FZ07 for Mrs Robem Engineering

[Spatt]

I thought I'd do a quick budget build with some parts I have laying around my shop with my wife's street FZ07.

Here's the donor in its current state.

Pretty stock with the only addition being a Akropovic Titanium exhaust to give her some noise when riding to the office.

Might also give me some reason to make some more street oriented parts for the FZ/MT bike.  

It'll be a pretty basic build as she mostly just uses it to ride to her office and has only done one track day.  

First goal will be simple ergo's and basic suspension.

[fzar]

Following, this could get interesting.

[Spatt]

First out of the bin of homeless parts.  A K-Tech IDS 20mm front end I had used for 1 lap at NJMP and pulled off.

Since its a street bike I didn't have rear spools on her bike and didn't feel like flipping a rear stand around to use the pads, I decided I might be able to use bike jacks on the frame.  I've done way sketchier things in the paddock after all...  Fully disclosure this is a terrible idea and I would never do this to a customer bike.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Spatt]

Pretty simple process:

1. Pull the brakes
2. Remove the axle
3. Pull the forks as a unit with the fender
4. Swap fender to other forks
5. Dig through boxes of titanium bolts and realize you don't have anything you need...
6. Assembly opposite of disassembly

New hardware ordered to replace the bolts drilled for safety wire.  Boxes of titanium but nothing the correct size for this unless I wanted to break up rear set riser packs already packaged up.

Shameless plug for a fellow racer Sam at Lightweight Racer Titanium Bolts and Bolt Kits.  He stocks a variety of fasteners and always quick to get me what I need if I don't have it and based on my Paypal transactions, I never have want I need.

 

Next I'll work on something to add an addition to for a key switch to a set of 41mm clamps and correct the offset so I add a rear link and shock to the bike.  Have to decide if I'll keep the dirt bike bars or put clip-ons and risers to keep her comfy.

Tomorrow I think I'll toss a linkage and homeless shock I have laying around on the bike while I'm making customer parts.

[Spatt]

Little time to play with the design for a street version and I think this should work out to be able to keep the renthal bars for her on the street and allow her to keep her key switch without needed to relocate it elsewhere on the bike.

 

 

[stickshift]

Your ‘simple’ build is a casual track day rider’s delight!

ps. what did you think of the ktech IDS20?

Edited December 8, 2019 by stickshift

[Spatt]

16 minutes ago, stickshift said:

Your ‘simple’ build is a casual track day rider’s delight!

ps. what did you think of the ktech IDS20?

I personally like Bitubo stuff better.  I came from Ohlins, then Ktech.  On my FZ race bikes they are all Bitubo ECH29 carts in the R6 forks bodies.   Which is just an entirely different animal.  

These would be more similar to the JBH series.   I ran those in a ninja 300 endurance bike.   Nothing negative about either set up.   The Bitubo stuff is just nice all being pressurized and I do a lot of work with Eric at Velocity.

Itll be a fun little project.  I’ll probably toss a slipper, trans and cams in it and sell it after the build.   Wife really wants a Ducati Monster or a Cafe-ish bike.   That might also be fun to toy with for building.  

[fzar]

19 hours ago, Spatt said:

Tomorrow I think I'll toss a linkage and homeless shock I have laying around on the bike

If you find anything that is homeless and in the way (parts) I'll gladly give them a new home, treat them right, etc.

Just sayin!!

[Spatt]

I didn't have quite as much time today to work on the wife's bike as I thought I would, Blake Davis and his family dropped by on the way through.  Blake was in the area last night to receive the Nicky Hayden Horizon Award and drop of bike to prep for next season.

After lunch and a bit of visiting they were back on the road and I had some lightweight starter sprags to finish for orders and motors we are building.  Decided I would take the time to give the wifes bike the same treatment and show the process of changing sprags.

The starter sprag is held in place by (3) T40 torx that have retaining compound that needs heated to break them loose.  I find them easiest to use a map gas torch positioned  at the bolt, heat until you see a bubble or two appear around the threads and then use an impact to remove the fastener.

Repeat x 3 and you'll end up with the following.

Next toss it in the mill

Indicate the bore in and press go...  toss in the media cabinet with glass bead to give it a nice uniform finish and this this the result. (in the next post)

 

 

[Spatt]

On the race bikes I take the sprags down to the minimum, removing all but the mounting holes needed.  When you do this the weight is the lowest but you're limited to using a 3 jaw puller to remove the flywheel at that point.  Since this isnt going to be a race motor and will likely just get minimum motor upgrades I just went pretty conservative, removing 141 grams (5oz) off the flywheel and kept the (3) extra m8 threaded holes for ease of removal.

Stock

Race

Street

Im really pleased with the result.  265 grams (9.34 oz) off the crank with the lightening of the flywheel.

When installing the m8 torx I use blue locktite and clean the threads in the sprag and fastener with brake cleaner before tightening.

 

 

[Spatt]

Finished Result.  A lightened flywheel and sprag still easily removable for those without the ability to make special tools.

[Spatt]

Had a moment this afternoon between customer parts to do a bit of work on the project bike.

The stock swingarm angle is pretty flat and I happen to have a take off linkage I loaned out for testing and a Razor RR shock I removed from a bike and replaced with a XXF31 which is a much better shock.  Its still a huge upgrade over the stock unit and its just collecting dust, so on it goes.

