Looking at this for a new ride...84 900 Ninja

So with building the 650/750 bike this winter, it's going to be a bit obnoxious to ride as a daily rider/tourer. So I'm looking for a cheap daily rider and came accross this 900.

Looks decent, new tires/brakes/paint, just over 40K. Anyone know of any issues these early Ninjas had, anything specific to look for or avoid ? This would be my first liquid cooled street bike LOL

they pop up around here with lower miles for 1000-1500

i think i heard larry once say that the valve seats on some were a problem.....

i dont see any on the rode in quite a few yrs and that makes me wonder how turn key they run...

also they had a 16 inch front tire and that is a problem


all that said they are super cool and i always wanted to run one for a while....

as far as how good they hold up, i would check up thorough first

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawasaki_GPZ900R

From what I've found, they have clutch basket issues, easily fixed with the later ZX1000R basket.

But like you said, I dont see many on the road, there is a local fellow in town here that rides his daily though. I've seen him many times but have never talked to him.

On that note I think I'll go have a look at this 900, but I have a backup option...KZ1000, she'd need a bit O' tinkerin but it's a known quantity, and nothing on the old aircooled bikes scares me when it comes to wrenchin on them.

I had a few 84 GPz900 body parts that had been in a mess I'd bought, so I flogged them on eBay.
Got a real good price out of them as apparently there are a significant number of people restoring them.

Big Time valve problems with those motors. Do a leak down test on it. If the seats & valves are worn out it will turn into serious money

I owned frame #70 900 Ninja in 84. Awesome motorcycle to this day!! But they were the first generation of Kawasaki throw away motors...unfortunately.

Handled like a dream. Performance wise, about like at 1075KZ with some drop in cams.

Comfortable to ride, easy to clean and keep clean. Add a rack of Keihin CRS33 with a Murray Pipe and ooooooohh man does that motor ever wake up :woohoo:

Stock head flows 95CFM @,300" lift @10" of water. It dam well should run :laugh:

It's in Km's so it has around 25000 miles on it, thing is it's 3 hours away and I highly doubt this guy is going to let me do a leak down test in his shed when I get there LOL.

a real good friend of mine has one and he has owned since new got over 70,000 miles on it and it's never been apart in fact dale wouldn't even think of getting rid of it. he has other performance bikes but this one is always the standby. the other ones get ridden hard and sold after about 20,000 miles but he will die with that one.

Back in 1984 I would have killed to get the 900 ninja. I test rode one and it was fantastic. 10 times better feeling than the GPZ1100 I owned or the KZ1000, however I rode it all of 5 miles maybe, so long term may have changed things. For sure a 16" front wheel does not work though. As to the engine I don't know, but saw high mileage ones back in the day. Nowhere near the piece of junk of the era such as the V4 Hondas for sure. As to not seeing them on the road, that is true, but I don't see Interceptors, FJ1100s, no early GSXR Suzukis either. Bikes in the 80s for the most part were forgettable and have been long lost. They didn't build 10 gazillion ninjas like KZs. A buddy of mine worked at a Kawasaki dealer for a long time and told me they sold around 60 KZ650s in 1977, then around 1985 he said if they sold 6 of any model in a year they were surprised.

bike sales up here at least went into the crapper in the early eighties to mid eighties and they never did recover until mid ninties. but like cars guy's will want to restore what they remember so in the very near future mid eighties sport bikes will become very collectable just like our kz's are now so if you can get good examples reasonably then i would be jumping all over them as they will only get more desirable in the future. and as far as the 16 inch wheel goes what do the moto gp bikes use i'm pretty sure they are on 16.5 inch tires now aren't they

I believe 16.5's are common in MotoGP.

I think the first gen GSXR's as well as the GPz900 and FZR1000 etc are going to start climbing in price as well. But in local classifieds you can pick up VF750 Interceptors for next to nothing, hell I think some guy's would pay you to come get them LOL.

On the availabilty of certain mid 80's models I think it has alot to do with the death of the 70's UJM, as manufacturers diversified thier lineups with specific nich bikes...like the dreaded cruisers, all out race reps, tourers etc. They built some strange stuff in the early 80's like Hondas Ascot tracker wannabe, Yamahas ultra crappy Vision 550, any Magna/Sabre/Interceptor, Suzukis Tempter...the list is mind boggling. Far cry from the basic KZ, GS, XS, CB series of bikes in the 70's

This 900 is chewin away at my brain, I find it's tuggin at the wallet lol.

I went from an '81 GPz1100 to a '85 900 Ninja (GPz900) in '87. The difference was like night and day. The 900 felt much lighter, handled way better. The problem was front tire choice, not a lot of 16" fronts available. They are a very comfortable bike to tour on and back in the day would keep up with just about anything.

The only real problem I had was the rubbers on the carb slides. I had to replace them at 45,000 kms as they where warn, very expensive at the time. Now there must be plenty of parts bikes out there. I put a little over 70,000 kms on that bike before I went to a new at the time '93 GSXR1100.

Great bike, one I wish I still had!

actually i found that quite a few sport bikes from the mid80's to early 90's used the 16 inch front wheel the late 80's to early 90's 1100 katana's fj1100's ninja 600 and i'm sure a few more also a lot of the honda sportbikes from that time