EN450/KZ454 swing-arm on KZ440LTD?? aka "KZ440LOL"

Hey everybody. I'm doing a belt-drive conversion on an '80 KZ440LTD-A chain-drive model, and I'm curious about using the KZ454LTD/EN450 swinger instead of the regular -D model 440 belt-drive swiinger. I'm even curious about using the rear pulley with it's odd-ball pulley slash cush-drive/sprocket-carrier thing. Being that I'm also doing a wire-wheel swap here, I think that thing would look awesome with the wire-spoke drum hub, maybe I could even ventilate it with holes to shape it like a sort of extraction vane, sucking air from a scoop in the right side of the drum and out the left side at the center of the pulley. Just a brain-fart. But besides that, it cranks up the final-drive ratio a whole lot with it's 68-tooth pulley!

I've got all NOS belt-drive in 22:60 as well as 22:65 - I was contemplating cutting the longer belt down narrower to use on a longer swinger. was visualizing a beefy Aluminum arm or maybe if nothing else a big beefy thing like a KZ650 or more to the point the belt-drive swinger from the KZ750LTD - then again I'm also interested in using the KZ750 belt-drive pulley and the KZ750B wire-spoke conical DISC rear hub, in concert with that belt - and a pulley cut to fit another bike. Well, the KZ440LTD front pulley also fits something like GPZ600 or thereabouts. Sounds interesting, especially when you consider the GPZ600 engine's supposed to fit into a KZ550 chassis....... ANYWAY yeah - for THIS particular bike, I'm kvetching over whether to keep a low ratio for highway use (maybe even the 24-tooth front pulley for 24:60, heck maybe even a stretched swinger for the 50-tooth rear pulley from KZ305CSR/GPZ305 for 22:50 or 24:50??? It's insane to think it would work, but even so!) - OR, for the bike to be only intended as an inner city commuter hence the final-drive ratio could be cranked right up to 22:68 for the best torque, stunting, wheelies etc etc.

Of course, she also wants a side-hack bucket on the bike down the road. I've already scored a hub and rim for this purpose, though the rest of it escapes me!

I'm calling it "KZ440LOL" - the bike's for my kid, she's into scooters so I'm trying to "scooterize" this thing. It's coming out like an adult-sized mini-bike. That's the front wheel in my Avatar pic. 3.00x16" Borrani alloy rim on the Suzuki 4LS drum - spokes as short as a cigarette. Tires will be low-profile Maxi-Scooter rubber, radials OR bias-ply are available - 110/70-16 & 140/70-16, though there's no longer a dual-compound from Michelin maybe I can find an NOS one, who's to say.... There are some nice cheap bias tires though, and for all intents and purposes they're a high-speed and load-bearing rating so I won't be able to exceed that capacity, so why go radial just for the sake of radial? I dig the idea of the dual-compound tire and all, but I'm sure these fat 16"-ers are gonna be VERY sticky already!

The 4LS drum hub has a whole bunch of mods and upgrades, the 2LS in the side-hack wheel is a matching Suzuki T500 in the same 200mm, which led to discovering fitting wider shoes in the 4LS - it's way over-kill so I've just gotta shed some WEIGHT on the damn thing.

But the one place where I can justify sticking some extra weight on the thing are the 39mm fork from CB900F (already modified to take the 4LS drum only, with one caliper lug removed per side PERMANENTLY ha-ha) and a beefier swinger....

Also considering some taller rear shocks. Sure would be nice of the side-hack version could be of the leaning type, so the round profile tires can work their magic. 'Cause while this seems like a novel idea, IMHO - the square-profile side-car tires are a rather boring combination, as these rims are classic side-car racing fodder. That, and a pretty standard Harley chopper rear wheel, to pair up with the un-marked Borrani rims on the early '70s AMF era bikes such as XLH Sportster etc. Same appearance, profile, shoulders, drop-center etc.

I'd much rather keep the wheels seeming WEIRD rather than a classic old's-cool side-hack thing with little creativity.

Also got some 3,50x16" Super-Akront and regular Akront rims which can be used for a rear wheel on the side-hack outfit, 'cause the belt drive on these old 'LTDs moves the rear wheel over to the right, and well it's pretty damn tight.

Might be sketchy with the front end slammed down and steering so much tighter!

But yeah, with three wheels that won't matter so much, so I'll be able to use an even fatter rear tire with that wheel moved to the center. that's actually the proper way to set up a side-car, so far as I know anyhow. I don't THINK you're supposed to move the rear wheel OUTWARD, are you? Seems like it would be more stable that way. Bah - guess I've got a lot of reading to do. In all truth, I think the side-hack idea is a huge undertaking and might be years down the road anyhow. Might even wind up on a different bike. After all, I'm building her a DOHC Honda 750, to follow on the heels of my "CB900K0 Bol Bomber" - and to use up it's left-over hand-me-down parts.....

This KZ is basically a SIDE project. But it's snow-balled out of control.

The swinger would be a pretty cool mod though, wouldn't it? I wonder how the weight compares, between the KZ440LOL tubular swinger, and the box-section version from the KZ454LTD/EN450. 'Cause it's important to note, the stock swinger isn't all that much lighter than a spare swinger off of a CB750F-DOHC and heck that 39mm fork isn't all that much heavier than the KZ440's stock 33mm unit.

They're gonna look so odd side-by-side - the CB900K0 Bol Bomber ('82 CB900F Bol D'Or based tribute to the '65 CB450K0 Black Bomber, with an Aluminum tank from CB1100R with it's sides polished like a toaster-tank type of thing, wire-spoke alloy rims even fatter than the KZ's rims, etc) will look spindly up front until I upgrade it's fork, 'cause right now they've BOTH got the same 39mm fork (hence the hand-me-down parts for a planned 750) meanwhile the Honda has this big fat CAL-FAB Aluminum swing-arm on it and the KZ with this spindly lil' tubular unit dwarfed by it's own drive-belt.

Suffice it to say, these two projects are just EGGING EACH OTHER ON, with the Honda naggin' me "Oh, so I see that SHE got the 4ls drum, what am I gonna get? Don't you love me? I'm YOUR bike!!!" and the KZ whispering into my other ear: "Don't you care enough about your daughter's SAFETY???" Now it's like they're having a muscle flex-off, posing trying to show who's got the beefier limbs.

I've been thinking for a LOOOONG time how I'd like to have a custom swinger modified to suit the KZ - seems like the EN450 unit is IDEAL like it's made FOR the earlier model. Or at least, an after-thought of all the things they "Shoulda"....

-S.