Building a track bike for my girl..

[ZX-Dominance]

That's what she thinks! haha.

I'm new to the site, but not to bike's in general. Been riding the track for quite a quite a while and although my fiance has expressed interest in street riding (shes probably got a hundred or so street miles in the last few years)- I freak the f*#k out every time I see her in my mirrors. So we decided to go a different route: I'm going to build her a track bike, get her some gear, and take her to do a few weekends of parking lot cone-drills before trying out a lvl one track day.

This plan is a double-win because i get to tinker, and I'll have another bike to ride at the track! Score!

I picked up a '99 Ninja 250 (Purple and Green baby) that had been used in CMRA racing, but had just been rebuilt, incorrectly. It included a ton of spares, brand new sport demons, and an 08 rear wheel/axle/caliper bracket. For $450 delivered (thank you IDB Racing) I couldn't say no. I picked up a low miles spare motor that dropped a valve for $100 and got to work.

For the last two weeks my buddies and I (the "Kawibunga" team) have probably put in 100+ man-hours into a full rebuild.

I apologize for the crappy picture quality. Every time my hands got dirty I stopped taking pics.

here goes:

First step was removing the fairings and tank. Looking inside I saw some rust. "Lets pour this out" WTF!?!?! rust city. This is actually only a small fraction of the rust in the tank. We went to a car wash and blasted literally handfulls of rust chunks out of the tank. Afterwards it was a sun-dried an immediately refilled with good gas.


next we pulled the carbs.. coated with rust dust inside. Thank goodness the bike had a fuel filter!



After determining that there was a transmission issue, we took the head off of the spare motor and prepared for a case splitting. Wish I had taken more pictures but this was very messy work.



Before putting ti all back together, I decided it'd be a good idea to clean out the clutch basket/oil pump side. It had some rust as well.
All clean:


Chad taking a break to grind on the ruck:



With the motor, tank, and carbs clean we decided to do a test run. Bernado manned the right side:



It works! But running like ****. It has a brand new K&N filter and custom yoshi 2-1. Oh well- the motor works, I guess the carbs will be rejetted later.

Time to change the forks and put on those new tires. But how... Eureka!



Forks are off and opened up, and dang was that oil gross:





I know you guys will say this is too light. Whatever. lol. My girl is 95lb soaking wet and I overfilled a little to stiffen em up.



Well, lets clean the carbs and add a fuel filter:

Dennis:





After a couple tests we found that 110 main jets, 2 #4 washers on each needle, and idle screws turned out 2 and 1/4 turns has her running like a champ! We went ahead and checked the valves, all but 2 intakes were within spec. We adjusted all the intakes slightly looser than spec anyways (.006)- they'll tighten with time and the increased low end power will benefit my lady. I dont expect her to be redlining this thing anywhere.

Finished Product: a ~$600 track beasty



I'll take some pics of the exhaust side and maybe a video of her running in the next few days.

Again, sorry for the crappy camera work. Hope you enjoy.

[ZX-Dominance]

I should add that we bled the brakes and replaced the pads front and back, as well as replaced the carb float needles- they were rusted beyond salvage and kept causing the bike to flood.

[tooblekain]

not bad at all for only $600. Good job!

[lgk]

good job

[csmith12]

[Gurk]

No video of it running?!?! Blasphemy.

[JohnnyBravo]

Congrats!!! I never luck into deals like this :/

[RedPepper64]

Love the track bike idea. My first time on the track was June and it's in my blood now. Pretty sure my addiction will soon be greater than the husband's. It's awesome hearing about more women getting onto the track! Hope she loves it!

[agent of orange]

sweet find.. i picked up a half naked zzr to conver to a track machine for my girl to as she wants to race cheaper than her 600.