swing arm upgrade

i am sure this has been addressed many times before. But, I am looking to put a newer swing arm on my 76 900. I want to go with a mono shock setup. Could someone tell me what swingarms are compatable w/ my 900.

I've never done this upgrade myself although I would like to, but my guess is nothing is going to bolt on. You will have to weld in an upper shock mount for sure and the front pivot area will have to be sized for your bike. Some guys on here have done this so hopefully they will chime in and you can find out which swingarms they used.

OK, you have a few options. Some require more work than others. The frames for 73-80 Z1/Kz900/1000's are pretty much the same except for the shaft drive and police models.


Option #1A: Gsxr750 (86-87) or Gsxr1100 (87-88)**This is the arm on my 1000.**
Again close to a bolt on. The front of the swingarm is very close to the same width as a Kz arm. Use the Gsxr bearing and races with the Kz pivot bolt. If you go with a mono-shock the Gsxr linkage is goofy and will be a headache to make it work properly. You will also need to weld a brake rod stay for the caliper since the GSXR had the stay mounted to the frame instead of the swingarm.

Option #1B: Gsxr750 (88-92) or Gsxr1100 (89-92)
**This is the arm going on my '76 Kz900 w/ mono-shock.**
Same principle as 1A but you will need to use the bearing races from the earlier arms (both arms use the same bearing but these arms use a bigger pivot bolt).

Option #1C: Gsxr600 (92-93), Gsxr750 (93-95) or Gsxr1100 (93-98)
These arms are still close to the same width as the Kz arm at the front. They do use both bigger bearings and races than both earlier styles of Gsxr arms. With these you'll have to have races/spacers for the front pivot bolt. These arms are braced on top on the right side on earlier models and both sides on some of the later ones. Also, the brake caliper is mounted to a caliper plate that doesn't use a brake rod stay.

Option #3: Suzuki Gsf1200 Bandit (all years, I think)
The Bandit arm is actually narrower than the Gsxr arms so you'll need spacers to make them the same width. Also the Bandit uses a "big" pivot bolt so again custom races/spacers will need to be made. With the Bandit arm you can go with either twin shocks or mono-shock.

Option #4: Any other arm........I have no idea.

Later, Doug

Well there is the option of the 82 gs aluminum arm. It can take upto a 5.5 rim from a gsxr. I have practical exprerience with this set up as a friend of mine did this exact swap on his bike.

For you bike the gs swingarm is the cheapest and quickest and least painfull solution. Although the 86 gsxr arm is nice too but unless you are monoshocking the bike there is that factor to concider.

Post edited by: galaxian, at: 2007/08/29 12:08

well this started as a gsxr 750 arm but i didnt like the way the axle mounted,thought it looked kinda cheesey.so after many hours of head scratching and drawing pictures i came up with the extensions that fit into end of arm i had my engine builder machine for me.this was before they were welded in and smoothed out.