[Marsu]

Edit: Updates below on project!

So I got me an nice 1991 ZZR 1100 C type. Odo says only 24,000 kilometres ridden but I find that a bit hard to believe. There are some mods done on it like blinker covers changed to be smoky instead of carrot orange and as far as I can tell, the original pipes have been cut off and someone welded shortened Yoshimura cans on it. It looks...passable but sounds great tho.

3 days of owning the bike it spat it's chains out, without damage to bike luckily, and I got new chains and stock size front and back sprockets.While my dad came to pick me and the bike up from the side of the road with a van, I think in the transport to our garage the fairings got damaged as the bike fell off the centre stand and leaned against the van wall. Mean after getting it running and riding for 2 days i noticed major splintering along the other side of the fairings and I had to take the side ones off and tape and zip tie the ends of the front fairing around the frame.

Here's where the project starts, I ordered A-Tech mini side farings and will get the undercowl later, I want to leave the engine more exposed than in original. Also the little bit damaged front fairings getting a replacement from a used bike. When I paint them, I'll probably paint the tank too cause it will look out of place otherwise.
The rear fairings are a bit beat up too and I honestly kinda hate the super wide look of them, I intent to mould custom ones from fibreglass at my uni, I am an industrial designer student so it should count as some bonus stuff to my studies after all too lol.
Speaking of making custom parts, someone installed a massive touring windshield on this and it nicely blasts all the wind directly at my face. And it looks pretty ugly. And I absolutely refuse to pay like 100 euros for a shaped piece of plexiglass, so I'll have my hand at making my own, double bubble style. Make an nicely formed base mould copying the current windshield with my own modifications. Mould would probs be wood or that sika block and gently with heat coerce a sheet of plexi to take the shape. How hard can it be? Dont answer me.
Fork swap maybe on the agenda too, I heard the vastly superior ZX 1200 forks should be an easy install on the 1100 with only mods being needed being an D model bearings, a new axel and new wheels. Which is ok because...
New cast alumium wheels, yes I don't want magnesium due to mag not being as durable in the long run. The weight difference in mag and alu isn't that large that a street rossi like me would notice it.
The exhaust I'm still on the edge about either cleaning and making better mountings for the current pipes 4 in 2 pipes or just ordering new ones. New ones do cost a lot tho so there's that. This project isn't getting too cheap already so I might lean on keeping the stock exhaust with the welded Yoshi cans for now.

Writing it out like this makes me think if it's all worth it even, but I do really like the bike a lot, and after owning a few ones that I just minorly tinkered with I do want to actually make it my own. And in the span of bike mods this is pretty baby stuff Intend to put this bike with it's minor custom parts into my portfolio then ✌

Edit: due to student budget I'm thinking of just installing progressive springs in og forks, saves me from buying zzr1200 forks and new breaks. I'll just get the light wheels later, maybe during next summer.

 

[Blainethemono]

UH, ZX-11 front BRAKES (note spelling for future use), fit a ZZR1200 fork assembly. They are a straight bolt on. You dont need new bearing, axle etc.... I know cuz Ive installed ZZR1200 front forks

If u truly are a student, (wondering about your spelling), you sure as hell are not going to be able to afford "light" wheels later. New ones start @ $2k, and used ones like mine are like Unicorns & still expensive. Magnesium is far superior and lighter then aluminumnumnum...you WILL notice the difference between the two. Ive had mine for 6 years so I dont know about this less durable statement.

Ive got as set of OEM exhaust pipes for a 91 ZX-11..... real clean

$100 plus S&H......

 

[Claude]

ZX-11 front BRAKES (note spelling for future use), fit a ZZR1200 fork assembly. They are a straight bolt on. You dont need new bearing, axle etc.... I know cuz Ive installed ZZR1200 front forks

On a D maybe but he wrotes he got a C so many parts will be different.

 

[Marsu]

UH, ZX-11 front BRAKES (note spelling for future use), fit a ZZR1200 fork assembly. They are a straight bolt on. You dont need new bearing, axle etc.... I know cuz Ive installed ZZR1200 front forks

If u truly are a student, (wondering about your spelling), you sure as hell are not going to be able to afford "light" wheels later. New ones start @ $2k, and used ones like mine are like Unicorns & still expensive. Magnesium is far superior and lighter then aluminumnumnum...you WILL notice the difference between the two. Ive had mine for 6 years so I dont know about this less durable statement.

