Making a Kawasaki Z1 race ready. Again

As a child, I oil painted...always drawing too.
My major in College was advertising design, I dropped out as a junior to open a motorcycle shop
Craft projects of every size, kind, and challenge are fun to me.

531blackbanshee wrote: when i was at Joe Mondello's head porting technical school he said that his friends called him

"the human bridgeport".

now i think that maybe arthurs friends also call him the human bridgeport :lol: .

but joe did some of his own dental work and ground his teeth for fillings and filled them!!!!!!!!

arthur,have you ever done your own dental work?

nice work arthur thanks for sharing.

leon

Joe left us last year. That's sad

Joe left us last year. That's sad [/quote]

sad indeed.

to say that he was awesome is an understatement .

leon

Hey Arthur, you still around these parts?

yes, 'still around.
My wife and I just returned from a 6 week motorcycle trip from our Daytona Beach FL home to Alaska and back...on our 2009 Concours 1400.
Next challenge is to prepare the vintage Z1 racer for 2 races this fall. A CCS event at JenningsGP and the AHRMA event at Daytona International Speedway.

Oh very cool! I've driven from PA to AK then rode my little LTD 550 up to Deadhorse. I'd like to ride to Anchorage some day though.

dbsuperbiker wrote: here is some memorabilia...enjoy!
the first ever Superbike race;

in some fast company, look at the several eventual world champions on factory bikes;

and a photo from the starting tower of that 1982 AMA race, match the riders to their bike number;

I think they spelled wes cooleys name wrong! :woohoo:

LarryC wrote:

531blackbanshee wrote: when i was at Joe Mondello's head porting technical school he said that his friends called him

"the human bridgeport".

now i think that maybe arthurs friends also call him the human bridgeport :lol: .

but joe did some of his own dental work and ground his teeth for fillings and filled them!!!!!!!!

arthur,have you ever done your own dental work?

nice work arthur thanks for sharing.

leon

Joe left us last year. That's sad

He always said his retirement party and funeral would be held at the same time,Im sure somebody probably slid a die grinder and some carbides in the box with him.

Sup all! Great posts! Ok; I rode my ole 76 KZ900 to the Vintage Motorcycle days at Mid Ohio couple weekends back. Awesome experience. Only have one problem; I think I'm bitten by the "track bug". I'm an old gearhead, doing a frame up resto on my 70 Chevelle SS, used to build motors on the side back in the day and I've done a bit of drag racing.

Bikes; my cousin had a "9" back in the day (1980-82) and I always loved that bike. When it was time to get a bike again (1998) I decided to find an old "9". I was successful and a couple years back (after putting 40K miles on it) I tore it down and gave it a make over (pics are on this site). Anyway; I've also acquired a 77 KZ 1000 LTD I would like to build for the street and I've got a 76 KZ900 parts bike along with a couple spare 900 motors.

Somebody talk me out of building a 900 vintage superbike for the track, PLEASE! I've ridden all my life but I have zero track experience. But OMG; that has got to be the most fun a person can have with their clothes on!!!

cmarsh61 wrote: Somebody talk me out of building a 900 vintage superbike for the track, PLEASE! I've ridden all my life but I have zero track experience. But OMG; that has got to be the most fun a person can have with their clothes on!!!

Hi Cmarsh! Welcome to the Forum. We have a whole different forum devoted to racing , this is just one thread in that forum.

Apologies to Arthur for jacking his thread. A few guys race 650s in vintage events, I would suggest that is where you should consider starting. Building a competitive open class vintage superbike will be prohibitively expensive.

Here are a few threads you might find interesting:

1. Building ahrma middleweight superbike--need advice
2. AHRMA Vintage Superbike Middleweight Racer
3. Turboguzzi's first race of the season
4. GPZ750/810 racer running....

MTBspeedfreak,
Thanks for the info and direction. I agree that going directly into the superbike heavyweight would be jumping into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim, and I've thought to myself starting out with a little 650 would be smarter. But; I ain't got no 650s. I've got 900 and 1,000 stuff (bikes, frames, motors, carbs etc. I'll look around for a 650, and if you know of anyone who has one for sale let me know. I'm sure they are similar to their big brothers (9'a and 1,000s). I'm about an hour south of Indianapolis. Do you know of any racing clubs or organizations in the state a person could link up with? Appreciate any and all info/direction.

Hello...May I suggest you beg, borrow, or rent a modern sportbike or SV650 type bike, then attend a trackday to see what track riding is all about.
It's not what everyone expects. Then you can decide if making any antique bike track worthy and racing it is for you.