Super Hooligan FZ

[FrodoFZ]

Hey guys!

Its about time I started sharing some of the progress of my project super hooligan bike, along with a little bit of the back story.

I originally bought the bike in May of 2018, solely based on the motor AND exhaust note (uncorked that is). Once I started riding it I was even more so impressed with the FZ's ride-ability. Within the first week I had already put in for a 2WDW ECU reflash, SC Project CR-T full system, K&N filter, and a host of other small mods that made the bike less boring to look at. 

It didn't take long after that to venture down the rabbit hole in search more available options for wheels, brakes, engine mods, and full-on custom project bike inspirations. Of all the different routes to go with molding an FZ into something much cooler than a factory bike, I couldn't get away from the whole street tracker/dirt tracker/super hooligan theme and the huge number of inspirations out there. I got a lot of inspirations for my project from the Honda CB1100 TR Marco Simoncelli tribute bike, the Bott Power Buell builds, and Rough Craft's Yamaha Yardbuilt bikes, to name a few.

After about a year of riding the FZ, that's when I decided to initiate this project. The whole idea behind this bike is to have the satisfaction of transforming a great bike into something even better (I understand that's subjective). When its all said and done I don't expect there to be much, if any, OEM components on this bike. 

So far the plan consists of the following: Major engine, wheel, brake, and suspension upgrades (read: anything that can be done will probably be done), a few pretty heavy frame modifications, and custom fabrication work including but not limited to exhaust, fuel tank, seat, etc., (both in-house and from outside sources). 

Here is the bike before I started the project :

and here it is in it's current form:

 

This is just a quick rundown for my project. Over all I'd say a rough estimate on progress of completion would about 25-30%, so this will be an ongoing thread when time allows. 

Aside from just looking at photos of other bikes for hours on end for inspiration, everything I've fabricated for the bike has just been off the top of my head (no drawings or anything!) I've tracked the progress of the build with photos, so I'll get into more detail about the steps I've completed so far, and some deviations that have occurred along the way, and some of the other fabrication tidbits and mods I have planned for the bike in a near future post.

Hopefully you guys enjoy following the progress as much as I enjoy taking on this challenging project!

Cheers!

Austin

 

 

 

 

[1tondriver]

Awesome, another creative build that I love following! I am always so impressed and envious of what some of you can come up with and actually make it happen. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to seeing the progress

[Evill_Ed]

I’m definitely gonna be tuned in on your project, this should be cool.

 

[FrodoFZ]

Top of the morning!

Its a dreary Saturday here in VA so I figured it'd be good start to delve into the early stages of this build.

Obviously, the first step was to strip the bike down to nothing more than a rolling chassis with the motor still in place. 

The hardest part of that undertaking was the damn OEM airbox...

Once it was stripped, it was time to take a good look at the subframe and OEM brackets scattered all over the frame (all of it had to go). I wanted the seat line to be as parallel to the ground as possible, kinda like the Jigsaw Customs XSR700 tracker build

 

But trying to work around the curved subframe with the end goal of having a seat line parallel to the ground seemed too much of a problem to be worth the effort:

 

So I bought some .065" wall 3/4" carbon steel tubing for my upcoming version of the subframe. I had to hack a bunch of the OEM stuff off first though before I could get off to a good start...

 

Once the upper rails of the subframe and a good portion of the OEM brackets were gone, I took a few measurements, coped the 3/4" tubing, and got to welding. I went ahead and buffed down the passenger footpeg bosses, welded the holes up, and then blended them nicely into the frame as well:

 

To satisfy any curiosity, if you've noticed the red tie-down straps, they were used in leveling off the bike side to side along with measurements from two equal points on the frame to the top triple clamp, so I could get the bike to stand as square as possible, which in turn would translate over to the new subframe top rails being as square as possible. It just required two holes to be drilled (one into my workbench frame, and one into a wall stud of my shed), two ratchet straps, a torpedo level, and a keen eye.

