R1 forks on KZ900

Gday

I can get a set of 2000ish R1 front forks for next to nothing well a bottle of bourbon :evil: so got me thinking has anyone put this on a 76 z900 ?? i am in the process of putting new wheels 17" spokeys (front and rear) and will be using a GS1100 rear swing arm. Ill probably get billet tripple clamps.

Has anyone done this, can they comment ride height handling etc. i know i will need to sort caliper wheel spacers disk spacers etc

thanks in advance

If you can get them cheap I'd do it. My only concern would be the ride height, but triples can be modified to make it work.

i suppose they r right side up forks. Some guys prefer the upsidedowners with radial brakes. Its all preference.
most any front end can be adapted by swapping the steering stem from the kz to the donor’s tree. The common issues r steering stops gauge mounts bar mount, fork length. All can be fairly easy to overcome. Your biggest hurtle will be matching the hub, rotors cal to your chosen spoke wheel.
As for handling, many guys here, including myself have don’t front and rear end swaps. 99% of us report better handling. So don’t worry about that. It will be better, even, if all u do is gusset the frame.

there r guys here that can make u tripples.

Yea, as long as you keep geometry reasonable, You'll have improved handling from a modern suspension. And there are a lot here that have done suspension mods, so there's some good support here. We also have a couple machinists floating around that can get you some tripple's if you let them know what you need. I'm sure one will pop up if you ask nicely. When you do it, you should post pictures and such..

If you're worried about geometry, there's some posts around here with pretty good rundowns of how to figure all that out. Can't remember for sure who off the top of my head, I'm inclined to say it's Les I always see posting it.

And when you get rolling on this, make sure to provide some pictures, I haven't seen an R1 swap yet.

I'm assuming when you say R1 your meaning Yamaha's sport bike. I would think those would be USD's but don't really know for sure. Most if not all newer stuff has less offset which increases trail to impove the high speed handling which isn't a bad thing on these old Kaws. But, on the other hand they tend to be shorter which if you don't lower the rear somewhat you loose some of the trail you gained and a little ground clearance. There is rake and trail calculators on the net to help you get an idea of where your headed. My bike has been raked 5 deg and the forks are 29-1/2", offset is 24mm. It's dead glass smooth at 150 plus and a little lazy getting into corners but, It has a very positive feedback and corners way better than the ground clearance I have, I've almost ground thru the pipe and have ground a nice spot on the kickstand boss. Just going with the USD's you gain not only big brakes but the added rigidity which really impoves the handling. Check out Rams build, there is some pictures of the trees I make to adapt any fork setup to the old kaws, built in steering stops and factory style mounting for the gauges.

Les Holt