Well, here we go again - this time from statuary write off ZX10 to track bike. Thankfully not my blue 07, but the green 06 I purchased off Burkey late last year.
The bike has 24,000km on the clock & was immaculate prior to the drop. Now nose fairing has a minor crack on the left mirror mount. Left upper fairing has road rash and a lump missing (inc lug mount) from the front. Hero blob broken off left foot peg, scratch on left mirror, scraped left exhaust heat shield, minor scrape to the tail, a bend on the swing arm pick up spool and a broken clutch lever. The swing arm is the reason for the stat write off, but the bike tracks perfectly straight, even with no hands on the bars.
Riding it around the local track (re station car park), I found that it rides fine except the broken clutch lever is annoying, the tyres are a bit worn in the center making streering slow & the front brake was worse than woeful. After a good bleed there was more pressure at the lever, but stopping was terrible. Even grabbing a hand full of brake I could not lift the rear or lock the front.
And so I formulated my Initial plan to complete the bike in three stages; Each stage aimed at lap time improvement, with largest gain for fewest $$$ first.
1) Track ride-able but in road fairings
- New levers
- ZX14 Calipers
- New tyres (OK a pair of Diabalo super corsers one track day old I have in the shed)
- drop forks further through triple clamp
2) Track bike set-up
- Race fairings
- Rear sets
- Stiffer fork Springs
- TRE
- Gearing change (-1 on front)
3) Race bike with all the bells & whistles
- Full exhaust system (GP style would be nice)
- PCV
- Quick Action Throttle
- Re-valve forks & shock (or full rework/replace)
- maybe lighter wheels
- Race Dash
- what ever goodies I can gradually add on as I can afford them
Before Christmas 2015 I started ordering the stage 1 parts; levers and ZX14 calipers. Calipers from the states, levers from UK. The calipers took a guided tours of the entire 52 states before finally winging their way down under, and turned up early Jan. The Royal Mail accidentally sent the levers to Austria instead of Australia, and they have now been declared lots. Seller refunded my $ as he didn't have replacement in stock. I ordered an alternative pair yesterday and hope to see them soon. It really is hard finding an intermediate set of levers; I can't afford top of the line $400+ and don't want a cheap Chinese $50 set.
As for the calipers; well they pissed brake fluid in transit and the pads are soaked. I set about searching for some race pads on the interweb, and found they were more expensive than the calipers! Settled for HH sintered. Whilst I was there I ordered a set of Racetec fork springs to firm up the front. These are in transit & should be delivered Monday (I was hoping for today).
Today I started prepping the bike ready for the front end rebuild, including removal of fairings so I can support the bike for fork removal. Of course I had a little help from my friends...
- ZX10 stripped 22/01/16
Having removed the fairings, I have decided the upper left is too far gone for the track. So I have reformulated the plan into two stages - track bike for now & more race upgrades later. I'll sell off what road gear I can and use that to fund as much as is possible for now - hopefully race glass & rear sets.
More updates as they happen, but I expect this to be long term