Here's a better look at my home-made leveling rig 

 

 

Once I got all that squared away (no pun intended), I finished removing what was left of the sock subframe, and added a new cross member of the same 3/4" tubing mentioned earlier:

 

Not being satisfied with the OEM crossmember of the subframe directly above the rear shock and still showing the passenger footpeg bosses on the INSIDE lower portion of the subframe, I decided to clean up that area as well. After removing the OEM crossmember, i left the 2 lower bosses and welded a 1/4" piece of round stock between the two for a cleaner and more simple looking crossmember:

 

Once that was all said 'n done, the FZ had a nicer, clean looking subframe:

 

After I knocked out a good portion of the subframe modification, that allowed me to start preparing for the seat pan/tail section.

I sourced a huge sheet of .090" thick 5052 aluminum for the seat/tail section from a local metal supplier/machine shop. Luckily I've known the owners for a good while, so material costs have been pretty minimal so far. 

The first order of the seat pan/tail was to figure out the proper length and width dimensions. Width-wise the seat pan doesn't exceed the subframe rails which reach 7 1/2" at their widest point just before reaching the rear crossmember, with a very slight taper traveling towards the front of the bike. I kept the seat pan square because the taper is so minimal it wouldn't have been worth the effort in trying to mirror the taper angle on the seat pan. 

Once I had a 7 1/2"x28" sheet of 5052 cut, I marked 7 1/2" inwards from the rear edge, and made a slight scribe using a grinder and cutting wheel, and made the first bend with my 18" Harbor Freight manual press brake (if you don't scribe the material you're using, even if its really thin stuff, that brake doesn't do much bending). Luckily, the upwards angle of the tail's bottom was pretty spot on with what I had wanted, so that's all it took:

 

 

With the base of the tail/seat pan up 'n running, next on the list is getting the shape of the tail roughed in. For the most part I just had an idea in my head, and just started cutting and bending material until I got the shapes I was happy with. Surprisingly, the lower side pieces I bent for the tail started out as just a piece of scrap that I originally just wanted to practice bending using the brake. Unbeknownst to me had I had coincidentally bent the scrap piece to go with the tail perfectly. After realizing this, I reverse-engineered the scrap piece, used it as a template, marked where the bends were, and voila had the lower portion of the tail fabbed up by luck! Once I had those members made, I cut and shaped the middle portion of the tail and tacked it in place:

 

After that it was pretty much just cutting and shaping off of the top of my head, making sure left and right pieces mirrored each other and everything was equal when measuring from the center on outwards:

 

After the tail was pretty much assembled and welded, I had a bunch of welds to buff and blend in. And where I wanted a nice contour on the tail I had to add a decent amount of metal so there was enough material to work with without removing much, if any of the base material. Also, when welding 5xxx series of aluminum I use 5356 filler rod (you can use 4043 filler rod as well, I just prefer 5356) and 100% UHP argon for the shielding gas:

 

The process involved using a cutting wheel, various grit levels of flapper discs, and you guess it, a Harbor Freight hand sander to achieve smooth transitions of all the faces on the tail:

 

And here's the Marco Simoncelli CB1100 TR tribute bike where I got a lot of influence for the tail and the idea for the lip on the rear of the tail (probably one of the best looking bikes I've ever laid eyes on):

 

Anyways theres more for another day! Hope you guys enjoy. Feel free if you have any questions!

Austin

[Evill_Ed]

WOW, impressive design and Fabrication Skills there Austin. Looks really sharp. Can’t wait to see this project progress.

Ed

[FrodoFZ]

18 minutes ago, Evill_Ed said:

WOW, impressive design and Fabrication Skills there Austin. Looks really sharp. Can’t wait to see this project progress.

Ed

Thanks a lot! I'm entertaining the idea of offering a semi-complete seat pan/tail kit similar to what I've made here if I can stir up enough interest 

[cornerslider]

VERY nice work!!!! I'm "following" this thread now. I don't completely understand the flat-tracker look (nor do I need to). Your fabrication skills look GREAT! All I know about flat-trackers is, they make the best, most successful road racers. Once you figure out how to slide a motorcycle, and manage traction- you are FAST!!!! I'm a Journeyman Steamfitter, and I weld pipe for a living. When I first started on this thread, I thought "Oh no, this guy is going to regret this"!!! I couldn't have been more wrong... What is your fabrication background? I couldn't help but notice the Lincoln Squarewave in the background. I'm looking at buying that same machine for my garage. Having the proper tools is half the battle.  What is your "end game", street legal, show bike, or a bit of both? Please keep up the build thread. I wish I had documented mine.....

