[Brandon35]

You basically want to replace the back seat for a trackday with a fiberglass cowl?

Could I recommend this instead: buy a replacement undertail/battery tray. With a jigsaw cut off the 'carbon fiber look' parts, leaving the battery tray and ecu mount, reinstall. Use an ArmorBodies or similar Superstock Race tail - exactly what you want (you have to trim the sides off the undertail to get the fiberglass tail to fit), and you can then mount a foam block backrest.

You'd then switch between the setups (yes, moving the battery tray, battery, ECU, and starter solenoid before/after trackdays).

Here's what I mean:
View attachment 114042 View attachment 114043 View attachment 114044 View attachment 114045 View attachment 114046

I didn't bolt the race tail on for the photo so it's kinda dipping down under the seat, but you get the idea.

While that looks good, I have different plans. If I get to the point where I want a dedicated set of plastics for the track, my plan is to make them out of fiberglass using my current fairings as a template. I also only need the left rear fairing to have a full second set regardless.

I don't want to cut up another seat tray, and having to switch out all of that just to go to the track seems like way more work than it's worth for me.

My seat cowl idea is more for looks; the function is a minor payoff that probably isn't very necessary.

 

[SteveAustin]

If I get to the point where I want a dedicated set of plastics for the track, my plan is to make them out of fiberglass

Sorry, I find the word choice/juxtaposition kinda funny (plastics-fiberglass).

Laying up fiberglass on your bodywork is a LOT of work. You need PVA (hairspray) by the 5gal pail, too. I didn't think moving the battery and ECU was all that much work for a trackday or weekend. I used to race with a guy who had a '98 GSXR he'd swap the whole body for race weekend. Anyway you go, good luck to you!

 

[Brandon35]

Sorry, I find the word choice/juxtaposition kinda funny (plastics-fiberglass).

Laying up fiberglass on your bodywork is a LOT of work. You need PVA (hairspray) by the 5gal pail, too. I didn't think moving the battery and ECU was all that much work for a trackday or weekend. I used to race with a guy who had a '98 GSXR he'd swap the whole body for race weekend. Anyway you go, good luck to you!

We'll see what happens when and if it happens

 

[SteveAustin]

In today's installment...
There's a saying, "Don't sweat the small stuff". There's also people who admire "Properly-sorted" racebikes.

The tail doesn't quite meet the frame at the underseat joins (and there's no threads in the eyelets in the frame). I couldn't find stud-ended standoffs with a long-enough stud to put through the hole (not the standoff part, the male-threaded part) to get enough turns on an M6 flange nut. So...

What you're looking at:

• M6x10 flat-button head cap screws, 2 ea. These screws btw look extremely Kawasaki-factory original. With two 0.8mm M6 nylon washers (one on each side of the tail fiberglass), this is the perfect length because,
• M6x10 round connector/coupling nuts, 2 ea. These are like hollow-tube standoffs, but threaded inside.
• M6x8mm socket head cap screws, black-oxide alloy steel, 2ea

Add that stack up, and you get a perfect fit:

Next, the lower/bellypan aligns with the OEM location for a bolt on the RHS, but the LHS misses coverage of this bolt by 20mm or so. This is actually really common - my last two racebikes had the same issue:

So, (I'll skip the intermediate steps):

Lexan drills, taps, and mills like a dream. I could have done this in aluminum stock, too, but Lexan's even lighter Oh, and Bloo Lok-tight is your friend for things like this. Note that the weight of the bellypan typically will pull the frame bolt tighter. I'll put money on it lasting an entire season/endurance season (this is a sprint race bike).

 

[SteveAustin]

And on a serious note, if this is too much hardcore racebike porn or I'm making you feel... inadequate... LMK, and I'll not post build pics.

 

[RJ2112]

Please make me feel more inadequate. 😁😁

 

[Dazza3787]

Brilliant. Keep it coming. Ive still not got near my exhaust yet. Hopefully this weekend i will get time. 🙏🏻

 

[SteveAustin]

No photos today, was on a roll and didn't want to slow down (I'm insommniac, and was working in the garage from ~1:45am to about 10:45am). About to crash (take a nap) actually, before the NCAA tourney picks up again today.

ANYWAY, today I set up the Woodcraft clip-ons and moved over the perches and throttle. I used a 3/4" drum sander on a drill to grind down the plastic locating pins, and pulled the forks after. Then removed the ignition key (burned out a cheap Horror Freight/Chinesium Dremel knockoff and burned through - no joke - three carborundum grinder bits - also Chinese manufacture).