Ive got as set of OEM exhaust pipes for a 91 ZX-11..... real clean

$100 plus S&H......

Yeah I'm a student from Finland so excuse me that my English isn't perfect. And as Calude pointed these are different models that I very clearly stated. You need to change the master bearing on the front assembly to fit the ZZR 1200 fork to the model C 1100. I know the parts fit because kawa uses the same frame for almost two decades. The axle on C is 5mm thinner than D model so unless the fork comes with one, need to get it separately. Brakes aren't an issue, I could salvage ones from a ZZR1200 or get ones from a gixxer, read on another post that they fit with minor modifications. Mag wheels are also more hard and thus brittle. Also almost twice the price of alu. Some back country roads here are pretty shitty so aluminiummumum wheels are a nice compromise between weight and durability. The weight differance is significant between stock wheels and light alloy. But differance between aluminium and magnesium is not worth the extra price tag. Specailly as I only do one or two track days a year. You can get a pair of Galespeed alu wheels on webike for about 1200€. Also funnily enough I'd need to buy model C rear wheel and model D front wheel due to different axles used.
GALE SPEED : Taottu alumiininen takapyörä [TYPE-R] Lasipinnoitus [28373105Q] GALE SPEED : Taottu alumiinipyörä [TYPE-R] Lasipinnoitus [28373007Q]

As for the exhaust, I kind of like the way they look now, so I might leave them as is, just clean up the welding sputter that's on the muffler and remake one of the connection brackets. One of them's ok, but the other is pretty hideous and they are about 10-15mm misaligned with each other, makes the bike look "crosseyed" from the rear. Previous owner was not a master welder for sure.

And don't go questioning my financial status man, you think I'm pulling all this out of my ass? I'm not buying everything on the spot, it's a long term plan. I got this bike to keep and make my own.

Edit: Yes the links in Finnish cause I pulled them from my bookmarks, but it's to show the price.

 

[Cisco Kidd]

UH, ZX-11 front BRAKES (note spelling for future use), fit a ZZR1200 fork assembly. They are a straight bolt on. You dont need new bearing, axle etc.... I know cuz Ive installed ZZR1200 front forks

If u truly are a student, (wondering about your spelling), you sure as hell are not going to be able to afford "light" wheels later. New ones start @ $2k, and used ones like mine are like Unicorns & still expensive. Magnesium is far superior and lighter then aluminumnumnum...you WILL notice the difference between the two. Ive had mine for 6 years so I dont know about this less durable statement.

Ive got as set of OEM exhaust pipes for a 91 ZX-11..... real clean

$100 plus S&H......

Blaine what wheels are you riding on? I am planning to purchase a set of aftermarket wheels

 

[Marsu]

Some updates almost a year later! So Covid restrictions have fucked with my plans to facilitate a lot of University equipment to fabricate my own parts, so I ended up ordering fairings from A-Tech through Webike. I want to preface that everything I'm doing for this bike is investment wise extremely unnecessary but it's a hobby for me and even tho I plan to sell it at some point (for a ZZR-1400) it'll go off into the world the best I could make it. But that's not happening probably for two to three years. Anyways back to the update.

During winter I had a slow trickle of parts clogging every cabinet and storage space in our house driving my partner up the walls. Small trinkets that were missing that I got from crashed/dismantled parts resellers, few new parts. Fairings I got in two separate stages and they took about 4 months to arrive per order. I had some new fairing bolts, screws and clips I got from Britain and I managed to find a full almost perfect condition used Motad Nexxus exhaust for the C model, it's the one with the funky square shaped tube used in the middle of it. That was a good find and relatively cheap, bout 220€ and 80€ for shipping to Finland. Brexit has made ordering shit from Brits stupid expensive.

Here's the sellers image of the pipes I found.

I also had a new front fairing from Germany that had been patched with something, it was very cheap and bit of a risk as it had a massive crack that had been fixed with some to me unknown material. But it was cheap, 30€ and I was pretty broke. When it arrived went over it and deemed that it was pretty sturdy, the patching was good enough and it was for all intents still flexible in a way that fairings are but also sturdy. Though it did have still a big "scar" where the material was fixed. So it had to be filled and sanded, that suited me well as I was planning to paint the fairings anyway.