[cornerslider]

1 hour ago, FrodoFZ said:

Top of the morning!

Its a dreary Saturday here in VA so I figured it'd be good start to delve into the early stages of this build.

Obviously, the first step was to strip the bike down to nothing more than a rolling chassis with the motor still in place. 

The hardest part of that undertaking was the damn OEM airbox...

Once it was stripped, it was time to take a good look at the subframe and OEM brackets scattered all over the frame (all of it had to go). I wanted the seat line to be as parallel to the ground as possible, kinda like the Jigsaw Customs XSR700 tracker build

 

But trying to work around the curved subframe with the end goal of having a seat line parallel to the ground seemed too much of a problem to be worth the effort:

 

So I bought some .065" wall 3/4" carbon steel tubing for my upcoming version of the subframe. I had to hack a bunch of the OEM stuff off first though before I could get off to a good start...

 

Once the upper rails of the subframe and a good portion of the OEM brackets were gone, I took a few measurements, coped the 3/4" tubing, and got to welding. I went ahead and buffed down the passenger footpeg bosses, welded the holes up, and then blended them nicely into the frame as well:

 

To satisfy any curiosity, if you've noticed the red tie-down straps, they were used in leveling off the bike side to side along with measurements from two equal points on the frame to the top triple clamp, so I could get the bike to stand as square as possible, which in turn would translate over to the new subframe top rails being as square as possible. It just required two holes to be drilled (one into my workbench frame, and one into a wall stud of my shed), two ratchet straps, a torpedo level, and a keen eye.

Here's a better look at my home-made leveling rig 

 

 

Once I got all that squared away (no pun intended), I finished removing what was left of the sock subframe, and added a new cross member of the same 3/4" tubing mentioned earlier:

 

Not being satisfied with the OEM crossmember of the subframe directly above the rear shock and still showing the passenger footpeg bosses on the INSIDE lower portion of the subframe, I decided to clean up that area as well. After removing the OEM crossmember, i left the 2 lower bosses and welded a 1/4" piece of round stock between the two for a cleaner and more simple looking crossmember:

 

Once that was all said 'n done, the FZ had a nicer, clean looking subframe:

 

After I knocked out a good portion of the subframe modification, that allowed me to start preparing for the seat pan/tail section.

I sourced a huge sheet of .090" thick 5052 aluminum for the seat/tail section from a local metal supplier/machine shop. Luckily I've known the owners for a good while, so material costs have been pretty minimal so far. 

The first order of the seat pan/tail was to figure out the proper length and width dimensions. Width-wise the seat pan doesn't exceed the subframe rails which reach 7 1/2" at their widest point just before reaching the rear crossmember, with a very slight taper traveling towards the front of the bike. I kept the seat pan square because the taper is so minimal it wouldn't have been worth the effort in trying to mirror the taper angle on the seat pan. 

Once I had a 7 1/2"x28" sheet of 5052 cut, I marked 7 1/2" inwards from the rear edge, and made a slight scribe using a grinder and cutting wheel, and made the first bend with my 18" Harbor Freight manual press brake (if you don't scribe the material you're using, even if its really thin stuff, that brake doesn't do much bending). Luckily, the upwards angle of the tail's bottom was pretty spot on with what I had wanted, so that's all it took:

 

 

With the base of the tail/seat pan up 'n running, next on the list is getting the shape of the tail roughed in. For the most part I just had an idea in my head, and just started cutting and bending material until I got the shapes I was happy with. Surprisingly, the lower side pieces I bent for the tail started out as just a piece of scrap that I originally just wanted to practice bending using the brake. Unbeknownst to me had I had coincidentally bent the scrap piece to go with the tail perfectly. After realizing this, I reverse-engineered the scrap piece, used it as a template, marked where the bends were, and voila had the lower portion of the tail fabbed up by luck! Once I had those members made, I cut and shaped the middle portion of the tail and tacked it in place:

 

After that it was pretty much just cutting and shaping off of the top of my head, making sure left and right pieces mirrored each other and everything was equal when measuring from the center on outwards:

 

