Parts fiche. If you want to check out part no.s for your bike and compare 800 and 1500 spares check out the brilliant fiche site at http://www.cmsnl.com

1500 two into two exhaust. If you want a balanced looking system with a silencer each side, there's the excellent Roadhouse Dual pipe set-up, ..Or you can fit a Nomad 1500 system straight on to the Drifter.

Baffles. If you want to be heard, there's plenty of info about removing 1500 and 800 stock baffles on the Drifter forums. Basically remove the tip from the silencer and whack a few holes up the baffle plates.! But dont go crazy, you cant undo a hole up the pipe if you dont like the sound.!

Exhausts. It's difficult to get confirmation from an exhaust manufacturer or their distributor/dealers, that an exhaust system is 'honestly' designed for the Drifter. In most cases, they come from other models in the VN range.. and the chances are they'll fit, if you buy a VN system from a similar year as your Drifter.

Front Forks. Apart from the fork springs and damper internals, the front ends on both 800 and 1500 Drifters are identical... so whatever is designed to fit one... will fit the other.! Ie, Screens, lights, fender tips and mud flaps etc. If you want to upgrade the front suspension, one option therefore is to fit the 1500 fork springs to firm up the ride.

Horns. The Drifter horn is a poor excuse for 'noise', so for around £15, go to Halfords for a pair of superb Fiamm Twin Tones.... 115 decibels.... Nice!.

Indian Badge. As an alternative to a genuine Indian belt buckle found a soft weatherproof metal one on ebay, removed the two studs from the back, drilled two small holes and fitted it to the air cover with brass screws.

The metal is so flexible that once I had the Indian log in place, it curved by hand with light pressure to the exact shape / curvature of the air cover.

Total cost £18.00 for the buckle, £1.00 for the screws and 30 mins in the garage.

Lowering the front. This is an easy 1-hour job, which involves removing the fork spring retainers and taking out the spring spacer tube, which sits on top of the fork spring. By cutting this tube down, it lowers the ride height. Dont go crazy and take off too much or you'll have an evil handling bike, which grinds the footboards on every turn. Try 10-20mm at first, then you can always go back and remove more if you want. Important. Always take the weight off the front end or jack the bike up if you remove fork springs because the entire weight of the bike is held through those fork spring retainers.

Lowering the rear. The 800 being Uni-Trak suspension has to have a modified linkage to lower the back end. The only sure fire (and safe.!) way of doing this properly is to fit one of Tweeks lowering kits from Scootworks in the US. www.scootworks.com. The twin shock 1500 can be lowered by changing the shocks for shorter units. 'Progressive suspension' has a range of custom length springs to fit their cruiser shocks just for this purpose tho.! Again remember not to lower the rear too much either, not only will it handle like a pig and drag the floorboards.. In certain conditions the rear fender could whack the underside of the saddle.!

Mix'N'Match Loads of genuine and aftermarket accessories and exhausts aimed at the other 800 and 1500 Vulcan's will more than likley fit a Drifter because they all share a similar chassis. If in doubt though, ask on the forum or another owner

Paint When I've sprayed the various parts on my Drifter, I've taken a panel down to Auto-color paint supplies or a vehicle paint suppliers to the trade who can make up aerosol cans, and just asked them to color match the panel. This way you actually get 'real paint' in your aerosol and not just 60% thinners.! Cost's about £10-15 which is about half price and you get twice as much as factory paint.

Rev Counters. There are a number of aftermarket companies selling Rev counters for the Kawasaki VN range (including Drifter). You'll even find them on Ebay.