Lowering your ft suspension is ok as long as you lower the back too. Here are some pics of what I did about 15 years ago. I bought 3" lowering kit for the ft forks..sure it looked wicked cool......BUT it liked the handeling!!!!! BIG time........ suspension bottomed out real bad......I had just over 1" of suspension travel...... not cool..so now that I'm getting the Green Monster back on the road...... having been sitting since 2013..... not by my choice either. So one mistake I did..... was lower her too much..... and also thought if I lowered it 3"....... I should cut the springs down too!!!! DOUBLE NEGITIVE!!!!!!!!)....... I just today took the forks apart....... took one spacer and cut it in half on my lathe..so now she is only 1.5" lower........ perfect with my 3" over swingarm project........ now I hope!!!!!! In my stuff....... I have some stock, unmolested springs.......

Tires, tubes, cables, oil and filters, carb kits, battery, plugs, clean/lube advancer, fork oil, brake fluid (rebuild if needed), clean electrical connectors, regrease steering and swingarm bearings, and fresh gas is all you should need.

Do not reapaint or throw anything away.

im in the process of lengthening my arm 3 inches. in the process installing new pivot bearings.stock bearing is 28x22x16mm. on some swingarms you cam double up the bearings on each side for mor strength. my arm has a shoulder down in the tube so it was not possible. so had my bearing guy find me some that are 20mm wide. they fit perfectly!! its a german bearing, part number hk2220-b.

When I changed my swingarm,I kept the original KZ pivot bolt (Fitting in the frame holes) and the hollow GSXR swingarm pivot bolt (fitting in the swingarm retaining the original bearings) and had a sleeve made up to take up the rest of difference..

Nerdy wrote:

Polarity32 wrote: Good Evening gents..
I am thinking of a cafe or scrambler type build,

Look around here for someone named diggerdanh. He's doing a really nice scrambler build from a later KZ400.

Aww, :blush: - thanks for the kind word.

The standard KZ400 has great lines that is easily adaptable to custom styles: cafe, scrambler, tracker, brat, etc. The end result really depends on how much money you want to sink into it. Unfortunately you won't get that money back if you ever decide to sell it because the KZ400s don't bring the same kind of money the little Hondas (CB/CL 350/450) do. One of the reasons for that is the parts available aftermarket. You can find anything you can dream of for a Honda, quite a bit tougher for the little KZ. But it's not impossible.

First thing I suggest is maintenance, get it running well and ride it for a while before making changes. With only 9K miles you may not need to tear into the engine at all as long as there are no serious leaks. 90% chance the early engine (74-76) will leak but if it's only a drop here and there count yourself lucky and I would not mess with it until you have to. Typical things that will need to be inspected/replaced (depending on how long it has been sitting): Check valve lash, change oil (use a motorcycle specific oil), drain and replace fork oil, you may need to replace fork seals and caps, all cables, tires/tubes, battery, chain and sprockets, points and condenser, brake pads and rear brake shoes, possibly shocks, lube anything that needs lubed, etc. Make sure to check nuts and bolts are tight, especially for the wheels, swingarm, shocks, forks.

Where you go after that depends on what you want to do. If you're going to keep the stock carbs, they are the early ones that do not use rubber diaphragms (hooray!), then stick with the stock airbox configuration. If you want to go with pods, clear the triangle, etc. you'll be better off switching to Mikuni VM carbs and K&N/Uni filters rather than trying to run pods with the stock carbs. Though that carb swap does provide its own set of work but it has been done before so you ought to be able to get the jetting in a good starting range. If you want to go to a smaller lithium battery to be able to hide it better then you'll probably want to upgrade the stock electrics to treat the battery better, like swapping out the reg/rect for a newer combo unit from Oregon, Ricks or SparckMoto. If you swap in smaller/LED turn signals you'll have to change the flasher for an electronic one, There are a couple of options for electronic ignition if you are not a fan of points, I have opted for retrofitting the electronic ignition from the later 81+ KZ440s.

Handlebars - do whatever you like, easy swap. Rear shocks are a pretty easy swap, just determine what ride height you want and then spend the money that you want to spend. There are some Progressive options for fork springs if you want to upgrade those. I did not do it on my firs bike but I really like the changing from old rubber lines to braided stainless for the front brake. Lots of other things you can change like head lamp, the brackets that hold it, gauges, that really affect the look.

As mentioned before the biggest pain you will face is with finding custom parts to fit: things like seat, rear sets, etc. For that stuff you'll pretty much be on your own. You may find more help at cafe specific sites like DoTheTon.com.

Best of luck, keep us updated and post some pics when you get it! I'm sure we can help you work through what needs to be done.

This manual and hours of reading here in this great forum helps me a lot on my project bike fork swap.
I used a ZX9-R fork with 780 mm length

So I have an 85 GPZ550 project that I've got a GSXR1000 front end on. After seeing the weight saving from the Gixxer wheel compared to stock, im looking at replacing the rear stock mag wheel with something more modern and lighter. Anyone know what wheel or if all else fails...swingarm and wheel combo that would work with little to no modification?

I just got back from a local Kawi dealer and they were able to order some new tapered bearings and races, and it wasn't terribly expensive.

Soon I'll be putting this saga behind me... I probably should look into rear wheel and swing arm bearings, but I'm not having any issues out of those so I'll leave it alone for this month. I have a very limited monthly budget.

Hello all
I get a lot of value from this forum, ideas and such, so I thought I'd post up my bike. I bought this as a 12 years in the shed non runner. Most of the work I've done myself, except for the rebore and engine internals. A lot has been done on the cheap!

I race in a historic class, "Period 5 Formula 750" Our class is very gentlemanly, but fast and competitive also. We are not allowed mods that were not available after December 1982, so have to be careful about modifications we make.

My main goal was to lighten her (over 30kgs, 65lbs), she had to be quickish, but due to the nature of my class more importantly reliable.
A short list of changes: 700cc Wiseco kit, GS1100E swingarm, dual discs, racetech emulators and springs, a lot of small things.

Future changes? I have a KZ750 head and cams on the way. Hopefully it will be a worthwhile change, with no piston clearance issues. I'd also like some Keihin CR29s if the future budget permits. Perhaps rearsets, but I have long legs and they are already in the way