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.

basically with anything i own i cant leave well enough alone. im goin to document this process here. previously ive made dedicated websites to my motos that i modded but this should be easier and get the point across. time is money you know?

i purchased a 2003 kawasaki z1000 last year in september. i had a 2005 suzuki hayabusa but i just didnt feel connected to it. before i had the busa i had a heavily modded sv650 that i loved. i wanted something naked because i loved my SV but i still wanted a little more power. the z1000 was exactly what the dr ordered.

i purchased it site unseen (talk about that later) from somebody in NC and my dad picked it up and delivered it to me in VA. this was a leap of faith but the deal was really good so i went for it. here she is when i got her. well this was after it fell off the sidestand and dented the gas tank, bent the brake lever and bent the handlebars. no worries i was going to replace them anyway!

initial comparison to the busa and sv… its right in between the sv and busa! perfect fit for me. its naked but has a little windscreen for some protection. it is comfortable and i like the handlebars as opposed to clipons. i have a 90 year old mans back so it helps. the power is great. nothing really compares to the busa but it is enough to keep me smiling and little enough for me to run the shit outta it and have fun. does that make sense?

ill update the blog with more postings of mods… there will be a lot!