En450 bobber?

Bobbed_out

Been Around the Block
I just picked up a 89 Kawasaki en454 for $250 with the title. It's In ok shape but doesnt run, the po says the motor and tranny has been rebuilt and it ran fine for 500 miles and says there's a electric problem. I plan on trying to get it running right and then I want to turn it into a hardtail bobber. Has anyone seen one of these bobbed out befor?

I'm new to the forum and I'm not really sure how to post pics so let me know if it comes up.

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I was also wondering how hard it is to bend the steel tubing I need to make a custom hardtail? I've never really worked in motorcycles but I am a carpenter and I'm very handy with my hands and tool.
 
Well, I certainly cant say that Ive ever seen one hardtailed. I looked up the schematic and that is one wonky frame. Would require a TON of modification to get a decent looking hardtail. Also, it would be pretty dificult to get the stripped down look of a hardtail. Not saying it cant be done, anythings possible, but not easy. As far as the actual hardtail, if you have never worked with metal, or tubing... You may just want to clean this bike up and sell it than take the money and buy a hardtailed frame project. Building a hardtail is not a simple task.
 
Yeah I thought about cleaning it up and trying to flip it. I know it's not easy to build a hardtail, but I dont want something basic like one of those weld on hardtail kits in a xs650. Want to make something I can call my own. I have some welding experience and I have friends/co workers that are professional welders.
 
Don't know about a hard tail, but it looks like the frame is almost perfect for a kong'ed brat style ride.
 
Bobbed_out said:
Yeah I thought about cleaning it up and trying to flip it. I know it's not easy to build a hardtail, but I dont want something basic like one of those weld on hardtail kits in a xs650. Want to make something I can call my own. I have some welding experience and I have friends/co workers that are professional welders.

Well, in the end its all up to you. Youre life depends on it being right. If you think (and I do not doubt you) that you can do Im all for it. Love seeing something new. As long as it actually works.
 
JustinLonghorn said:
Don't know about a hard tail, but it looks like the frame is almost perfect for a kong'ed brat style ride.

+1 on this... a kong'ed frame would be sick!


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That is a pretty sweet looking bike. I might just end up doing something like that instead, at least for a while until I I get nerves to just make a jig and chop the back of the frame off and hardtail it! I never herd of a kong'ed frame...is there more pics and info somewhere? Do you just get shorter shocks? Mine are already pretty short. Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions, I've been doing a lot of research but I'm still pretty new to all this.
 
This might be my new inspiration for this bike.
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Only problem I just noticed about my bike is the big ugly radiator on the front of the frame. Here's a pic of another en450 to show the radiator( to dark to take pic of my bike now).
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80's bikes are tough, they are soooo ugly, I got an 81 and it is hard to get style out of it. The radiator could be minimized if painted right. The biggest improvement will be to take the stock seat and throw it as far from the bike as you can. Just that alone will improve it. Also get rid of as much clutter around the bars as you can, It is crazy cluttered up. lower the forks a bit, remove the fender, or paint it to disappear and you are on the way.

5 mins in paint below
 

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Wow that is a big difference! I think I've decided to go with the brat style...I guess I will have to hardtail the maxim, I have a parts bike for it that I can use the frame.
 
A kong'ed frame is to pay tribute to Richard "Kong" Wilkey may he rest in peace. I have a good write up here.

http://www.hondachopper.com/garage/konging/konging.html

as far as your bike, getting rid of that radiator is gonna be kinda hard. Also, i don't think the maxim is the best candidate for a hardtail either... it is shaft drive so no matter what you will have that looks like a swing arm going to the rear hub, and unfortunately it is a 4cy bike, and IMHO 4cy bikes look terrible as hardtail choppers unless they are a cb750 and even then it is iffy. I think rigid frames are for twins and big singles. Please don't let me stop you from doing what you want, but you might want to think about holding out on the rigid for an xs650 or something similar.
 
Thanks for the link...that looks like something I can handle. As for the xj650, I know it's a shafty but I have the spare frame so I might just play with that and see what I come up with.
 
I think you'll do fine, though you could have started with an easier bike. Being water-cooled sucks, but is also makes for more of a challenge. The konging frame idea looks pretty cool.

