sooooo, some may call me crazy and some may call me stupid.  i say im both.

i got some “extra” money from insurance so i bought my dad some real automotive paint for his moto.  i painted it years ago with flat black paint and a shitload of clear coat.  it turned out good and lasted a long time but it was looking worn so his bike was in need of a fresh paintjob.

we stuck with flat black but i bought the same brand as my flat orange.

http://www.tcpglobal.com/kustomshop/

this paint is awesome.  it doesnt need a clear coat and resists chemicals and UV rays.  and its cheap.

so the only problem is my dad lives in PA and i live in VA.  well i hoped on the bike friday (7-18) at 3pm and headed north… and west.  i made great time.  it only took me a little over 7 hours.

this was right before i left work.  i had a great trip home.  while i was on 17 i snapped a few pics…

i was bored… what can i say?

i woke up the next day pretty early and started tearing my dads bike down.  i borrowed my buddies spray gun and was pretty excited to try it out.  after i got everything tore down i layed it all out and started

painting.

it was coming a long nicely at that point.  only a few pieces to go on.  i also bought him a hard trunk and an extra seat so he can use it when he rides to and from work.  here is the final product.

so in under 24 hours i drove 400 miles to pa, tore my dads bike apart, painted it and put it back together.  i think i did pretty damn good.

the next day we headed out and my dad road back the whole way with me to va beach.  it was awesome yet again.  amazing… i love these trips.  i will remember them for the rest of my life.

my dads nuts.  he drove the whole way then slept until 6AM then headed another 6 hours back to bedford to his truck.

another successful trip, 850 miles in less then 48 hours.

here she is all fixed and pretty much completely done in my book.  ill post a complete list of mods, even down to the stupid little stuff.  the main changes is the 636 front end, buell dual headlights and black rims.

well i wanted a new seat for 2 reasons. 1, my seat had orange paint all over it and 2 it wasn’t comfortable for shit. 40+ miles in it and my ass was sore. this was not acceptable.

sure i could go with buying a corbin or sargent. i could even pay a professional to do it but what would be the fun in that? so i set out to recover both seats and put a gel insert in the drivers seat.

i got the gel, memory foam and smoothing fabric from Kno Place Upholstery Co on ebay. here are the directions i used.

http://www.knoplace.com/Gel_Pad_Installation.html

i went and bought a $10 electric knife from wal mart and some $2 spray adhesive. i started taking the stock covers off and didnt look back. here are some pics.

both seats before

fabric im going to use

gel, memory foam and smoothing foam installed

w00t

recovered!

i havent gone on a long distance ride but i can already tell that it is a major improvement. i will be traveling to PA shortly so i will definitely know then if it helped.

just some pics of the Z and its morph. there are a lot of new versions to come. the wheels will be powdercoated low gloss black and a new 2005 kawasaki 636 frontend will be mounted.

purchased it site unseen. version 0.1

customized it a little by it falling off of the sidestand while i was at work. dent in the gas tank, bent handlebars and brake lever. version 1.0

bought new cockpit stuff (see post) and rear seat cowl and painted shit. now i have a total of 3 different color oranges black and silver. version 1.5

this is where she stands at now 5-16-08. below is a list of mods. version 2.5

i had a old busa carbon fiber tank guard laying around so i decided to cut it up. i couldnt stand seeing the swing arm pivot bolts so i wanted to cover them up.

i thought they turned out really cool looking.

easy mod. ive only been on a few twisties down here in VA as opposed to riding in PA but i still can notice improvements that need to be made. the rear shock wasn’t bad but there is always room for improvement. somebody from the z1000 forums was selling a ‘03 636 shock so i jumped on it. i also bought 3/4″ shorter dogbones to raise the rear a little.

here are the dogbones purchased from Goodrode on the z1000 forums. 3/4″ shorter. i painted them low gloss black.

here are the shocks side by side. not only am i getting a better shock im getting rid of the red!

my trusty torque wrench. 25 ft/lbs per shock/dogbones bolts and 94 ft/lbs for the rear axel nut.

you have to raise the bike because you are taking the rear shock off which supports it. there are many different ways but i just jacked it up with a car jack and put 2 jack stands on each side of a plank of wood. worked great.

i will post a report as soon as i get to ride this thing. still waiting on the oring for the fuel pump… ugh.

wow, this was really really really easy to install. just take the gas tank off. there are 2 plugs and a quick release fuel tube to disconnect. try to have as little fuel in there as possible. another person to hold the gas tank up would also be nice but i did it by myself more then once…

plug the power commander inline…

mount it in the trunk

hard huh?

ill report back after i try a few maps.

ah i love working on this bike. well i found a painter around here on good old craigslist. his name was buddy and quoted from his ad he is “a one man band” and will “getter done” i thought to myself this guy is perfect! he quoted me $200 to paint everything and from what i was getting from other places it was a steal.

so now i needed a color. i had a few in mind. flat black, flat orange, corvette orange, suzuki burnt orange or the stock kawasaki orange. well i wanted to be different AND keep the cost down a little bit so the bike specific colors were out of the question. i finally ended up with flat orange and my search was on to find the paint. after multiple google searches i finally found a seller on ebay. here is their website.

http://www.tcpglobal.com/kustomshop/

this is the picture i had to go on. and a photoshop of what i thought the bike would look like.

so i ordered the paint, stripped down the bike and away the pieces went to buddy.

here are the pieces i got back from him. i love it!

ok so i also wanted a new exhaust because i hated the stock 4 pipe look. i found some leo vince sbk slipons on ebay for a great deal. again, i cant leave well enough alone sooo i had to modify them some

here they are in stock form.

so i chopped them down and painted them with some 500 degree low gloss header paint. i cut them down to about 11.5″. i also didn’t put the straps back on and just put rivets. there are some blemishes but i think they look awesome!

i also got a bunch of stuff powdercoated. i found a guy on the z1000 forums… look him up b_eastep. he did a great job.

here is the final product!

i also put a k&n air filter in and cut out the airbox a little to add more airflow. i took it for a ride on omg this thing pulls like mad! i cant believe just the exhaust and airbox mods made that much of a difference but they sure do. after the first ride i noticed a bunch of gas leaking. after further inspection the gasket for the fuel pump is tore up. i didnt seat it correctly when reinstalling the fuel pump. so that is on order and im waiting for it to get here. after i get it installed i will take better pics.

well, the cockpit is pretty much all you see when you are riding. i couldn’t stand the way it looked when i got it so i had to fix that.

i bought some lsl superbike low bars, new handlebar clamp, gel grips off of ebay, barend mirrors and pazzo levers. this completely transformed the look of the cockpit and bike in general. here are some pics.