my z650 / 1170 rebuild

i suppose id better start somewhere , this could be a long story, i got the bike about 10 yrs ago ,it was a californian import with slash cut dragpipes, high bars and a matt black paintjob and it was in boxes dissasembled
i originally intended to rebuild it standard so took the frame into work and blasted and powdercoated it a nice gloss black , i stripped the motor clean and gave it a nice coat of silver, pollished the casings and put it in the frame , i had been told the engine was a good runner but after all the work of cleaning it up it turned out to be goosed .
not having a supply of engines but being a paint sprayer i did a favour for a mate and sprayed his zxr750 and acquired into the deal a gsxr750 motor , this was for something else originally but it seemed so simple to fit i decieded to put it in the 650 .
the suzi motor fell into the frame and the welded on engine mount even lined up so it was simply a matter of remaking the other mounts to suit .
up and running it was clear the suspension and brakes were never going to cope with that motor so i acquired some bits from a suzi 400 bandit , namely the wheels forks and brakes and set about grafting them on , a swingarm from a cbr400 super four also appeared and with a little bit of machining slid into the frame quite nicely .
id better take a breather :laugh:
i decieded id respray it ,including the frame in 3 shades of candy faded into each other , because this was never going to be standard i went the whole 9 yards and it ended up like this , turned a few heads at the local bike meet .

sacrilage i know with the suzy motor , but that eventually gave up the ghost and smashed a couple of valve seats and the bike sat unloved in the garden and eventually gave up its parts for another project , ill dig a picture out of it sitting stripped and unloved ,
after three years i decieded it was time to do something with it , the thought of putting a standard engine back in never crossed my mind tho , i wanted something bigger and faster but , i wanted something kawasaki too .
z900 , z1000 would have fitted the bill but as you know these fetch big money nowadays but all was not lost because a gpz1100 came up on a website in bits , ideal for my project i thought , this is what i got .

now most people would have rebuilt the gpz but the frame was bent and the motor had been standing for many years so it became a donor , it was also very cheap , which i liked .
now a gpz engine conversion is not a simple drop it in and go affair as id hoped but anything can be made to fit with some inginuity and a welder , a large hammer and lots of time
here it is fitted , just to keep you interested in the build .
ill show you later just how much work it took

Now that is a cool bike. Looking forward to the details!

here goes a bit of info and some pics
first off i had to remove some of the frame modifications i had done when i put the other motor in, no way would the gpz motor fit . i took a rough guess and chopped it out , as it turned out it wasnt quite enough but better to remove a bit more than have to put some back in .

that let the motor in the frame but the front mount needed removing next to let the motor sit a bit further forward

the shortened mount welded in place

with a bit more shaping and some steel welded back in the frame looked good again

now the motor dropped in quite nicely

clearance was very tight at the sides tho

less than id hoped for

i also found this triangle bit of webbing under the right side hit the frame rail and stopped the motor dropping any further , simple solution was to remove it !!