Mark -

Apologies if got the wrong man, I knew it was somebody whose forum I/D was a string of capitals - make allowances, I wasn`t young then and I`m positively superannuated now...!

Swingarm -

It`s a generational thing - in our youth we were given Meccano sets for Christmas, not iPhones...

Cool to see something different being done!

I've not done a custom myself so speculation here, but it seems to me that water cooled bikes must be much harder to make look right if you get what I mean? Radiators aren't exactly small or elegant (usually).

Interested to see how the exhaust looks too.

Beautiful touch with the heel guard, that's class!

A quick update in case you were thinking I`d died or emigrated.

The bike is still with the exhaust fabricator, no firm ETA yet for the new system - also Radtec, who make my radiators and oil coolers, had a massive fire at their factory at the end of July which has left them over three months behind with their orders so it`s all a bit of an `on the back burner` situation at the moment.

I`m amusing myself in the meantime with my other ongoing project, a KR-1 chassis with NC30 swingarm, ZX-6R USD front end and a bored/stroked 421cc 350 Power Valve engine - aiming for under 120kg dry and over 80bhp...

Actually I was wondering what happened to this...

Interested to see how it goes.

It's all cool - these things take time.

That 2-stroke project sounds interesting. Looking forward to some snaps.

Here you go...

Bored/stroked 68 x 58mm Athena Banshee/YPVS motor with PWK 34mm powerjet carbs - just finished building that today.



Here`s the bare bones of the chassis - it is further along than that now but I haven`t taken any pics recently...



It`s a modified KR-1 main frame with cradles added for the Yamaha motor, 2006 ZX-6R front end and NC30 swingarm with a 5.0 x 17" RC36/2 rear wheel.

I love seeing stuff like this. That frame, swingarm and gold forks look marvellous. It's clearly well on it's way

What do you do with regards to the bare aluminium parts? Clear coat or leave bare or something else?

Standard finish on the KR-1 frame is silver paint - this one came to me with the main rails stripped and polished and the added cradle sections in bare aluminium, the stripped and polished NC30 swingarm was one I had in my loft stash.

I have re-polished the frame rails and swingarm, polished the cradles and finished everything off by buffing with Belgom, which has wax in it and is supposed to prevent corrosion - the bike will probably never go out in the rain so I think that will be good enough.

Here`s where it`s got to as of yesterday...



My aim is to produce something similar to this KR-1 that I built a few years ago but with 50% more power -

That is also very cool indeed :) Loving your work Rick