The ZX6R

 

This bike has been my favourite bike that I have owned. Looking back, selling it rather than invest a few more dollars into it, was probably my worst decision (with bikes) ever.  

Well as we all can read on the first page this is my journey from a racing wannabe to racer. My journey began with my trusty old Kawasaki ZX6R. I was going to trade it in on a new Honda VTR1000F but a mate of mine said he wanted it and would pay slightly less than what the bikes where selling for second hand. This offer was much better than what the dealers where going to give me for her. Unfortunately (?) the deal fell thru and I was left with 2 bikes and the hassle of selling 1. My wife then suggested that I turn the old girl into a track day bike and go riding with my mate Ross. Ross owned a '96 GSX600R and I was going out quite often to help him with lap timing and throwing spanners at the track days he attended. Man, I would come home just itching to go track day riding!

 

This is what I started with. A '96 ZX6R F2.

The idea was to strip off all the road gear and sell it to buy all the race gear I needed. I talked to a mate of mine 'Peter' from Allbikes at Slacks Creek. He had suggested that we do a swap. He had a '95 ZX6R that had only done about 30,000 kms. Since mine had done the clock once it seemed like a good deal over the phone. To trade my complete road bike for an older bike (with less k's) and everything I need to make it a 'race weapon'.

The Truth.

What I got was a the best bits off 2 ZX6R's, some race glass, and a headache putting it all together.

This is how my bike looked when I 1st got it. It was totally straight but a lot of work was needed.

And here is the rest of the bike!

Here is the donor bike. The very rare Short Wheel Base (crashed) ZX6R

Slowly with the aid of my friend 'Mr Workshop Manual' I slowly pieced together my jigsaw puzzle.

After a few weeks of pissing around after work with it was ready to start. A mech mate of mine Cameron came over to lend a hand as the bike had not been started in over 9 months. We lubed it up, put in fresh oil, water, and prayed for a mircale. With a can of 'Aerostart' in hand and hooked up to the car battery we cranked it over. We cranked and squirted the 'Aerostart', it kicked over, then died. We squirted and cranked it again. this time it burst into beautiful loud life. We had to keep the revs up or it died. Once it got warm the crap start to dislodge from inside and it sprayed everywhere. Once we were happy that it would idle, we looked around at the yard at all the soot and smoke and found that we had about 20 kids standing there looking at the bike. I had not yet put the exhaust can on it and the kids said that they heard it from 3 blocks away and came to find out what was going on.

 

Soon after I had recieve some 'clothes' for her. It wasn't the best fit around and the belly pan was not a race unit (with dam) but I was happy about it and it started to look rideable.

Not soon after we where away and doing track days.

Here's a pic of our 1st track day. Ah... the memories just flood back. Sagging tired suspension, brittle rock hard BT010s, loose headstem bearings, and no instrutments.

So far all the bike had cost me was $40 to hire a trailer for half a day. I was eager to see that my cost remained low as I had (and still have) no money. A work mate decided to get me some paint from a friend of his that did commercial spray painting. We all know that white bikes almost always qualify to the rear of the grid, so I was all to happy to see some colour on it. I really wanted an orange bike? Don't know why really? Cameron reckons it's a KTM thing.

I really liked it when I first got it home, then people where getting all confused over what it really was? So we change it to a more traditional Kawasaki colour scheme. You can also see we have added a tacho as well.

 

And here is where we were in our 2nd race meeting

Work so far on it.

Front and Rear Suspension

Bridgestone Slick Tyres

HEL Braided Lines

And a home made Air Filter

The bike already had

DynoJet Kit

And a Pipe Master 5" Exhaust Can

 

Other than that, it is as stock as they come!