FZR750 Cafe Racer

[kiwi60]

Firstly, hi from New Zealand.
I found this site a while ago and thought it might interest a few people to see my take on building a café racer.

The basis for the bike is an '88 Yamaha FZR750 that I've been quietly working away on for a few months and although progress is slow, it is happening.
I've raced one of these with a big bore EXUP 1040 motor for the last 7 years and have grown to really like the overall design, handling and reliability of them - plus they go like the clappers.
So, this is what I started with, a bit sad but pretty much all there:.


The fairings, seat unit, and lights have been consigned to the area under the house and I put the spare seat on, just to get the vibe happening.


The instruments just weren't going to work so I got a Danmoto unit that looks good to my eye


My aim is to get the bike like this Motodd Laverda (not mine) as it's the sort of bike I really wanted back in the 70's when I was young and broke.


Currently the swing arm and motor are on the bench and the frame is leaning up against the wall in the workshop waiting for some welding.

I'll post more as the project progresses.

Cheers

 

[DreadRock]

Welcome to the ton man ! Had a 94 FZR 600 back in the day and and only ever seen a 750 once here in the states. Guy pick it up from Canada and always wanted one are you moding the bike or restoring it ? Either way I'm in on this and nice bike sir !!

 

[jrswanson1]

I'd say this is more streetfighter than cafe, but what the heck. I wanted the 400 version of that bike when it came out, now people want stupid money for beat up piles of dreck. I like this, subscribed.

 

[kiwi60]

Thanks for the welcome guys, it's good to be here.
Funnily enough, although we got the FZR750 here in NZ, this bike is actually an ex Canadian machine - go figure...

The picture of the bike makes it look better than it is, many of the fairing panels were cracked and the motors been replaced. I had a quick check of the bike and found a few areas that I thought weren't done up right when the motor was replaced so the decision to strip it right down wasn't a hard one to make on the grounds of safety plus I just enjoy mucking around with these machines.
I built a XS650 café racer about 10 years ago and have always wanted to do another one.

are you moding the bike or restoring it ?

This is definatley modding it but keeping to the lean mean look, I'll be welding up the ram air openings in the frame and am not yet decided if I'll polish or paint the frame black yet. I'll be having a go at making an ali front guard. I also have a spare EXUP1000 motor in the garage which I'll build up over the next year or so into a 1070 monster so that'll get shoehorned in at some stage.

I'd say this is more streetfighter than cafe, but what the heck.

Perhaps your right on that one, but back in the 70's we didn't have streetfighters, we just stripped everything that slowed us down off the bike and went out and thrashed them through the twisties, which is what I intend to do on this one.

 

[kiwi60]

Made a bit more progress on the bike this week, I've welded up the holes in the outside of the frame.



I left the two front holes on the outer rails (which can't be seen in the photo) as they're needed for cables and wiring to pass through, but the rest have been filled.
I'm planning to get the last of 25 years worth of road grime and chain oil out from the various nooks and crannies, and then it'll be a coat of black epoxy primer, then some body filler to blend in the side depression (I want the sides to be smooth), and then another coat of primer.

Slow but steady progress, but I'm still on target to start assembling it at the end of the month - I think...

 

[kiwi60]

There's been more progress in the shed this month, first I finished rough grinding the welds and gave the frame, sub-frame and tank a coat of etch primer



Than shot it with 2 pack black under coat



Next the swing arm got polished and I fitted some phosphor bronze bushes





After some filling, sanding and a coat of satin clear, the bike is finally coming together



Next it's time to fit the pipe and radiator, finish the wiring, make a new front guard and sort out the dents in the tank, , then paint - satin black with a silver stripe is the front runner at the moment.

 

[kiwi60]

Also fitted the speedo sensor to the rear brake caliper



and made up a holder for the magnet to mount on the rear disc



I decided to cut the heel plates of the foot pegs and give them a polish, and as the brake light switch is mounted to the heel plate, I now have a hydraulic pressure activated switch in the brake hose banjo bolt



with the naked café look that I'm going for, I needed to relocate the ignition coils under the tank.
As I've decided to use as many as the original components as possible, getting them mounted to clear the std air cleaner took a bit of head scratching, but we got there in the end



and with the single seat I'm using being a little shorter than the original dual seat, I moved the tail light forward 25 mm and trimmed the mudguard to suit.



which has created another job, I now have to make a number plate mount.

 

[caferay]

You kiwis do amazing things with motorcycles.

 

[kiwi60]

I decided to get the number plate mounting sorted today so I grabbed a piece of 1.6mm 304 Stainless and got to work



First, a few measurements and some marking out



The onto the bandsaw to rough it out



After 30 minutes smoothing and blending of the edges I got stuck in with my little press brake



and this is what I finished up with





It'll fit nicely to the cut down mudguard and lets the numberplate sit in a vertical position, which I need for it to be legal here in NZ.

Not a bad result, even if I do say so myself

 

[caferay]

Nice, but it is thick enough to support the sail effect of those large plates?

Plate laws seem restrictive, but the plate can often make a good rain guard when positioned right.

 

[kiwi60]

Nice, but it is thick enough to support the sail effect of those large plates?

Most of the after market tail tidies seem to be a lighter gauge than this, plus the fact that S/S has a higher tensile strength than mild steel would mean that it's about equal to 2mm mild steel, so I don't think that'll be a problem, and if it ever does fracture, then I'll just have to fire up the TIG.

Luckily our plates are quite small and although the government tried to introduce larger plates about 15 years ago, they got withdrawn after safety concerns - for once OSH did something right for the common man.

 

[BigBSBusa]

A different build. Look forward to the progress.

