phomeniuk
New Member
New member here from SW Ontario. Please excuse the long winded intro but I know from lurking that alot of you dotheton forum goers like a good project introduction.
Well I've inherited a 1980 KZ250 that's been in my family since the 80s. Little backstory on it; my father used to drag race back in the late 80s, early 90s on a heavily modified kz900. My uncle came across this kz250 and picked it up for 50 bucks (no ownership of course). It was painted to match the drag bike and was used as a pit bike on weekends where he would tote me and my older brother around (we were quite small) while dad was in the staging lanes. My uncle unexpectedly passed away in '95 and my dad quit racing that year. The bike sat at the homestead for a few years until we were big enough to learn to ride on it (circa 2000). We would putt around on it from time to time in our teens but it has since just been collecting dust for the last 10 years or so, until now.
I finally got around to getting an ownership for it and am now working at getting it road worthy. It is running perfectly but needs the usual tires, fork seals, brake shoes etc as well as a pile of electrical work (the previous owher lost the key so ripped the ignition out and wired in a push button for a starter, cut all the signals off and did a couple other silly things) In the last week I've sorted out the wiring to the point where I just need to install all the electrics parts I've ordered.
Next part of the journey is to create a sort of cafe racer style machine. Now I've been lurking the forums for long enough to know that most will say that the kz Ltd frame is a horrible choice from which to produce a cafe racer. To this I say HOGWASH! From what I know of the cafe racer boys of old, they took whatever they had and set out to make it better in the way of performance, handling and styling. I am well aware of the lack of power, handling characteristics and all around wow factor of this bike, but it holds sentimental value to me and I think it will be a fun project that will result in a pretty cool little machine that I can pass down to my kids. I currently ride a 2006 DRZ400SM that is decently upgraded so this KZ250 project is just mainly for something to do and to give me another option when I'm not in the mood for wheelies, backing it in, and making all kinds of noise. The DRZ is my workhorse, the KZ will be my sunday cruiser. Bonus point- my wife told me she might go get her license when the bike is complete.
I've got a pretty good idea of the direction I want to go with this project. I'm going to try to keep it as close to period as I can but improve on areas where it's needed, so no GSX-R front end and Ducati single sided monoshock swingarm type tom-foolery. I'm thinking stock tank, painted to a factory colour (I think Kawasaki did a nice deep maroon), clip on bars, rear sets, brown leather hump seat(frame mods required for fittment), shorty muffler (I'll fab this up myself), rid the bike of chrome, new longer shocks (im 6'4" and look goofy on a tall supermoto so I need all the ride height I can get out of this little guy). After any necessary frame work I intend to blast and paint the frame, swingarm, engine mounts and any other brackets. Also going to paint the wheels solid black, the colour scheme on them just screams "80's" to me.
Aside from the necessary parts needed to pass a safety test and make the bike road worthy, here is a list of the parts I've ordered/sourced thus far:
Clip on bars
LED integrated tail light and necessary relay, resistors etc
New grips
Rearsets from a gsxr (saw a forum post of one member putting these on a 440 and it looked like a good setup with minimal headache)
Signals for front - LED
New speedo/tach set up - single pod
Looking at the RFY shocks (I know I know - Chinese crap but I've done my research and am 90% sold on them)
I'm trying to get my ass in gear and get this bike road worthy for the end of the season, but we just recently had our first child and she takes priority over everything else, so there may be lulls in production from time to time. I hope to keep updating this thread on a regular basis and look forward to hearing from the community. Any input/feedback/criticisms/ideas are welcome.
Anyway, the bike:
This is the bike as it has been for the last 30 years
After peeling off some of the more gaudy bits to get a feel for what I'm striving toward
Flipped the drag bars and lowered the headlight, again just to get a feel for things.
Part way through the wiring adventure. Also polished up some of the chrome because I was sick of looking at it all pitted and dull.
I will post more pics as I progress. As I said above any feedback/suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Well I've inherited a 1980 KZ250 that's been in my family since the 80s. Little backstory on it; my father used to drag race back in the late 80s, early 90s on a heavily modified kz900. My uncle came across this kz250 and picked it up for 50 bucks (no ownership of course). It was painted to match the drag bike and was used as a pit bike on weekends where he would tote me and my older brother around (we were quite small) while dad was in the staging lanes. My uncle unexpectedly passed away in '95 and my dad quit racing that year. The bike sat at the homestead for a few years until we were big enough to learn to ride on it (circa 2000). We would putt around on it from time to time in our teens but it has since just been collecting dust for the last 10 years or so, until now.
I finally got around to getting an ownership for it and am now working at getting it road worthy. It is running perfectly but needs the usual tires, fork seals, brake shoes etc as well as a pile of electrical work (the previous owher lost the key so ripped the ignition out and wired in a push button for a starter, cut all the signals off and did a couple other silly things) In the last week I've sorted out the wiring to the point where I just need to install all the electrics parts I've ordered.
Next part of the journey is to create a sort of cafe racer style machine. Now I've been lurking the forums for long enough to know that most will say that the kz Ltd frame is a horrible choice from which to produce a cafe racer. To this I say HOGWASH! From what I know of the cafe racer boys of old, they took whatever they had and set out to make it better in the way of performance, handling and styling. I am well aware of the lack of power, handling characteristics and all around wow factor of this bike, but it holds sentimental value to me and I think it will be a fun project that will result in a pretty cool little machine that I can pass down to my kids. I currently ride a 2006 DRZ400SM that is decently upgraded so this KZ250 project is just mainly for something to do and to give me another option when I'm not in the mood for wheelies, backing it in, and making all kinds of noise. The DRZ is my workhorse, the KZ will be my sunday cruiser. Bonus point- my wife told me she might go get her license when the bike is complete.
I've got a pretty good idea of the direction I want to go with this project. I'm going to try to keep it as close to period as I can but improve on areas where it's needed, so no GSX-R front end and Ducati single sided monoshock swingarm type tom-foolery. I'm thinking stock tank, painted to a factory colour (I think Kawasaki did a nice deep maroon), clip on bars, rear sets, brown leather hump seat(frame mods required for fittment), shorty muffler (I'll fab this up myself), rid the bike of chrome, new longer shocks (im 6'4" and look goofy on a tall supermoto so I need all the ride height I can get out of this little guy). After any necessary frame work I intend to blast and paint the frame, swingarm, engine mounts and any other brackets. Also going to paint the wheels solid black, the colour scheme on them just screams "80's" to me.
Aside from the necessary parts needed to pass a safety test and make the bike road worthy, here is a list of the parts I've ordered/sourced thus far:
Clip on bars
LED integrated tail light and necessary relay, resistors etc
New grips
Rearsets from a gsxr (saw a forum post of one member putting these on a 440 and it looked like a good setup with minimal headache)
Signals for front - LED
New speedo/tach set up - single pod
Looking at the RFY shocks (I know I know - Chinese crap but I've done my research and am 90% sold on them)
I'm trying to get my ass in gear and get this bike road worthy for the end of the season, but we just recently had our first child and she takes priority over everything else, so there may be lulls in production from time to time. I hope to keep updating this thread on a regular basis and look forward to hearing from the community. Any input/feedback/criticisms/ideas are welcome.
Anyway, the bike:
This is the bike as it has been for the last 30 years
After peeling off some of the more gaudy bits to get a feel for what I'm striving toward
Flipped the drag bars and lowered the headlight, again just to get a feel for things.
Part way through the wiring adventure. Also polished up some of the chrome because I was sick of looking at it all pitted and dull.
I will post more pics as I progress. As I said above any feedback/suggestions are greatly appreciated.