One thing I cant stress enough is for people to service the bearings in even their stock linkage.  The seals do a great job but on the race bikes I like to do a complete tear down after the season and service and inspect bearings, and those bikes have way less time on them than a typical road bike.

In my opinion its easier to install the link arm on the linkage outside the bike.  It eliminates it from fighting you and it has to go together anyway at some point anyway, right?

 

 

 

[Spatt]

Here is an example of the oxidation you might find even on a low mileage bike.  My wife's bike has ~3,400 miles on it and the link arm pivot and the bolt for the link arm needed a bit of clean up and I like to put a bit of grease on them not that the link arm bolt or the spacer is rotating but it will help with moisture oxidizing it so fast again.  Just quickly clean them up with brass brush, glass bead, sandpaper, whatever.

If you install the bolt in the link arm first you can the linkage rest on the swingarm while you install the front bolt in the shock that mounts to the motor, then the lower linkage bolt and finally use a jack to let the swingarm droop to connect the linkage to the shock.  Tighten the fasteners and we're almost done..

[Spatt]

When you increase the swingarm angle the hugger needs a bit of attention if you plan to keep it on the bike.  Since we toss them on the race bikes I honestly hadn't ever thought about this, but kinda like the look of them on the stock bike.  After studying the interference for a second I walked over to the bench and thought I had an idea.

After removing just needed a bit of clean up and to radius the edge so it didn't look so much like someone had chewed a chuck out of it. 

Reinstall the hugger and I'll admit I was pretty pleased with the result.

[sorkyah]

21 hours ago, Spatt said:

When you increase the swingarm angle the hugger needs a bit of attention if you plan to keep it on the bike.  Since we toss them on the race bikes I honestly hadn't ever thought about this, but kinda like the look of them on the stock bike.  After studying the interference for a second I walked over to the bench and thought I had an idea.

After removing just needed a bit of clean up and to radius the edge so it didn't look so much like someone had chewed a chuck out of it. 

Reinstall the hugger and I'll admit I was pretty pleased with the result.

I've been wanting to do a larger hugger than stock, something that extends toward the rear of the tire. 

Might make this mod when I do so

[fzar]

3 hours ago, sorkyah said:

I've been wanting to do a larger hugger than stock, something that extends toward the rear of the tire. 

Might make this mod when I do so

I've been thinking the same. I think the stock hugger is pretty useless at protecting the shock, especially now that I care much more about my Ohlins upgrade than the OEM. I'm also adding a rear link this winter.

[1tondriver]

That makes 2 of us. I think I own a $20k FZ07

[Spatt]

20 hours ago, 1tondriver said:

That makes 2 of us. I think I own a $20k FZ07

 

That barely covers a motor and a duplicate motor as a spare.  

[Spatt]

I just got back from spending a week in Europe for work and arrived home to find a shipment arrived from aRacer and one of the items was a RC Super 2 unit for the FZ/MT07's for the bike .  Since I've only used the unit on the MotoAmerica bikes it'll be interesting to see what is possible with the a stockish motor.  I'll have some time over the next couple days to some testing with it.  Pretty sure I'll determine the motor will need cams, stock cams in the motor are just tiny and the motor really responds well to bigger cams.

Also since I was planning to keep it a simple build I had a couple head gaskets made by Cometic to give a slight bump in compression.  Not such a bump it'll need race gas but a good compromise for a bike that will do most of its time on the street and easy way to get a bit more compression to offset the added overlap if I do toss cams in later.

 

[fzar]

3 hours ago, Spatt said:

Also since I was planning to keep it a simple build I had a couple head gaskets made by Cometic to give a slight bump in compression.  Not such a bump it'll need race gas but a good compromise for a bike that will do most of its time on the street and easy way to get a bit more compression to offset the added overlap if I do toss cams in later.

 

Tell me more.  I've not heard of this before and I'd be interested on what it does and how it does it without affecting a street set-up for a humble trackday rider. Ohh yeah, How much? 

 

[Spatt]

7 hours ago, fzar said:

Tell me more.  I've not heard of this before and I'd be interested on what it does and how it does it without affecting a street set-up for a humble trackday rider. Ohh yeah, How much? 

 

Your just increasing the combustion efficiency.   By increasing the static compression ratio you're increasing cylinder pressure (obviously) the cylinder also has increased pressure during combustion that results in more force being applied to the piston (read torque) at a given rpm.  The only disadvantage is under heavy loads the ability to knock is slightly increased.   

So this is something that would need to be tuned for on a dyno.  The total ignition advance will be slightly less for for the same fuel to achieve the same tq output and since tq is really the only real number and hp is just a calculation of tq (work) over time (rpm) your hp at a given rpm will also, all other things equal, also increase. 
 

The headgaskets I had made with bump the compression ratio from 11.5:1 to a still streetable 12:1.

I made a spare but was going to test it on one of the race motors.   The effective compression ratio with the large cams and overlap drops due to compression being  bled off with the overlap and this will bring it back up slightly.   The motors are already strong just want to see the effect and if the spec fuel will take it  

 

Edited December 24, 2019 by Spatt

[Spatt]

Finally got a chance to knock out the upper street triple over the holidays.  Not much other progress as with the bike at the moment.  Thought I would share the progress for the upper clamp.

 

[1tondriver]

Really nice work

[Spatt]

Just now, 1tondriver said:

Really nice work

Not bad for a hack

I also have a 90mm ride height link I think in the trailer if you havent found one.  Send me a message if you still need one.  

[phanomenal07]

Really appreciate the information you are putting out. Thanks