KZ650 Semi Street Fighter Build

Bike is looking fantastic! Even with the ride issues I bet you were grinning ear to ear. Helping a carb noobie out, what adjustments did you do to get between your before and after pics of your vac gauges? I'm betting I should be looking up sync tutorials instead of asking but you're right here...

Tusch wrote: Bike is looking fantastic! Even with the ride issues I bet you were grinning ear to ear. Helping a carb noobie out, what adjustments did you do to get between your before and after pics of your vac gauges? I'm betting I should be looking up sync tutorials instead of asking but you're right here...

Thanks!

*note, I am no carb expert! I've done some research, flipped a few pages in my Clymer, watched a few videos, and have adjusted exactly 1 set of carbs. I also watched a buddy do his but again, far from from being an expert.

So from my novice viewpoint - Synchronizing, assuming all else is correct, is nothing more than making sure all the throttles are open the same, measured by vacuum. To adjust (assuming you have the same carbs as me) you remove the top cover to expose the throttle arm. Loosen the nut securing the adjusting screw, and you can drive the adjusting screw up or down to adjust the location of the throttle valve. Hook up gauges to the vacuum ports (again assuming your carbs are the same as mine), start the bike up, raise the idle to 1500 +/- and check for constancy across the carbs. As you adjust, you might have to tweak the idle up/down depending on how much you open or close the throttle valves.

I picked up a gauge set a while back knowing the day would come eventually where I would need it. There are several good tutorials for making a DIY set as well as good tutorials on syncing on youtube.

BTW, I finally got that pic of the tail light bracket sent your way. Hopefully that helps the drawing make more sense.

Sweet look to your bike Great jobs
The way those gauges were if you couldn't get it alot better by ear initially, you've been around way to many sets of open headers :lol:

Where did you pick your tail light up from? I'm having a hard time finding an LED tail light for the '08 monster with JUST the stop light function. Thanks

Devin

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationDevin,

I picked it up the tail light on ebay. I just did a quick search and this was the first result:



It's a little over priced, about twice what I paid for mine but they are out there.

Bob

Sounds good, Bob. I'll just have to keep looking until I find something that works for me

Devin

You could also get one integrated turns and just not wire them in. That's what I've done but I have bullet connectors in there if I want to plug in the integrated turns later on.

Put in a good ride this morning to really put the bike through it's paces to see if any of the prior issues were fixed with some quick tweaking.

As for the wobble, well embarrassingly enough I think I figured out what was causing that. I took a big assumption that the tire pressure was set correctly when I had the tires mounted, but that wasn't the case. Both front and rear were nearly 10psi under the recommended cold pressure and I really can't blame anyone but myself for not checking. That combined with the swirling winds in the section of freeway I was riding must of been causing the wobble. With the tires properly inflated and over 70 miles of riding, I couldn't duplicate any sort of wobble today!

I made good headway on the rear brakes too. I overnighted new EBC organic pads from Amazon (gotta love $3.99 overnight prime shipping!) and spent quite a bit of time de-glazing the rotors again prior to riding today. The brakes worked MUCH better immediately and got better as they bed-in during the ride. I wouldn't consider them optimal but they are such a huge improvement over what I started with. The second part of the problem is unfortunately the lever arm. When applying the brake my foot naturally hits the lever arm instead of the peg due to the outward bend in the lever. I ordered a straight lever from fastfromthepast.com so I am hoping that ergonomic change will allow me to get all the leverage from the lever rather than trying to apply pressure only using 3/4 of the lever.


So overall, a fantastic day or riding!

Ederer wrote: Finally got enough time to get the bike back on the road. It's certainly not "done" but it is done enough to get some riding enjoyment for the summer.

Before taking it out for a shake down I went ahead and synchronized the carbs tonight, and I am sure glad I took the extra time! I set them up on the bench when I re-jetted and was amazed at the difference just that made prior to starting the swingarm swap. After seeing what the gauges showed on the accuracy of my bench tune, it's not hard to imagine how excited I was to see how the bike runs now.

I'm sure I'll continue to tweak and fine tune the carbs as I learn more, but for now I really couldn't be happier with how it runs.

Now for the final product, or as I call it, phase 2b:

I need to add some sag back, and lower it a tad as well as rotate rear peg levers up a smidge - but for out of the box it rides pretty darn good.

Lastly, I need to thank Leon again for helping me with the sprocket! I'd still be chewing up tooling trying to figure out his magic...

Good work! It looks great! I wish I was riding mine now too (jealous). :side:

Made a few tweaks during the week and tested everything this morning on what has kind of become our normal Sunday morning breakfast ride. North to Guthrie, about 35 miles from OKC was the route this morning - just short enough that the wife and kiddow ran sag for the bikes. :whistle:

First order of business this past week was to get the rear brakes operating more efficiently. I swapped out a new Tarrozi straight lever for the angled lever, just on the brake side.



In the pic you can see the obvious difference in angle, but you can also see where I had already worn the casting smooth where my foot naturally wanted to hit. Now that I'm hitting the peg rather than the arm, and the pads are bedding in well, the brakes are feeling pretty good.

I also swapped out the knurled shifter toe peg for a rubber one. The knurled works great on the brake side but it made shifting hard in boots as it was too "grippy", not to mention it was killing the leather.

Messed with the clutch some more and finally am happy with it. Also tidied up some wiring, tweaked on the suspension a little more, and added a mini fender on the rear swingarm.



All in all, it was a good ride. Bike was awesome! Had a little rain on the way back, no biggie.
I think this picture of my son this morning pretty much sums up my feelings with the bike every time I get off.

What a jaw dropper, Bob! She looks like she just rolled out of the factory Quick question- how much ground clearance do you have from the header collector to the ground? I think I'm going to be working with 4" clearance or so.

Devin

650mod wrote: What a jaw dropper, Bob! She looks like she just rolled out of the factory Quick question- how much ground clearance do you have from the header collector to the ground? I think I'm going to be working with 4" clearance or so.

Devin

At the current rear height settings I have 4 5/8" without me on the bike.