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Soooooo I told myself I wasn't gonna modify this bike anymore, but I knew deep down that I was lying. This bike has kinda been sitting in my garage for a while in limbo not sure whether to sell it or keep it. Late October last year, my wife let me purchase the bike I had initially modeled this one after which was a 2019 cb300r. I love that bike very much cuz it reliability starts every morning despite the crazy cold temperatures I ride in(some mornings were hovering just above freezing). I believe the ninja is actually faster simply because it's a twin and revs so high vs the CB which is a single. Despite that, it gets me 70mpg reliably and looks cool. So that has become my daily commuter from the first heavy rain that washes the salt away until they put down salt again next winter which left my ninja feeling neglected and ever since we moved into our new house it just sat in the corner of my garage glaring at me. That is until last week when I started my two back to back weeks off from work. I had made a checklist of a bunch of things I wanted to get done before I either sell it to maximize profit or ride it again.
The major one was redoing the subframe. The way I had left the subframe already made having a passenger not a good idea because of where I had located the supports so I figured I may as well move them further up and officially make it a single rider bike. This was going to allow me to make a cowl for the rear portion and possibly hide some of the electronics in there. So I got some tubing and got to work.
After I got the supports done I moved onto make a fiberglass cowl. I've only used fiberglass once before to make a similar cowl for a bike that I never finished so I had an idea of what to do. I like the profile of the stock seat because the rear section looked like the older kz650 tail so I covered the seat in plastic and tape and just laid the glass overtop the seat and then made another for the underside. Once the two were dried I put then together to form a single cowl piece. I still have a lot to learn about fiberglass and because of that I have a lot of sanding and smoothing to do before it's ready for paint.
While I was doing all this I decided to try to polish my Yoshi muffler since after removing the paint that the PO put on it kinda left it ugly looking. Beside the giant dent that's mostly hidden, I'd say it turned out pretty good. I stopped after working my way up to a white brillow pad.
Next I moved onto mounting the turn signals and license plate. For the turn signals I just welded on some 1/8" stock with holes drilled in them to the insides of the new supports. The plate was really easy, it's just two pieces of thin gauge(16 or 18?) Steel that I bent and drilled holes in and used the existing inner fender holder bolt location. I still need to finalize the mounting for the brake light, although the turn signals also have brake lights in them. So the brake light bar in the picture may or may not stay. I haven't decided yet. I'm sure my wife will complain that more brake lights are better and she isn't wrong.
It seems like I check 5 things off my to do list for this bike and in the process I've added 10 more things. My plan was also to remove clean, regrease and repaint the swingarm since the stock muffler on the "driver's side" was rubbing and wore away the paint. Maybe I'll just try to make the silver color and just touch up the wear spot.
There's a lot I'd like to do still before i call it done but some of it may get out off or if I sell it, not done at all. Either way my to-do list is as follows from most important to the "I'll probably never get to it".
-sand/smooth/Bondo/ paint cowl
-mount brake light
-fab muffler hanger
-redo headlight mount
-make new shroud for gas tank to hide the fact there were fairings on this bike
-make new radiator shrouds
-paint swingarm
-weld some threaded bosses on the swingarm for spools
And last but not least, gsxr750 USD forks swap.
I did some quick research, and the 96-98 gsxr750 forks are similar enough in length to the stock forks that it wouldn't change the rake at all. The only issues I can really see are losing steering lock and the front axle diameter different. But the latter could probably be solved by swapping bearings. I would plan on reusing my 08-12 ninja 250 wheels because I like the style and the fact that more tire would probably make it less flick able.
Any thoughts, concerns comments or suggestions are always welcome.
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