It's funny reading that, when I bought my first CB750 new in 1978, (it was a discontinued 1975 CB750F0, they weren't big sellers here due to the "Fugly" factor) finned points covers, alternator covers etc were being sold at most bike shops and they were cheaper than OEM items. (most of the finned covers and re-pops were made in Taiwan)
Same for exhaust systems, the OEM CB750 pipes were guaranteed to rot out the day after the warranty expired, and were wickedly expensive, so aftermarket 4 into 1's, 4 into 2's etc, were the rage. I removed the horrible bulbous muffler off my F after I ground it good when I gave it the berries around a sweeping right hander and replaced it with a Dunstall racing muffler for 45 bucks, then when I dropped it again (hey, I was 18 and bullet proof..........) a new black RC 4 into 1 was way cheaper than OEM for $129.
Speaking of Dunstall, there was a shop in Richmond called Bol D'or that sold complete Dunstall rolling chassis, which were engineering porn. You could buy everything you needed to turn your wobbly CB750 into a lithe road racing machine that could whoop European bikes around corners as well as in a straight line. Sadly the proprietor was killed in a crash and the shop closed before I could save the 2000 bucks I needed to buy a complete rolling chassis to throw my engine into.
I guess modern bikes must be damned near perfect out of the factory door, because you just don't have the range of aftermarket parts available now like you had in the 1970's, apart from jet kits (well most bikes are EFI now, so even jet kits are old hat) and exhaust systems, the after market industry as us old farts knew it, is all but dead. Cheers, Terry.