So now I have basically all the parts I needed, except the lower cowl that I ordered of Webike from A-Tech 2 months after christmas. The weather was warming and I threw in a new battery and it started right up. Neat. Rode it for 30 minutes to see that everything's in working condition and rode it to my friends place for disassembly, he now had a garage that I didn't and the bike would live there until it was finished. So we took the fairings off, the lights and the wire harness for lights off and all that stuff, took the break fluid stained inner fairings off and got to work.

Here she is right after winter, I don't have a picture of the damage of the fairings so here's a screen from a very short video. Basically where the front fairing ends most of the area what connects tot he full undercowl had cracked. Hence the tape and why it's taped and under tape ziptied to the frame. You can also see the welding on the very strange pipes. To re-iterate, full OEM exhaust, and the muffles were cut and about half of a Yoshimura muffler welded into it's place. What drives a man to do such a thing I do not know. Work of a mind more deranged than me.

Here I have filled the front fairings scar with the spackle is it called in english?

I left the tank on because it was actually in pretty good shape and I just went over few little scratches and stone strike marks with a nail polish bottle of paint. It's so minor that you don't really see them from anywhere. I did the re-touching and I cant find the marks anymore so I count that as good enough lol.

So the painting was an enormous task for me. As while I have painted and am an artist too, an automotive painter I am not. I have no idea what I am doing and no experience of painting parts. So that's exactly what I did, because rattle cans are way the fuck cheaper than an professional painter. And I am still a broke student. Basically all my disposable income has been siphoned into this bike. The mini fairings and undercowl are the only parts I have ordered new and they are not cheap. But they come with a good finish off factory so I didn't' do anything to them. I just hoped the paint I have would match them. Paints cost me about 25€ per can. I got them off a reputable car paint dealership here. It was one of primer paint, one can of actual paint, one can of 2k clear coat and one can of cleaning agent, the one that removes grease and what not. That came around a hundo euros. "Ok neat." I thought. The painter man told me that these should be enough. Here is a picture of the first paint job, looks good but the clear coat that was applied later kinda ruined it, it came in too thin so when I water sanded it, it went through to the paint. Also the back fairings that has a decent clear coat on I manged to scratch deeply with the rotary while polishing them. That pissed me off for a few hours.

Long story short I ended up coming back to get 2 more clear coats and 2 more paint cans. I basically sanded them all off and redid the entire thing now doubling the amount of paint and clear coat to ensure it didn't run out. Along with a lot of sanding paper and a sanding block all that came to cost me about 250€. Still almost 100€ cheaper than the cheapest professional offer I got. And I had the joy and pride of doing it myself I lied to myself.

Here is my second attempt after ungodly amount of sanding. It looks good but I still water sanded it and polished later on to remove some orange peel here and there.

So now all my fairings are painted and dried and I'm happy in them. Earlier that week we installed the new exhaust to the bike too.

So it's assembly date, I attach the fairings tot eh bike enough that they will be held firm when I start going over with a rotary. And after a few hours of that and being covered from head to toe in the buffing compound that part of my life was finally finished. I was ecstatic. I drove quick to my home from my friends where the bike is, picked up the throttle return cable that we noticed was busted and had ordered. It had graciously just arrived the day of assembly. Took a shower to get the compound off my hair, ate an ice cream, and took a communal rental scooter back to friends. Because I believed that I will ride the bike home that day.

So we went ahead to change the cable. Normally I think they are pretty accessible, not on the ZZR. Had to take the tank off and disassemble the airbox. We were unsure how old and good the hoses are so instead of taking it off, closing the valve and clamping shut my friend held it for a solid 30-40 minutes while we tried to get the cable set in the very tiny opening it goes into. The tank was basically full also. And the bike has a nice and large fuel capacity.

After that shit was over with it was time to properly assemble fairings and all little knick knacks and wash it because it was still covered in that god damn compound. During the assembly My lower cowl arrived and I asked my partner to bring it to me.

So now that needed to be attached and while it had 2 pre-made holes that fit attachment points under the bike, you cant just fix it with two bolts. So I needed to make some myself. I figured that I'll bend some metal and make a little arm that goes from the front of the undercowl to the lower radiators lower bolts that hold a protective mesh for it. So I carefully drilled holes in front of the cowl and put in 2 fairing clips I had left over from that set of blots and screws and things I ordered to replace the old and in really bad shape screws.

