Jay Abington had never heard of a fighter before he built this bike and subsequently found Customfighters. com. We’re very glad he did, as he’s shown us something very different. Jay is a down-to-earth, unpretentious guy. In speaking with him, it became clear that this build was done for his own pure enjoyment, and nothing else.   He wasn’t out to impress anyone or prove anything, he simply wanted to build something he could be proud of — something he had made with his own two hands. Building and creating is Jay’s life. To say that he is a gearhead would be an understatement. Putting things together is something he says has been part of him since he was a kid, and he expects it always will be. Jay just cannot stop; he has to constantly be working on something — to the extent that he literally built the wooden bed he sleeps on, AND the hand tools to carve it with! “Idle hands do evil things, so we’ve got no time for that,” he said.

When he was 10, Jay began to work on tractors and equipment, learning from his father-figure neighbor. By the time he was in high school, he was working for an auto parts store, building engines and doing machine work.  Back when working auto parts meant really knowing the stuff, not just reading the parts fiche. His love for tuning led him to work at a high-performance BMW motorcycle shop in the Bay area of California, making parts and building winning race bikes.  The eight years spent there, he says, taught him more than he’d ever learned in terms of performance tuning.  Years later, he moved on to hot rod engines and sprint cars.  He’s spent time alongside people like New Zealand’s John Britten, but he has no “holier-than-thou” aura about him. More recently, Jay has done heavy equipment repair (ask him about his customized work-truck), which he is stepping away from a bit while working for a local business owner — building race cars in one of the nicest home facilities I’ve ever seen, including a personal dyno! Suffice to say, just about everything Jay does revolves around motors and/or having fun.

Jay wanted to build a custom bike, specifically tuned to the tight, twisty, redwood-dotted California mountain roads. Having already built an ex-police Mustang and a shifter cart for that environment, he decided to do the same with a motorcycle. As a life-long builder, he has honed his preferences, so he had a few requirements for this build. First off, no battery. Jay said he hates things being over-complicated so he builds them with as few parts as possible, hence the two-stroke motor (less moving parts). The bike had to be light, as Jay doesn’t have a lot of weight to throw around. An amazing point of this bike is that it is held together with 26 bolts, and if you don’t believe it, start counting. Also, it can be disassembled to a pile of parts well within an hour (“in 27 minutes,” Jay said).

Jay’s been lending his hand to serious machinery his whole life, so this was to be a creation all his own, and nothing less. He purchased a zx9 rolling chassis for frame measurements and running gear.  A somewhat unconventional motor for the bike was sourced, a Kawasaki H1, which required him to build a custom frame to adapt
the modern upgrades and not-so modern motor. He wanted to set his center of gravity even and low on the bike, so he actually built a custom gas tank to mount UNDER the bike. He used foam inside the tank, to keep the fuel from sloshing around too much, and adapted a shifter cart fuel pump to get the vital fluid to the engine. Having the tank below the bike meant he had to build custom pipes with expansion chambers to run above the motor, and out the back. He also made his own adjustable rearsets, clip-ons, oil resi and all the body panels, to complete his original look.

Paint was troublesome for Jay, as the bike looked absolutely rugged with no paint, but he eventually came up with a color scheme that sets the bike apart in a sea of darkness, and pays homage to the Kawasaki racing heritage that powers the bike.

In reference to the lack of general road safety devices, blinkers, headlight, horn, tail light, Jay responded “You’re going to break the law anyway, so fuck it!” I knew I liked this guy!