameters on the engine. Lord knows what this means in practice, since it cannot control fueling, just ignition timing and powervalve timings, but I like the idea. I plan on keeping my PHBH carb though, as again it's something I got "Free", from The Helios Project.
Spare suspension linkage came up really nice with a quick refurbishment.
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A quick rinse on the buffer to remove the dullness from the blasting.
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