--Thanks, Chris
 
This shows some potential. There were versions of these with a belt-drive, but if you wanted to go with chain I bet the KZ440 rear cush-drive would fit. I'm doing a KZ440 with wire-spoked wheels, using KZ400 rear hub (and GT750 4LS front, 3x16 Borrani & 3.5x16 Akront, maxi-scooter tires 110/70 & 140/70 - these are stock sizes on Aprilia BV250, and also popular on both Buell Blast and EN250 Ninja) - if you wanted to do a hard-tail I'd bet you could hook together some odd belt-drive components such as the 22T front KZ440 pulley or the 23T KZ305 version, the 65 or 60 T rear from KZ440 (I've got both, the belts are 125 & 129, got 'em both in NOS too) or the 50T rear on KZ250 - there are two widths on the KZ440 belt but I wonder if the tooth sizes are the same as the other pulleys - an you could match the odd length of the new drive by making the hard-tail longer or shorter. Just a thought. 'Cause when you're working with the KZ454, KZ440 etc - you should work with their STRENGTHS, not fight against what's odd about them. For instance, the radiator doesn't have to be a bad thing - there's got to be a cool looking rad from a 250 GP racer type of deal. Something with a curve to it, the RC51 comes to mind -the EN454 rad is so small there has got to be something equal in cooling output either from a small road racer from the '90s or a dirt machine even. I know the whole bobber ethic (pathos heh heh) is about making the thing look old school. Hence the lack of rear suspension on the hard-tail bikes, etc. It may not look like it right NOW, but I look at the EN454 and just like I saw in my own KZ440, I see a track machine. One thing going for it is the tubular frame. A water cooled engine in a tubular steel back-bone frame makes me think of a mid-70s machine. So it's early '80s and it's not much of a stretch, so what? With the rear end jacked up a bit and the front dropped down, a radiator that's not trying to HIDE itself but rather trying to catch all of the air it can in order to cool the engine properly - OR, conversely you could take a page from the bobber book AND a '70s water-cooled racer trick, and ditch the water cooling altogether just like a lot of Suzuki GT750 drag racers did. I'm sure your range would shrink down to around 1/4 mile - but so does the ergonomics and riding posture of a typical home made bobber! No I'd rather dig up some paired rads from a dirt machine and plumb them up like the paired oil coolers on a Honda RC166. Like that, or a wide horizontal concave rad from a later small-bore sportbike tucked up high, obscured by a bubble-type half fairing for a drag racer type of feel. It's still looking like a drag racer so long as you leave the ass end of it down low hugging the ground. Down the road you could pop in some taller shocks and turn some corners with it. But the best first mod you could do with the thing would be swapping in a pair of wire wheels from an old KZ400, the rims could be replaced a while later on, then you could get into some truly sick tires. Ideally, go for some 36-spoke hubs - GT550 up front it can take a second disc down the road and the six-bolt pattern for 'em means modern floating rotors are a possibility - the late-era KZ400/440 drum hub is nice and small, it should fit to your cush-drive nicely, so could a VN800 Vulcan if you wanted to keep the 15"-16" rear rim. Pretty sure it's a 15 - but I still think you should go for the 36 spoke rear -OH the KZ305 CSR has a 15-16" rim ... anyway the IDEA here is that you could put in some cheap SUPERMOTO rims down the road for the sickest fattest tires that will fit into the swingarm. Probably 3.5-4.25" is about as wide as it'll do - I went with a 3.5x16" rear on my 440 thinking of the belt-drive. But go with a chain and you could probably do a lot better still. Depending on just how much wider the 454 engine's chain-line runs. It uses a 3.00"x15" rim stock, where the 440 uses a 2.5x16 and I'd bet that Kawasaki saw fit to design the engine with an eye to centering the rear tire, instead of it being kicked way over to the right as on the KZ440LTD. Which is to say, the 454 is probably waaay better set up for a fat tire, without even looking at it I'm sure they must have dealt with that one short-coming. So a 4.25"x17" with a 150/70-17 tire could be a real possibility down the road. Rims like that are cheap out of China these days, around $300 for both rims. Your tire selection will open up like Christmas morning. Whether or not you wanted to go the bobber/chopper route OR a more super-bike / super-moto / factory racer replica from fantasy world - the fat 17" rear tire is a GOOD thing. But you don't have to go in for it right away. The wire-spoked wheels from the smaller KZ and the GT front hub which I believe is a 19" just like you've got now - the KZ400 is an 18"-er as is the CB350-CB400 etc. But yeah, I'm pretty darn sure all of the axle sizes are right on too so you wouldn't need to replace bearings right away if that's too expensive for the moment. There's a good chart of axle diameters available if you google it. So too with fork diameters, if you wanted to switch out to forks that don't have a leading axle. Is the 454 still a 33mm like the 440, or is it gone up to a 35mm like 90% of '70s era bikes? My drum swap was easy enough to set up, but you could pop in some tubes for a twin-disc set up. Down the road I mean. This all might sound like a lot to do, but I don't subscribe to the notion that a custom bike should be borne of one long-weekend with a sawzall - I figure it should evolve over several years worth of riding. And I don't think the 454 is a throw-away bike either - it's a very unusual uncommon bike (unlike my 440 here) and it would be a unique ride even if you just left it stock. Build a truly awesome one-off with it and nobody on the planet's gonna have the same bike. Compare that to a Vulcan or Magna based bobber, let alone a Harley - "belly-button-bikes", everybody's got one. Build a road racer around one and you can pretend it's from an alternate universe where 4-strokes had a strong track presence through to the mid-'80s. Maybe if the EPA types had all paired up with and married the NRA people that's where we could have been. Just DON'T challenge any RG500's and the illusion would hold up. Yanno, if you really liked the 18-19" front rim in a chopper configuration, the project could take a whole other tack and become an adventure bike, an '80s Paris-Dakar type of thing, to compete with Moto-Guzzi and BMW bikes of the day. Oh, and the Honda Africa Twin. It's the same size of rims, you just put some knobbie tires on 'em and jack up that rear suspension. Maybe some type-writer cases on either side.

