Deviant1 said:
Nice project dude. I think that the bike would definately look better if you chopped up the stock cowl and seat to make your own cafe seat. What other plans do you have? will you be refreshing the suspension? adding rearsets? Are ya gonna change the exhaust? Anyway keep us posted. So far so good!
Yeah - the cowl wasn't bad but the seat was a real non-starter.
Have rearsets (see photo). They're from a gsxr750 - $40 from craigslist. I welded a couple of plated to the frame and thought I was good to go. When I got the rearsets home, I was really excited about getting them on, because with the clip-ons, the riding position was a little cramped. However, I noticed pretty quickly that the levers were sitting really high, (meaning the I had to nearly touch my shins with my toes to get above them. A quick scan of pics of the source bike revealed that they're supposed to be mounted with the holes nearly vertical - so I'm going to have to fabricate a little triangle out of 1/4 aluminum to get the angle right (which of course now means the linkage for the shift is too short) - so may end up having to fab a new bracket all together - part of the fun (is what I keep telling myself)
The photo also shows the beginning of the form for the new seat. The second photo is the model I'm working from for the seat/cowl. (what a f'ing machine!)
Just ordered new progressive springs for the forks and looking for some kind of deal for progressives in the back too. My thinking is that the way this thing handles is most important. I'm leaving the engine stock (I'm ok with it not being an R1).
I will be putting velocity stacks on the carbs - love the look and it might ad a little bit of power.
I'd like to find a nice 2-into-1 exhaust with expansion chamber - but trying to keep costs down as it is a humble KZ400 after-all and I think there will be other bikes in the future
I also picked up a 4 pot caliper also from a gsxr but I might hold off on the conversion right now and try stainless-steel lines to begin with to see if I can improve the front stoppers, as the conversion looks a little complicated in terms of getting everything to line up as it should.
Speaking of brakes, pic 3 is the template I made last night (got the design from an old Duc Desmo cafe conversion). It was actually surprisingly easy in Illustrator.
I'll be cleaning, polishing and drilling out everything else I can.
When I get the seat done - I'll be painting the tank with it. Probably black and Ivory (maybe with some 19th century Japanese paterns to make it a little different).
I already put Avons on, so rubber is good.
A new cafe tank and Duc Single style fairing would be nice (but probably too expensive).
I'm sure other mods will come, but for now I have a prettty good amount to do!
