Gixerman's Kwak Zed Thou Project

First item I got for the right price was the thing top of my list a pair of carbon cans/mufflers and link pipes.



Over the next few months I also got some nice rearsets, Some engine case covers to replace the scuffed up ones, some fuel injector covers and solo seat cowl and a new gas cap, Not exactly a bumper haul but as I was only working part time it was a decent start (no pics of other goodies yet but you'll see them as they go on)

All the above parts where stuffed in my suitcase and bought back with me a few weeks backs

And now the Kwak Zed Thou Project can begin, before any of my US brothers point out it's pronounced Zee and not Zed I just want to say that as an Englishman as far as i'm concerned it's Zed has always been Zed and always will be Zed

Now that's out the way first up was to test fit the mufflers (see I am trying to adopt most of the language differences)





The new mufflers and link pipes look a lot better that the stock monstrosities but there is still a lot of room for improvement.

Next job was to fit the brand new Valter Moto rearsets that I scored for a very good price and then see how the exhaust system can be made sexier.





The new rearsets look really good on and that's another hideously fuggly stock gone for good, So many of the modern nakid bikes have the grossest rearsets they really detract from the overall look of the bike.
The rearsets mount the rear brake M/C higher up than stock so the hose to the res pot needed cutting shorter and i'm not entirely happy with the brake line routing but that is a problem for another day when funds allow another smaller M/C

Obviously with the new rearsets there was no way the mufflers were going to work with out having ridiculously long hangers from the subframe and that simply will not do at all.

Yesterday I got to play with my favourite tool the angle grinder and after some link pipe cutting that saw both of them basically lopped in half until I ended up with something I was a lot happier with.



In the above pic the muffler is sitting lower that it actually would with the clamps and hanger fitted and when fitted properly had a real nice line with the rearsets and tail of the bike.
(The more observant of you will also notice the engine case is 2 different colours this was the previous owners attempt at hiding/repairing the roadrash on the cover and it has been done like this both sides)

It wasn't until I had fitted the pipe and muffler in the above pic and i went around the other side of the bike that I realised I had fooked up a little bit nearly 15yrs of modding bikes and in my haste I made a total noob error........Can ya guess what I did wrong???

I'll tell ya wot I did wrong, I spent all that time getting the muffler and pipe looking spot on on the RHS side of the bike and then mirrored my mods for the LHS but it wasn't until I went to put the zorst on the other side I realised that I hadn't taken into account 2 little thingd first the gear lever sits lower than the rear brake because of the linkage mount and secondly the bikes chain....Duh!



So I found that if I forced the muffler down under the linkage mount it would kinda fit but I knew that sooner rather than later the carbon fibre would splinter and the other little issue would have been the bikes chain sawing into the can...not a good thing to happen me thinks.

One way around this was to rotate the link pipe until everything has enough clearance but then you end up with ya muffler sticking out at a ridiculous angle.



I can think of two reasons off the top of my head for not doing this, firstly it looks fookin' stoopid and more importantly despite the serious lack of corners/bends in Illinois I do actually enjoy having my bikes cranked right over on their side and would hate to have my shit bottom out if I do happen to find a corner on my travels.

So it was back to the drawing board

Spent several hours today scratching my head and trying to figure out how best to change the link pipe again so there are no clearance issues and the still look visually pleasing to the eye.
After some cutting and grinding of the pieces of link pipe I had I finally got it to the stage where I was pretty happy with it.



It was getting really late when I got to this point and I forgot to snap a pic of the other side but you get the idea.
With the zorst in this position it means i'll have to make up some creative brackets for the mufflers but I think overall it should look pretty good once its all done, It's already a thousand times better looking than stock.

Tomorrow I gotta go and find someone who can weld my pipes together and then I'm back in business.



That's all for now and i'll update this as and when I can, I have no tinternet where i'm staying right now so I can only DW or go online when I'm at me folks place.

Thanks for the comments.

Quick update, I've modded the airbox to help the bike breathe a little better and the link pipes now have been welded up and fitted to the bike I still need to polish all the pipe work but i'm still waiting for my tools etc to arrive, That just leaves me the muffler brackets to make and then the zorst is done.

Before


After


Zorst welded and fitted

chaos6 said:

BTW...do you have a K&N filter for that thing? I have the one for my Z, and seeing as how I've chopped the airbox out I don't think it'll work for me anymore. I'm pretty sure that the 750 and the 1K use the same one. Let me know if you want it.

Click to expand...

Thanks mate, i'll definately be able to give your old K&N filter a good home.

I've got a few more bits and pieces done since my last update, My tool chest, tools and assorted bike goodies was delivered from the UK sun last week and while having a rummage I found a few bits that'd work on the zed.

One of the small things that i found hugely iritating when i fitted the rearsets was the routing of the rear brake line as pictured below.



While sorting through my various bike bits I came across a nicely polished rear master cylinder and small res pot and also a set of chromed head light brackets.





I cut and shaped the headlight brackets and used them as mounts for the mufflers I also had to slightly mod the muffler straps to make it all work but the end result didn't come out too bad considering.

With the zorst now all sorted apart from a bit of a polishing on the pipework I got busy fitting the M/c to the rearsets, straight away the rear brake line routing was spot on and ran nicely along the length of the swing arm. (Finished muffler clamp and brackets also show below)





With the M/C test fitted I went about mounting the res pot, first I put it where the original pot went but because of the where the connecting pipes would be it wouldn't work without the line getting kinked and besides I don't like clutter on bikes so I decided to hide the res pot behind the bikes side panels.

I had another rummage in the parts box and found a bracket that originaly came off a mountain bike and after grinding it down a little and adding some rubber from a p-clip the res pot (minus mounting tab) was a perfect fit.







Then I knocked up a quick bracket to mount the res pot holder to the bike and then fitted a length of hose covered with some braied sleeving.
I also lobbed the old res pot mount of the sub frame with a grinder and everything looked much cleaner.



Finally threw the side panel back on the bike and I am very happy with how clean it all looks now.



Next up I really need to start prepping the body work for paint because I'm really not into the stock every panel a different colour scheme.