New member with KZ thou cafe dreams...

Been reading daily/lurking since October, finally time to post up project is underway! Looks like a fun haunt, Wiredgeorge, wireman, arobsum, guitargeek, gringo, sandy, all good members.

Name is Jason Fagan in SE Ohio, work IT for a heavy demo/construction equipment company. Huge gigantic road racing and bike and car nut. Sit and listen to engine recordings some nights and drink warm boddingtons pub ale.

Riding street for 7 years, have about 50,000 mi experience. Bikes: 2002 Suzuki SV650, 2002 Triumph Speed Four, 2003 Kawasaki KDX200 woods bike. Pace style sportrider, do onboard DVD bike videos, been to Deals Gap a bunch, never done a trackday, full Vanson leathers, Arai lids. Love 300mi Sundays in the 5000' mountains of WV-VA.

Active poster on SVRider.com and TriumphRAT.net forums.

I've just added my third street bike to the garage, a 1981 Kawasaki KZ1000 CSR. It is destined to become a cafe racer.. Don't want it to look like someone made it in their garage even though that is exactly what is going to happen.

Found KZ1000 on eBay, 160 mi north of Lancaster Ohio in Cleveland. 'Bought it now' sight unseen for $995 with 17,000 miles however title says "Warning: Mileage discrepancy."

Stock looking 1981 CSR with MAC 4-into-1 and pods. Bike started, idled normally, a little smoke on warmup no biggie it was 20F and night. He offered me to take a spin and I did briefly. Everything works, all switchgear, and lights. Brakes a little wooden, clutch and gearbox felt very good, tranny was very positive made good noises. Rides nice really, loaded it up and took her home.



I rode it on two nice loops once home, about 100 miles total. It sounded excellent and revs willingly, nice bark to it. It pulls ok from 3k to 6,500 rpm where it would miss and no longer accelerate. Had gearing for 80 mph at that RPM limit. Power felt a little weaker than I expected overall but did have some torquey pull at 3500rpm in a tall gear. I ran some carb cleaner through it and, another 30+ mile continuous ride but no change.

No visible leaks, bike seems great other than a bit of a tired motor. Brakes got better with some hard use but all calipers and master cylinder will be rebuilt. Compression test with a hot engine, I had all plugs in except the one I was testing and I had the throttles closed as I didn't know any better = 105-89-84-109(psi). Added a little oil to cylinder #3 and it went to 125 psi. Can't retest bike motor is out. Still it’s probably a tired motor that probably ran hot, inside cylinders being so much lower compression? Also won't start in cold weather 30F with out a shot of ether.

Wanna hear it? 1MB

Wanna see me horse around on it? 30MB

I don't feel bad cutting one up a bit as it's an unloved CSR model anyway, but the CSR is perfect choice for a cafe built to be sport ridden hard and often with it's triple disc / but cafe looking wire wheel setup. Looks the part and it should stop once rebuilt with the trip discs. I want to crank lots of curvy road miles on this baby when it's done.

Looking to do some frame mods, MIG weld in some higher seat rails and chop the tail at the rear axle, weld on plate for rearsets. Grind off stock tabs and powdercoat the frame, swingarm, triples, etc.. Either Glass from the Past or Air-Tech fiberglass café tank and tail section. Rebuild motor, maybe 1075cc, valve job, Dyna ign, Megaphone exhaust, carb clean up. Rebuild all brakes, forks, add some cool piggyback shocks, eliminate sprocket cover with clutch cable holder from Precision Metal fab, new gauges, clipons, SV650 rearsets. Budgeting $4000 we’ll see.

I will have lots of questions through this process. Figured I might as well give a complete intro since I'm gonna jump in with both feet. Hoping for completion by July 2007 so I can ride it to the AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days at Mid Ohio.

Am about to bust loose some initial questions in the appropriate forums. If you read all this thanks!

Later all!

