Grip and bar ends install
Put some nice Progrip 719 Grips on, which helped tremendously with feel and improved the look of the bike. Also installed some Puig bar ends with anodized rings that match the dark pearl yellow highlights of the bike. Here's a quick tutorial:
Remove the stock bar ends. This consists of removing the screw on the end of each bar end. It is an M8 or M10 screw with a locking patch, so it will take a bit of torque to break the bolt and remove it. Note that the stock bar ends are heavy for a reason. They also have a rubber damping compound to suspend the weights at the end of the bars. This works both sides of the equation frequency=sqrt(k/m), where k is stiffness and m is mass. By decreasing the stiffness and adding damping, while weighting the bar ends (increasing mass of the assembly), the natural resonance frequency of the bars is reduced which is more tolerable than a high frequency buzz that would be felt if the bars were stiffer and weighed less.
Use a razor blade to cut down the middle of the old grips, see pic below for cut lines. Insert the blade until you feel the blade contact the surface underneath, then lightly cut, being sure not to mar the surface. Before doing the throttle tube, unscrew the two screws holding the throttle assembly together, pry the two clampshells encapsulating the throttle tube apart, and remove the thottle tube/grip assy by disconnecting the push pull cables and pulling the tube off the bars. There will be a bit of glue but the grips should peel off relatively easily.
Left grip:
Clean the bar surface of residue and wipe down with IPA. Determine the ideal position of the new grip on the bar (the clocked orientation, since the grips I selected aren't symmetrical) and the ideal spacing between the bar ends you are using and the end of the grip. Test fit the grip part way to ensure it can be installed on the bar but don't put it on all the way since it will likely be pretty tight. The intent here is to ensure that you can actually get the grip on the bike once you have some glue on the grip. The glue acts as a lubricant until it dries, so don't do this next step until you are ready to install.
Apply several pea sized daps of super glue or grip glue along the ID (inner diameter) of the grip. Immediately install on the bar by twisting and pushing the grip to its final installed position. Twisting makes the application easier and allows the glue to distribute along the grip. Things to watch for are getting glue on your hands and contaminating your grips, as well as not installing fast enough, which will let the grip dry in the wrong spot. You need to use a good amount of force and torque to get this grip on properly. Once everthing looks good, install your bar end. I would normally use Loctite blue to retain the axial bolt of the bar end but there was plenty of locking compound left from the stock bar ends.
Throttle tube grip:
Clean residue from the throttle tube. As mentioned above, determine the ideal position of the new grip on the bar, keeping in mind that the throttle will twist which will impact the ideal position of the grip. Additionally, you need to make sure you have enough clearance to the bar ends and the housing of the throttle tube assembly, since you don't want any rubbing which would impede throttle operation. Too much clearance will make the install look shoddy. For this reason, I recommend ~125 to 130 mm length grips so you don't have too much of a gap. Once you've got this figured out, get your dremel out (or sand paper, but seriously, buy a dremel) and remove the lip at the end of the throttle tube. Stock grips use this lip to position them properly, but aftermarket grips will just get hung up on it. Pic below of the lip removed and indexing marks I'm using to locate the grip.
Now install the grip onto the throttle tube off the bike. This guy was really tight, so I didn't put glue on intitially. I used dry silicone lube applied to the grip ID to allow the grip to slide onto the throttle tube, but even then it was tough to get on. The lube eventually absorbs into the grip and sliding post install has not been an issue. Once positioned properly, I peeled the grip back on each end and applied a layer of super glue. Then I installed the throttle tube back on the bike and assembled the housing.
When I fit up the Puig bar end, there was a substantial gap between the throttle tube and the bar end. Luckily this was taken up by adding the black anodize ring to the bar end housing by gluing with epoxy to the housing. You can barely see the seam in the pic below, look at the red arrow:
Can't even tell there is a seam in this picture and the bike looks really sharp! Enjoy your new grips and bar ends! Note that while the Puig bar ends don't have the damping of the original bar ends, the reduction in mass is worth it and the new grips do a great job of removing vibrations at higher engine speeds.