one last call on the wheel/swingarm interchange

I have the motor done, frame painted, and motor back in the bike. My next step is to install the forks and the swingarm.

I want to run a wider rear tire. My rim is 2.50" and has a 130/90/17 on it. Apparently, nobody makes a 140/90/17, and I am not sure I can run a 150 on my 2.50" rim safely.

I really want to run the eliminator,zg, concours, style wheels. They are the 3 spoke aluminum wheels. I looked at a rear wheel from a 1985 ZL900 eliminator. Not to mention the wheel is probably 3 or 3.50" wide. It's also a 15". My drive hub fits it perfectly (so they must interchange), and the axle is the same also. The only problem is that the wheel/rotor is as wide as my wheel/rotor/caliper bracket. I could run the wheel, but would have no rear caliper mounts.

So, I KNOW someone on here has to know if a eliminator or concours or ANY other shaft drive KAW swingarm is interchangeable with my 1980 KZ 1000 swingarm. I am going to have to change the swingarm so I can run the wider wheel.

Thanks guys

Sorry, I cant help with the shaft drive part, but if you could convert your motor to a chain drive setup, you could run a zx arm, mono shock, and a zx wheel, a lot of zx wheels are 3 spoke, and 5.5 inches wide. theres lots of other chain drive options...
Scott

I think it would be interesting to mount the caliper on the swingarm instead of the axle (I'm not saying it would be a good idea). In a real hard stop the front end would dive and the caliper mounted on the swingarm would pull the back end down, making the whole bike feel like it got sucked down on the pavement. Seems like it ought to be an interesting experience, but I don't know how well it would work in practice

But if you are willing to try it I'd love to know how well it works :laugh:

steell wrote:

In a real hard stop the front end would dive and the caliper mounted on the swingarm would pull the back end down, making the whole bike feel like it got sucked down on the pavement.

That actually sounds pretty cool, once you stopped you would rise back up to normal ride height.

Its not pulling the backend down, Its raising the tires off the ground. Not good for friction. Know what I mean..
The reason for the bike lowering is that the inertia of the rear tire is colapsing the suspension when brake is applied. Then gravity takes over, and your bike gets "pulled" to the ground. Not good for panic stops. Works real good for locking the rear tire easily though.

Snakebyte wrote:

Its not pulling the backend down, Its raising the tires off the ground. Not good for friction. Know what I mean..
The reason for the bike lowering is that the inertia of the rear tire is colapsing the suspension when brake is applied. Then gravity takes over, and your bike gets "pulled" to the ground. Not good for panic stops. Works real good for locking the rear tire easily though.

I'm going to have to disagree
Weight can only transfer front to rear, not increase or decrease, and the weight on each tire is determined by the center of balance. Normally as the front brake is applied the front end lowers and weight transfers forward, if both the frontend and rearend lower and equal amount, then there is no weight transfer.
So I think it would tend to decrease the weight transfer to the front, and increase the possibility of locking the front tire, and increase the braking power at the rear.