It don't look like much but it's pretty sturdy.

 

[Marsu]

So now all our work is pretty much complete, all the assembly and washing took about 4 hours. It felt like a lot more.
I don't have a lot of before pictures. But there's three stages this bike has been with me. I'll post them in chronological order with brief descriptions.

When I got the bike, fairings were bit scuffed but mostly intact, nothing major that bothered not major damage with them.

So then it spat it's chains out and while in the van being transported to dad's place it fell over and fairings took a hit. Hence the duct tape look. This is the point that a major overhaul came to my mind. Because it was fuck ugly at this point.

And now the finished after images!

Turned out beautiful if I say so myself. And pat myself on my back. Good job me.

So what does the future hold? Well I don't know yet. I can dump endless amount of money into it. For sure an double-bubble windshield. It's already on it's way and will probably be here sometime next month. Maybe a quickshifter for shits and giggles. Heal-tech makes one and it does tickle my fancy for no other reason as to just have it. Dynojet kit is recommended if new exhaust is installed, I've seen them floating around ebay now and then, only stage one though but that's enough. Getting bit more polish out of front fairing also. The radiator is not pretty and it may be worth sourcing a new one. Fan especially if I can find one in good condition. Seen some aluminium rad'son ebay also. Toying with the idea of upgraded suspension still, whether it be an entire new fork or just progressive springs and new oil in the front and a new one in the back. Hyperpro and YSS sell ones that wont bankrupt me. But that's all for later the year, for now I wanna ride finally.

 

[92Ninjas]

So now all our work is pretty much complete, all the assembly and washing took about 4 hours. It felt like a lot more.
I don't have a lot of before pictures. But there's three stages this bike has been with me. I'll post them in chronological order with brief descriptions.

When I got the bike, fairings were bit scuffed but mostly intact, nothing major that bothered not major damage with them.

View attachment 21871

View attachment 21872

View attachment 21873

So then it spat it's chains out and while in the van being transported to dad's place it fell over and fairings took a hit. Hence the duct tape look. This is the point that a major overhaul came to my mind. Because it was fuck ugly at this point.

View attachment 21874


And now the finished after images!

View attachment 21875

View attachment 21876

View attachment 21877

Turned out beautiful if I say so myself. And pat myself on my back. Good job me.

So what does the future hold? Well I don't know yet. I can dump endless amount of money into it. For sure an double-bubble windshield. It's already on it's way and will probably be here sometime next month. Maybe a quickshifter for shits and giggles. Heal-tech makes one and it does tickle my fancy for no other reason as to just have it. Dynojet kit is recommended if new exhaust is installed, I've seen them floating around ebay now and then, only stage one though but that's enough. Getting bit more polish out of front fairing also. The radiator is not pretty and it may be worth sourcing a new one. Fan especially if I can find one in good condition. Seen some aluminium rad'son ebay also. Toying with the idea of upgraded suspension still, whether it be an entire new fork or just progressive springs and new oil in the front and a new one in the back. Hyperpro and YSS sell ones that wont bankrupt me. But that's all for later the year, for now I wanna ride finally.

Have you tried looking for the FactoryPro jet kits? Those are better for these ZX bikes hands down. Also, Aluminum rad fan is a must IMO. I have one on my zx7.

 

[Marsu]

Have you tried looking for the FactoryPro jet kits? Those are better for these ZX bikes hands down. Also, Aluminum rad fan is a must IMO. I have one on my zx7.

I'll keep that in mind and see if I can find some. Thanks for the tip! Yeah the rad is...fine. It works and I don't really have issues with heat but also it's very old and more importantly very busted. I'll probably do a radiator and hose swap come autumn. I have no idea how old the hoses are either, probably originals still and I don't trust rubbers that areolder than me. I wonder if C and D model radiators are interchangeable, direct bolt on?

Radiator KAWASAKI ZZR 1100 1990 - 2001

A problem or damage with your radiator could immobilize your motorcyle. Fortunately AVDB offers you its specific and racing radiators to re-equip your 2 wheelers at biker price.

avdb-moto.fr

Found a decent looking one from here, might get it, should fit my 1991 model. Oil coolers are a bitch to find for the C model.

