Hello all! This is my first post here so I'll go ahead and introduce myself. My name is Doug and this thread will be about my RD350 cafe build.
First I'll give a little backstory as to why I chose to build a cafe racer. About a year ago I sold my 2013 Triumph Speed Triple R. While I enjoyed the bike, the more I rode it the more I found out that with a bike like that you really have to bring it to a track to really enjoy it. On normal mountain/back roads, for the bike to come into its own you were really pushing your luck due to unknown road conditions and other vehicles. I decided I needed something that was small and light enough that it would be fun on the tighter/slower stuff that is around the area I live in.
It didnt take too long for me to really start gravitating towards 2 strokes for their weight savings and overall uniqueness. First was set on a Kawasaki triple, looked at a couple but most of the bikes in my price range were in pretty sad shape and after riding the best of them found them to be large/tall feeling and uncomfortable when pushed. Then started to look into rd350/400s, pretty cheap, plentiful and well known as a great handling bike when new.
After a bit of looking found one locally, owner claimed to have owned it for years and recently had a case split rebuild done(over size pistons and all new lower end bearings/seals). Bike was poorly painted metallic gray, sported a Brit bike sized 4.00x18 tire on the rear and had what looked like a entire couch worth of filling stuffed into a stock style seat cover but otherwise was all there and in pretty good shape.
Ran pretty good but was tough to start cold and would intermittently drop cylinders on anything but brand new plugs. After a carb rebuild tune-up and new coils(a must do on these bikes still running original coils) ran great, started second kick in the cold and never missed a beat.
Here is the only pic I have as it was all it came home to me.
First I'll give a little backstory as to why I chose to build a cafe racer. About a year ago I sold my 2013 Triumph Speed Triple R. While I enjoyed the bike, the more I rode it the more I found out that with a bike like that you really have to bring it to a track to really enjoy it. On normal mountain/back roads, for the bike to come into its own you were really pushing your luck due to unknown road conditions and other vehicles. I decided I needed something that was small and light enough that it would be fun on the tighter/slower stuff that is around the area I live in.
It didnt take too long for me to really start gravitating towards 2 strokes for their weight savings and overall uniqueness. First was set on a Kawasaki triple, looked at a couple but most of the bikes in my price range were in pretty sad shape and after riding the best of them found them to be large/tall feeling and uncomfortable when pushed. Then started to look into rd350/400s, pretty cheap, plentiful and well known as a great handling bike when new.
After a bit of looking found one locally, owner claimed to have owned it for years and recently had a case split rebuild done(over size pistons and all new lower end bearings/seals). Bike was poorly painted metallic gray, sported a Brit bike sized 4.00x18 tire on the rear and had what looked like a entire couch worth of filling stuffed into a stock style seat cover but otherwise was all there and in pretty good shape.
Ran pretty good but was tough to start cold and would intermittently drop cylinders on anything but brand new plugs. After a carb rebuild tune-up and new coils(a must do on these bikes still running original coils) ran great, started second kick in the cold and never missed a beat.
Here is the only pic I have as it was all it came home to me.
