TOPIC:

Ive searched and read about this for months now. As far as I can tell, the r1 front end is a great choice, but it's 2"-2.5" shorter than a stock 78 kz1000. The 14+ fz09 is basically a 2" over r1 front end. The question I have is does anyone think the rake angle of the kz frame will cause any issues with the fz09 forks? They were designed for a steeper rake. Will the 4 degrees or so of extra rake angle change the performance of the forks? What pitfalls should i watch out for when setting up my suspension with this front end? Anyone see any reason this won't pair well with zrx1200 rear shocks if i match the zrx shock geometry? Im hoping to give this thing a more solid chassis. It started as not much more than a bare frame. If I have to buy a bunch of parts, i may as well make improvements where i can.

A ZX9-R (94 - 97) front end is the best handling improvement you can get. Trust me, i know what i am talking about.

Scirocco wrote: A ZX9-R (94 - 97) front end is the best handling improvement you can get. Trust me, i know what i am talking about.

Yep! 9R front end works just fine.

I could see where w clipons and rearsets the shorter forks wouldn't be as big of a deal, but im not going that route. Shortening the trail seems like the opposite of what i want.

That looks good man. I decided against the zx9r swap.

So no helpful input about how rake angle negatively affects USD fork performance, durability, etc.?

The altered rake angle won't affect the forks function but you may have to play with the spring pre load , oil viscosity and damping adjustments to work with the differing weight of the KZ.

here is my Z1R with an R1 frontend



i machined a custom upper triple to compensate for the loss in leg length.

the rake angle changed nothing i can notice.

that's my .02

fwiw

leon

Leon,
Thanks for chiming in here. You do good work and I see you share a lot of knowledge on here. How much did u spend on a custom triple? Because I can get longer tubes for the r1 forks for a couple hundred dollars, and it seems like custom triples are a little pricier. Which is why I was also wondering, can i do longer inner fork tubes and spacers on an inverted fork the same way you would do for conventional forks? Ive found the right length tubes to add 2.5" to the r1 forks, but i don't know enough about inverted forks to know if this is an option or not?

Wont work mate, the spring cartridge will have to be longer also, there is a company that makes extensions for usd forks in Australia that adds to the length of your upper tube and extends the cartridge though i cant imagine it will better the performance but you will get the length you need.. insert joke here.... and the cost is fairy doable.

You can internally extend most USD by a maximum of 32mm with a simple damper rod extension and no other mods - see pic's
Any more and you need extensions to the stanctions and longer ones for the damper rod as in the above post. or slugs for the top tubes but you then have to watch out for the fork tapers dropping out of the bottom yoke.

Why wouldn't the fabricated ones work. the smaller pieces screws onto the bottom of the damper extending it and the large diameter piece extends the USD top tube.

Looks just like the one Zed1015 made up.

Here are my ZX9R extensions. A Local bike builder machined the original tops down and threaded the extensions,outside and in, so that the internal length stayed the same and the original adjusters could still be used. (A bit awkward to get to but how often do you want to adjust them?). I got them a couple of cm over length to give the possibility to raise /lower them.