Also found that FactoryPro still sells Jet Kits so that's nice, will most likely get that and an ignition advancer.

zx11, zzr1100, tuning, carburetor, shift, ignition, prodk33.html, products, zx11, zzr1100, carb, tuning, jet

Aftermarket exhaust, jetkit and ignition timer kinda go hand in hand on ZZR from what I gather. Though I'll probably get some other brand advancer as FactoryPro's is expensive as hell.

 

[Marsu]

Added an MRA windscreen
Before

After

 

[Marsu]

Ignition advancer arrived today, was too impatient to wait for the jet kit too because it's such an easy install. I didn't wan't to drain oil now, I'm doing it when I'm taking the carbs off for jetting so I needed to get the bike leaning to the other side to open the magneto cover without spilling oil. Centre stand doesn't have space to come down due to the undercowl. And I was too lazy to undo the attachments for undercowl. So I did the only sensible thing and leaned the bike with steering locked out, not like locked with a key but turned to the maximum it goes, against a pole. Put some padding there to be safe. Don't mind the beater nissan it's a WIP.

Opened the cover and there she was.

I have never even seen an ignition timer disc before. Easiest install on this accursed bike so far, made me happy. Previous owner had ugga-tuggad the nut to a ridiculous degree, almost destroyed the little nubbin that keeps the nut in place. Need to fix that later too somehow. Seal was pristine, normally I'd change them whenever I open them but I didn't have one at hand and there weren't any near me in stock. If it was broken I was prepared to drive an hour to get one.

Anyway the interesting part. Holy shit what a difference in power delivery. Bike is insanely smooth now. Just creamy. It's like it's 20 years younger. I can not stress enough what an improvement this was. And for the fact that the part cost like 20€ and the install was piss easy and took like 15 minutes I highly recommend doing this. My advancer was from Ebay and is a 4 degree one.

Had such a good ride on it after, bike felt absolutely renewed. Smoothed over the low and low-mid RPM lack of power. It did take a bit off the very top end but who cares, not like I'm blasting max speed anyway here on a public road. And it still accelerates like a missile. It now has way more actually usable power, makes twisties way more fun.

Now to wait for the jet-kit to come from Greece and the K&N air filter. I have a friend who can do the syncing on the carbs and if needed (and most likely is needed) tuning on a dyno. Would be cool to get an actual power graph and solid numbers. I'm hoping that stuff to arrive before we have our summer bike trip so the Kawi can be in the best shape it can be but if it's tight I'll do it after that. With the advancer it's already so smooth to ride that I wouldn't even mind. Best twenty I've ever spent on a bike part.

 

[Blainethemono]

I went with the 2 degree advancer. Yeah the mid range really comes alive doesnt it? When u install the Factory pro jet kit, dont be surprised if u have to put one more shim under the Jet Needle. Also, definitely do the hose conversion so u have two of them coming off the carbs to both the ram air inlets.

makes a difference as well.. Once done the bike just screams to redline & beyond

 

[Marsu]

I went with the 2 degree advancer. Yeah the mid range really comes alive doesnt it? When u install the Factory pro jet kit, dont be surprised if u have to put one more shim under the Jet Needle. Also, definitely do the hose conversion so u have two of them coming off the carbs to both the ram air inlets.

makes a difference as well.. Once done the bike just screams to redline & beyond

It's so funny how much a simple 20 euro part breathes life to a bike, still can't get over it.

Whats the hose conversion? I have a C1 model that only has one ram-air intake. I know the D models have 2 ram intakes. Do you mean splitting the inside of the air tube into 2 separate channels so each half would get a more equal pressure?

Also edit: As soon as i got the jet kit from post office, I opened it at home. It had 2 different size sets, one set of #145 and another set of #148 sized main jets. One of the little bags holding the main jets had a opening. Of course one jet fell and immediately vanished of the face of the earth. It was the #148. Now I'm left with #145 size ones and anger. With the K&N airfilter coming in later and an aftermarket full exhaust and an ingintion advancer I'm pretty sure the #148's would've been the ones I wanted to put in. I wonder if the #145 jets are big enough or if I need to find a larger set. The stock ones on this model are the #140.