Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

G'day space cadets offerings to the gods of speed ,was an inscription given to all the home made failures & experiments of my childhood hero Bert Munro ,who in his 60's set off with his backyard contraption and set some landspeed records in the USA ,which still stand today and now myself like a latter day bert ,am treading the same path ,not with an Indian but a home grown POS ,based around a 22 Y.O. oldschool kawi ,australia has since 1990 its own "Bonneville" Lake Gairdner in SA ,I have been going each year since 1999 .The following build diary is a record of my 3rd project ,the other 2 being a Turbo busa and a 3 wheeled contraption , this old beast handles like the QE2 ,weighs much the same but goes like stink ,sports bike it aint ,but in a straight line boogies , so get yer popcorn out ,get comfortable and A. be entertained B. be bored shitless , or C. be on the salt next year
cheers
gary (hawkwind racing)

Sounds like a good viewing Hawkie but alas ya tease i't lacks ... something like a linkie thing.

Linkie thing be buggered , this saga unfolds right here in this thread Huh where was I ,yer , usually one requires a reason to embark on a long and arduous journey ,in this instance it started long ago when in a fit of drug induced euphoria i lashed out and aquired 2 old school engines ,these being advertised as Kawasaki ZX10 circa 1989,these where to be placed in tandem to power my 3 wheel streamliner ( another long story ) but apon reciept of said engines the decription proved to be some what missleading ,in fact what turned up was 2 x 1987 GPZ 1000 RX engines ,now as you may not be aware there is not a lot of aftermarket performance products for said engines ,which through the course of the build proved to be its Achillies heel ,but i digress, because RX heads are side draught and not down draught as is want with zx10 heads ,they would not fit into the scheme of things with the streamliner ,so what does one do if they have only engines ,one builds a complete bike around said engine/s , but before I go there ,much thinking and designing was required so it was off to the drawing board so to speak .

Where does one start ? I had in the past restored and customised many "normal" bikes but this time I was going to attempt a challenge I had not contemplated , so while I I cogitated on the direction what better than to set the goal ie. a world record in a 1000cc class , so I looked through the record book and picked my target APS/F 1000cc A= special construction (backyard POS) PS= partially streamlined (has a fairing) and F= fuel ( anything except petrol ) or in this case nitrous added , I checked the record speed for this class it being 202mph ( 326kph) and calculated the power requirements to do this and it became quickly apperent a stock RX was not up to the task , so firstly time to hot rod the engine having already been well over 200 mph with the nitrous injected Busa I would go down this road again but with a added twist using methanol in place of petrol ,so the stage is set and the first hurdle approaches , where the F**K do I source performance parts for an RX ? ,so after several months of research and enquiries I had sourced some bits and peices but the rest would have to be custom made as one off's which ment USA and how I became a registered importer , so off went samples ,drawings ,measurments and designs along with my meager life savings and in due course I aquired a s**t load of goodies ,so let the build begin
Cheers

The engine build #1
there is a saying '"Good ,Fast ,Cheap choose two " Im a person of modest means and I want fast so from the start the whole process will be strickly "budget " and what better way of saving a buck or 3 is to do everything yourself ,so with that settled off i set , sadly most of the engine build pics were lost forever when I had a hard drive crash ,but some still survive and they are posted below ,the upgrade consisted off the following
motor & transmission

custom sprockets 17,18 &19 teeth fronts 40 to 35 rears
gears undercut
clutch heavy duty springs and barnett mod kit
hi volume oil pump
oil pan modification
harmonic balancer removed
crank magna fluxed lightened and polished , new bearings
carillo H beam rods and bolts
custom JE flat top forged pistons 10:1 cr and rings
block bored 2thou oversize and o ringed
APE top and bottom stud kits
1mm Ferrea oversize S/S ex&in valves
heavy duty valve springs
Ti retainers
extensive head work porting
stock cams but adjustable sprockets
bronze valve guides
schnitz pro 2 ignition and nitrous controls
wet nitrous system 3 stages
dyna coils and leads
mikuni RS 38mm carbs
mikuni methanol kit ( fuel methanol )
custom exhaust system with EGT sensors
CHT sensors
full avionic instrumentation
and other stuff I cannot remember





these are pics of the head with the nitrous nozzles added

With the first build i added a set of 38mm Mikuni smooth bores with a methanol kit

Any way to cut a long story short I finished my first build ,and I ran it at the lake ,sadly it did not live up to my expitations ,though it did give me a heap of experence and information for a complete new rebuild , this early years bike was christened Mr whippy because of the look alike saddle bags at the rear end ,but to achieve my goal something very different would be required and so it was back to the drawing board , poor ol mr whippy did manage a reasonable speed and made a fair amount of HP , in the dyno graph below it made 132 hp N/A and a touch over 200 hp on stage 1 of the nitrous ,RIP Mr whippy you were cheap and nasty , oh by the way I still have the Mikuni smooth bores if anyone is interested in them





well that concludes part 1 of a GPZ 1000RX on steroids ,stay tuned for part 2 where Mr Whippy morphs into a completly new beast and has great potential for some records
cheers
gary

good stuff gary...