I have a very strong premonition that these early '80s non-Vtwin Jap cruisers are going to become the new collectables. So many of the KZ four cylinder LTD models and DOHC-Honda customs have been modified for either drag racers, superbike replicas, café racers, or bobbers for that matter - that the stock bikes are more and more rare. They've been much unappreciated and they're the one style of bike that has yet to have it's first round of retro-cool. Café racers and choppers, bobbers etc are kind of like '50s diners and clothing, music etc. Dan Clowes' comic "8-ball" had a great strip "in the future" - most of it's predictions have come true - but there was a great bit with '50s poseurs talking about how they're into more of a '70s Happy Days type of 1950s, vs an '80s Stray Cats Brian Setzer type of '50s, etc etc. Interestingly, there are now café racers based on '50s bikes that you can tell which were made in the '90s which were made in the '00s and which are post-2010. But 'LTD type early Jap cruisers have been tucked away in your parents' garage all through that time. Keep it dusted off and well oiled, just wait for it to make an appearance in the next hip indie movie and you'll be ready to jump right onto that band-wagon. And keep plenty of photos for the Christies Auction listing. I'd bet there aren't too many bike collectors who have one of these tucked in between their Honda RC30 and Guzzi Telaio Rosso. As soon as they realize the lack, they'll be lining up to get one before the prices sky-rocket. OR you can enjoy it now. Either as a demonstration of mid-average wrenching talents, or if done RIGHT you could enjoy it as the cool bike where you pull into a gas station suddenly everybody's coming up and asking you where they can BUY one. It wouldn't be too far fetched that they'd build it either. There's been the Kawi W650-W800, the Suzuki Estrella (or was that a Kaw?) the Duck sportclassic, the Triumph 900 Thunderbird Sport (and the far more successful if later built Bonnie twin) the Guzzi V7 (which is really only a bored-out V50 Monza WTF they could have put their 1100cc plant into it and blown us all away instead they cut corners ... ugh) and now the Honda CB1100 (don't get me started! Should have been the '07 CB1100R prototype, but that would have crashed their CBR sales no doubt.) - There are loads of retro bikes being built and they're more and more popular each time. So when (IF) you get a compliment like "where can I get one" those are the bikes they're comparing it to. A water-cooled 454cc twin with techy-looking tech and a more modern looking back-bone frame - this is just the type of thing "the big four" would come out with. If they'd throw us a bone once in a while. What I'm getting at, is the EN454 has an engine and frame that's modern enough to pass for something new, yet it's lay-out and technology is backward enough to resemble the old's cool stuff. This is why I see it with the Super-Moto wheels or the adventure-touring luggage - that's the way they'd market the beast this time 'round. If it's done as a bobber it will stand out as one thing and one thing only - an intentional "chop whatcha got" backyard build. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just ... an incongruous mix of '70s chopper style (smoothed over '80s Knight-Rider/Battlestar Gallactica design principles), '80s street technology (aka '60s track technology - which one should take as a pointer!!!), '40s suspension (and the implied misunderstanding of human physiology that prompted it), post Y2K availability of cheap power tools and 20-teens ease of random parts availability - as though we ALL work down at the junk yard. It's something cool for the time being, but when that novelty's worn off the one factor left over is the alleged COMFORT of the riding experience: something which the bike's already GOT in spades. It already RIDES like a bobber. Making a classic bobber from an '80s chopper means basically you're taking off the bodywork and putting on random Harley-clone style stuff. I learned this one from making a '60s-'70s style café from a DOHC Honda supersport - the bike already IS a café racer. Or at least, a compromise between the "standard" and the race posture people wanted, with a superbike handlebar halfway between the buck-horns of 3-4 years before and the clubmans/clip-ons of period thoroughbred sports machines. All that remained was bodywork and subtle aesthetics. This is the major complaint people have about early-'80s machines but I think soon that's the very thing they'll be appreciated for. Whether by motorcycle nuts even broader pop culture aficionados in general. Don't believe it? Wait and see!

-S
 
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