 

[kiwi60]

It's been a week or three since I could get some time to work on the bike, but I managed to squeeze some work in over the last week.

I had a strange thing happening with the indicators. When I had the front ones wired up and one of the rear, they worked as they should, but when I connected the other rear up they all flashed like hazard lights ???????

It turns out that when I lengthened the rear indicators with some ali, the bulb holders were touching the ali and shorting every thing out.
A careful application of insulating tape sorted that one out.



I also started on the mounting for the radiator overflow bottle. The Honda Hornet rad is offset 50mm to the right to allow the RH inlet to clear the frame. I did have a cover fitted that evened things out, and then it occurred to me that the 50mm offset is the perfect place foe the overflow bottle, so after grabbing a stainless drink bottle I started folding the mounting up. Still have to drill holes and give it a paint, but you'll get the idea.





Also finished off the front mudguard, here a shot of it part way through construction, and after I get the bike out of the workshop, I'll post one of the finished article.



The choke lever arrived yesterday, and after that's fitted, I can drop the carbs and air cleaner on, mount the exhaust headers and get it back into the other garage, and then finish off the tank and seat unit.

The aim is to have it on the road by Labour Weekend (end of October) so I can ride it to The Barry Sheene Memorial Race Series at Hampton Downs, and at this stage it looks like I'll make it ;D

 

[kiwi60]

I've been trying to figure out what to do about a pipe for a few months and I finally decided that at this stage I'd go with my use what's already there philosophy and modified the original 4:1 by adding a muffler section to it.
It's a bit like what we use to build in the 70's, but with a tip added.
I achieved this by replacing the perforated inner section with a new one that has a corner built into it so I could get a reasonable amount of muffling



and adding the outer tube the same size as the intermediate pipe. Think of it as an early Yoshi style - tilted upward.



I'm also happy with the way the front mudguard turned out for my first effort with hand formed ali



The radiator overflow is all done and I decided to machine up an ali cap to replace the plastic one that came with the bottle. I like the look plus it takes care of the 50mm offset of the radiator perfectly





Next it's onto finishing the paint work and then any last details...

 

[notlob]

Nice work. Did you do the front mudguard by had without using a English wheel?

 

[kiwi60]

Did you do the front mudguard by had without using a English wheel?

It was a bit of hammer / sand bag followed up with my English wheel, and a whole lot of polishing.

The bike is an on going project and I'll be making an ali rear wheel hugger over the next few months as well.
Were 3 weeks into a mild Spring here so the emphasis is now on getting it on the road so I'll be fitting the fibre glass seat unit for now, but I'll have a go at an ali seat unit at some time in the future, and probably a tank too.
The pipe will be replaced when I make a new 4:2:1, and I have a complete EXUP 1000 motor which I'll probably make a 960 out of - 750 bottom end and 6 speed box with 1000 top end, it makes sense to wait until then to do it.

 

[kiwi60]

Well, I got the bike fired up for the first time yesterday and it's a really quiet sounding motor ;D

There's a couple of issues to sort out though:

1. There's a petrol leak from the carbs - not totally unexpected from 25 year old units that haven't been run in 5 years, so I dug around my spares box and pulled out the set of FZR1000 Genesis carbs that I were running on the 750 race motor, and as they're all jetted correctly; they'll be going on after a good clean.

2. The water manifold on the back of the cylinders is leaking. This again is no surprise as it was welded off the block and has probably distorted, so I'll machine up a new one and use a spare block that a friend has as a welding jig.
The manifolds have always been really light weight and I don't think I've ever seen a really good one yet so it'll be good to get it fully sorted.

I've done quite a bit more work on the tank and seat unit, but there's still a lot to go until it's right, so I've decided to drop then into the local painter and get them to finish the job so I can take my time on the jobs above.

Interestingly enough, the abbreviated exhaust pie wasn't overly loud and I think it'll be ok for the road.

 

[kiwi60]

I've been making slow but steady progress since the last post.
I swapped out the 750 carbs for the 1000 carbs that were on the race bikes 750 motor and that took care of the petrol leak

I also fitted some new O-rings to the coolant pipe, and that leak was also history.

I've been adding a few layers of foam to the seat and it's now at the stage where I think it'll be comfortable enough for a full days riding.





With the FZR coolant inlet fitted, the carb balancing screws are well and truly blocked by it, so I drilled and tapped the carb mounts 6mm at the top of the flat area and machined up a quartet of adaptors with a 6mm thread on one end and a tapered stub on the other end with a 4mm thread on the internal area of the protruding tapered stub.

The 6mm thread was treated to a liberal coat of JB weld, screwed in and left to harden for a couple of days.



and then the protruding internal thread blended in with the dremel.





fitted to the bike and the carbs balanced



and capped off with 4mm cap screws and O-rings



I still have to have a look at why the temp gauge isn't working (I've ready replaced the sender so it must be in the wiring) and I still waiting on the seat and tank to make it back from the painters.

 

[kiwi60]

It's been a while since I updated this thread but progress has been going on and on Monday it's going to be made road legal.

It's turned out pretty much like I planned, but as it's an on going project, it'll keep getting bits done when time and cash allow.













What's next, well I'll take a bit of a break from working on it as were getting the house ready to go on the market and were moving out of the central city to a quieter area by the sea, so that'll be a few months work.

When I get the workshop set up at the next house I'll make and ali chain guard and hugger, and then start building up and EXUP 1040 motor with cams and flat slides which should be easily good for 170HP as my last mild 1040 was pumping 165 without cams etc

CU

 

[rundown]

Very nice build, not exactly a classic Cafe, but it looks like a great thrill to ride. I'm surprised we don't see more "contemporary" bikes get a similar treatment, this certainly looks like a very enjoyable machine. Congratulations!