Post edited by: sheik*yerbouti, at: 2006/12/17 20:43

Post edited by: sheik*yerbouti, at: 2006/12/17 20:44

Welcome Jason,
That was a complete intro! Sounds like you know what you are doing, (unlike some of us:unsure: ) I listened to your bike but I'll have to wait to watch the video. Keep us up to date with the project as it moves along!

Beautiful bike..good luck with the cafe-ing!

I'm definitely jealous of your trips to Deals Gap.. that's on my top 10 list of destinations for the next couple of years..if I can make it!

Welcome.

Thanks Nevan and pyxen.

No I don't know what I'm doing. I'm planning on doing as much of the work as I can, and I do have friends that have some bike builing / rebuilding experience, and I'm rapidly making contacts around town to have work done like engine, paint, wheel relacing and powercoating. I have planned this for about 6 months though so I know what I want to do if not how to do it.

Reason I picked this bike for my project rather than a CB750 with a much easier to work with frame and tank tunnel is purely based on the KZ motor. I love its huge-ness and it's throaty sound.

A little narrow 11" tank will make this thing look like its just got gobs of motor hanging out the sides. Kinda a big bike for a cafe, should be a stomper out of the corners.

Here is how she stands tonight.



Very rough quick and dirty photoshop mockup of some airtech parts.

Jason...welcome aboard,Bud!
You definately have Your hands full there!
Keep the pics coming though,and keep Us all up to date on this.
Do You have a tank picked out for it yet?

the ducati sport seat eh...

the CSR has some rake correct? wasnt it intended to be more of a crusier?

anyway...ambitions man...good luck

Sandy wrote:

Jason...welcome aboard,Bud!
You definately have Your hands full there!
Keep the pics coming though,and keep Us all up to date on this.
Do You have a tank picked out for it yet?

Hey Sandy, yes this will take away from a lot of nights at Sweeney's Pub this Winter... I have tools, time, and the desire to see things done right, hope i stick to it.

Tank is an issue due to the tunnel dimensions. Air-tech has an excellent tunnel measuring chart and each tank has many dimensions listed.

I want to raise the seat height anyway to about that of a Triumph Thruxton. Have to pick a tank that fits over the backbone, get it and a seat base and weld as needed up to where i want them to sit.

Hey Scumbag yea it has 107mm trail vs 90mm on a 77 1000, but less than the 120mm trail on the 82 KZ1000 Replica. I plan on raise the forks in the triples and to find slightly longer rear shocks. That will drop the rake and trail and also help with seat height.

Cleaned up the motor today, a buddy and i lifted it out a week or so ago.

Excellent, welcome!

the thing I was getting at was that your trying to cafe a bike that is traditionaly a cruiser...sure some longer shocks and a lil' drop in the triples will get you soem head way but...eh...what am I sayin...do it man...make it happen...

as for relating it to the 82 replica...that was a cruiser as well...not much of a turning road bike...

I am sure your stuff is gunna turn up rad...best'o'luck mate

...by the way...what have you done to yer SV...love those bikes...

Welcome welcome!

Scumbag makes a valid point. That bike isn't the *easiest* to start with for a cafe bike. But it's not impossible.

**FYI: I don't think the airtech stuff fits right to our frames does it? I think I called there once and was told that it won't. Well, obviously, the tank I mean. The seat pan can be made to fit or you can just chop it off and make a new one.

I think that is my old 1000 I sold non running just before I moved this summer .. Good to see it being Fixed up ..

scumbag wrote:

the thing I was getting at was that your trying to cafe a bike that is traditionaly a cruiser...sure some longer shocks and a lil' drop in the triples will get you soem head way but...eh...what am I sayin...do it man...make it happen...

as for relating it to the 82 replica...that was a cruiser as well...not much of a turning road bike...

I am sure your stuff is gunna turn up rad...best'o'luck mate

...by the way...what have you done to yer SV...love those bikes...

Hey 'bag well the rake isn't too bad but the trail is a little long. it will be weird just like me.

thanks for the confidence we will see what happens i'll need all the luck I can get!