kz750e Resto-Mod

Daftrusty wrote: I wish life would allow me to have so many projects to choose from. So many cool bikes, so little time.
I'm still holding onto the dream of getting a gs750es and making a clone of this. I saw this picture years ago and instantly fell in love with it.

That was the very first motorcycle I bought new. I had over 50k miles on it by the time I sold it. It was heavily modified by then! I had it on track days at Riverside Raceway the last year before it closed (yes, I am old...), and Willow Springs Raceway. I loved that bike!

I have that exact Yoshimura exhaust system for the gs750es hanging in my basement, but that’s as far as I have gotten. I have yet to find the bike to put on.

Sorry for the faded colors, this picture is fairly old! This is at the now gone Orange County International Raceway in Irvine, CA, before I began modifying the bike. In stock trim I ran 12.56 at 112 mph.

Its been a pleasure reading this thread, I look forward to giving the 6spd swap a shot in the future.

Daftrusty wrote:

Dr. Gamma wrote: I am kinda partial toward Bassani pipes. Your's came out looking great!!! You NEED to find you one of those 3 inch baffles for your pipe!!! I would love to hear your bike with that pipe at some high RPM's!!!! Where did you find the BIG Bassani emblem??? It does make the whole bike look better!!! I thought I was the only one with the old Bassani emblem.

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Well Dr. Gamma, you got me thinking and so I went back to the internet and bought a bunch of stainless bits and after a whole lot of thinking and tinkering I came up with the closest I could get to a Bassani 3" race baffle.
Making the end cap took me the longest time to figure out. I started with a cheap fart can baffle for import cars and after some work on a lathe and extruding the hole to 3" with a steel cone, it turned out almost perfect.
And why make one baffle when you can make two for twice the price. So now I have one for the mystery Suzuki Bassani system that I took the giant Bassani emblem off of. (Now that it has a baffle, I need to sell it as well...)
I will have to wait till warmer weather to install the new baffle and get a video of it running. So stay tuned...

I did not see your post on the Bassani baffles you made until today.

I was in the hospital getting my other hip replaced back on those days back in January!!!!

You should have made a few extra of those 3 inch baffles. I sold the last 2 I had on Ebay for 300 dollars each!!!!! I also had two other guys asked if I had anymore of them. One of them even offered me 350 dollars if I would sell him one of those I already sold on Ebay. It was tempting, but I didn't want to chump the guy that already paid me for it!!!! There are a few vintage racers still looking for those baffles. I do know that Darryl Bassani did make one 3 inch baffle for a old friend of his recently!!!!

Making the end cap

Finished product.

That’s a cool idea as I could very easily make more of them and I know I could probably do a better job the second time around. But unless I knew I could sell them for a decent price, I would lose money on them. Stainless exhaust parts are really expensive, especially the oddball baffle I have to cannibalize to make the end cap. I even tried to get Cone Engineering to make some 3” end caps and they told me to kick rocks. I don’t expect people will want pay top dollar for a shameless Bassani copy.

And then there were two...
Since I now have lots of free time, I got my Zephyr 550 out of mothballs and gave it a make over.

soo seems kinda like the elephant in the room.
but,
gold stripes for the zephyr???

asking for a friend ,lol

looks good man!

leon

531blackbanshee wrote: soo seems kinda like the elephant in the room.
but,
gold stripes for the zephyr???

asking for a friend ,lol

looks good man!

leon

Thanks!
No plans for stripes at this juncture. The paint job is average at best, so I always considered changing the color scheme entirely. But the chances of me getting the initiative to do that is slim. Real slim.
I’m just glad to get it out of the corner of the garage it’s been sitting in.
New tires, powder coated wheels, rebuilt clutch basket, reindexed intake cam, Bassani exhaust system, rebuilt and rejetted carbs.... I just want to ride it at this point.

Awesome build! I'm currently building a kz750e as well. Putting a gsxr750 rear end, zx6r front end and just picked up a kz1000 st tank. Thanks for the inspiration!

tchach11 wrote: Awesome build! I'm currently building a kz750e as well. Putting a gsxr750 rear end, zx6r front end and just picked up a kz1000 st tank. Thanks for the inspiration!

Thanks for the positive comment.
Good luck on your build!