To do:
Waiting on the (late, overdue) shock, (late, overdue) RaceTech fork seal-head plug tool (basically, a split Allen with hex you can grab with an open-end, the Allen part slips around the damping/compression shaft and fits inside the outside-thread sealhead. If you've ever messed with BPFs you know this tool. Dumb-assed me forgot I needed one, but I remembered in a hurry when the parts came).
After this stuff's done, need to reflash the ECU, and then start the bike, bed the exhaust 'glass packing. Change the oil after (It's been ~2k street miles).
Then it's safety-wire everything (I've been drilling as I've been going, especially the Ti bolts I've replaced with chromoly or high-grade stainless SHCS), need to remember to get a hose clamp for the oil filter.
And then the Test-n-Tune trackday at MSR Houston.

 

[RJ2112]

I finally got around to flushing my front brakes, using the tool I recently bought to make that task simpler. It really doesn't do much, TBH. Still a bit messy as the caliper bleeder fixture leaks between the caliper body and the threads of the bleeder.... having an O ring in the mating fixture on the one way valve assembly doesn't really help all that much.

I did that work while also smoking a whole bunch of meats to tide my wife and I over as I go through the next procedure. Soon as I figure out how to get photos off my new Apple 13 phone, I will add some shots on another thread as I usually do when I break out the smoker.

 

[SteveAustin]

I smoked a pair of chickens (halved) yesterday, for chicken salad this week. Ground's still too soft for me to roll my offset out from under my patio roof, so I used a cabinet smoker.

For getting pictures off - honestly, the best thing I've ever done is install Signal (encrypted SMS-like app) for me and my kids to swap important things, like tax forms. I have it on this PC (which runs Linux, btw), too - so under Note To Self, I can take the photos you see in this thread from inside Signal and then from the desktop app save them to my harddrive. Easy-peasy. And photos from outside Signal, I just share using Signal, then send to Note To Self.

 

[RJ2112]

I wasn't expecting to have to use my password on the phone after I had already plugged it into my PC via USB and had already used my password to do so. Pretty pleased with the quality of photos.....

 

[SteveAustin]

I wasn't expecting to have to use my password on the phone after I had already plugged it into my PC via USB and had already used my password to do so. Pretty pleased with the quality of photos.....

and yours isn't even tied to your company's IT systems. My work phone is nuts over how many passwords and passcodes I have to enter and how many times I have to do it

 

[RJ2112]

I’ve had an Apple 6S as my assigned work phone for the last year or two…. A different one before that.

It’s now so completely locked down that I can’t run the app for my Bluetooth hearing aids. Trying to migrate all my personal stuff from the work phone to my personal phone is a PITA.

 

[SteveAustin]

It’s now so completely locked down that I can’t run the app for my Bluetooth hearing aids.

I've got the Costco KS-10s. Work great under my helmet when I'm on 'Wing, now Google can tell me how many tenths to the exit instead of me having to try to read it at speed with vibration fuzzing it.

 

[RJ2112]

I haven't tried to put my helmet on while wearing the hearing aids yet. My health insurance paid for them, and there is a one time replacement under the 3 year warranty..... which has a $350 deductible, per ear.

Fuzzy views of stuff while riding? If I'm wearing my trifocals, the working field of view for each magnification limits my ability to scan my surroundings. I usually break out my Bifocals that give up my reading distance focus for much bigger field of view on the remaining two (long distance and computer screen/arm's length).

 

[SteveAustin]

Bifocals, but usually on the bike I wear single-focus distance/driving glasses, and with the phone in it's mount vibrating, I can't read it. Exacerbated by dark faceplate (Arai doesn't have the inner tint shield design) and dark glasses. PITA.
I paid for the Costco ones out of pocket - hearing aids were a racket, now they're open-market. Pleased with the KS-10s.

 

[RJ2112]

Costco has doubled the mfg's warranty on anything you buy there for as long as I can remember. That would probably make purchase through them the right answer regardless.

We've bought our prescription eye glasses through them multiple times with pretty good results. The hearing aids, the audiologist did the evaluation, and the prescription, as well as filing all of the paperwork to get them ordered.... then did the calibration and fitting, as well as setting up the ap for me. That's worthwhile in it's own.

 

[SteveAustin]

The hearing aids, the audiologist did the evaluation, and the prescription, as well as filing all of the paperwork to get them ordered.... then did the calibration and fitting, as well as setting up the ap for me

Costco did all the same, except they don't file insurance, I paid out of pocket. $1140 I wanna say, bought last August. They also clean/de-wax 'em lifetime for free.

 

[Dazza3787]

Finally got going with the link pipe painting today, doesnt look a bad match so far i dont think? See what happens when its fitted. What you guys think?………….

 

[Dazza3787]

The first pic of pipe was as the coats were going on. The last one is hard to tell. But very good match i think?

ill get it fitted in a day or so and get a picture once the rain clears off