After the tail was pretty much assembled and welded, I had a bunch of welds to buff and blend in. And where I wanted a nice contour on the tail I had to add a decent amount of metal so there was enough material to work with without removing much, if any of the base material. Also, when welding 5xxx series of aluminum I use 5356 filler rod (you can use 4043 filler rod as well, I just prefer 5356) and 100% UHP argon for the shielding gas:

 

The process involved using a cutting wheel, various grit levels of flapper discs, and you guess it, a Harbor Freight hand sander to achieve smooth transitions of all the faces on the tail:

 

And here's the Marco Simoncelli CB1100 TR tribute bike where I got a lot of influence for the tail and the idea for the lip on the rear of the tail (probably one of the best looking bikes I've ever laid eyes on

 

Anyways theres more for another day! Hope you guys enjoy. Feel free if you have any questions!

Austin

I have to admit..... This bike "speaks" to me -

[cornerslider]

Didn't mean to do the quote the WHOLE post ...... I was just referring the Marco Simoncelli replica Honda- THAT'S a bad-ass looking bike!!!!!

[FrodoFZ]

18 minutes ago, cornerslider said:

VERY nice work!!!! I'm "following" this thread now. I don't completely understand the flat-tracker look (nor do I need to), but your fabrication skills look GREAT! All I know about flat-trackers is, they make the best, most successful road racers. Once you figure out how to slide a motorcycle, and manage traction- you are FAST!!!! I'm a Journeyman Steamfitter, and I weld pipe for a living. When I first started on this thread, I thought "Oh no, this guy is going to regret this"!!! I couldn't have been more wrong... What is your fabrication background? I couldn't help but notice the Lincoln Squarewave in the background. I'm looking at buying that same machine for my garage. Having the proper tools is half the battle.  What is your "end game", street legal, show bike, or a bit of both? Please keep up the build thread. I wish I had documented mine.....

Thanks a lot I appreciate it! I'm not a huge follower of flat track racing, I just LOVE the way the bikes look and the inspired street tracker look. My goal is to basically have a hot-rodded FZ, something i can rip around the streets on, and take to shows (eventually).

But I've been welding for about 7 years with emphasis on pipe welding in the naval surface ship and sub world (which also pays my bills), and have been a fabricator part time off 'n on for about 6 years (for fun and trying to be multi-disciplined), with my current stint being at a custom high performance auto shop on the when I have the time. 

All of this project has been taking place in a 10x12 shed with nothing more than typical hand tools and brainstorming. I'm to partial to Miller machines, but I couldn't justify paying 3K for the MultiMatic 220 for a feature I wouldn't go outta my way to use (MIG process), so as for the Squarewave, I've been thoroughly impressed with it. I wanted the machine to have a pulse TIG setting and be able to weld aluminum and the Squarewave fit the bill. Plus it'll run the hell outta some 7018 and 6010!

I'm finding out its a decent amount of work keeping track of progression but its totally worth it. maybe you'll get another chance to build and track the progress of another bike... you can never have too many FZs 

 

[cornerslider]

Yup.... I too am partial to the "Miller" brand. I got a chance to use the Lincoln Squarewave on a job recently. When I first looked at it, my first thought was "REALLY?".... After spending a couple days with it, I was ready to buy one! Lincoln is going to sell a ton of these machines for home/shop/garage use-

[FrodoFZ]

It is a gnarly bike for sure! Speaking of unobtanium.....have you ever seen the Roland Sands Ducati Desmosedici RR flat tracker build?? 

[cornerslider]

1 minute ago, FrodoFZ said:

It is a gnarly bike for sure! Speaking of unobtanium.....have you ever seen the Roland Sands Ducati Desmosedici RR flat tracker build?? 

No??? Can you post it?

[1tondriver]

 Very cool build . Another I can’t wait to see done. You have some skills my friend!

[FrodoFZ]

200 HP with that skinny of a tire and a lot of shaved weight.... sign me up!

[cornerslider]

Looks decent ..... I like the Marco Simioncelli bike better -

 

[FrodoFZ]

3 minutes ago, cornerslider said:

Looks decent ..... I like the Marco Simioncelli bike better -

 

I agree it is a better looking bike, but the Desmo's motor just gives me a chub. Im partial to exhaust notes, and Big Bang v4's, cross plane I4's and 270 degree twins just do it for me 

[cornerslider]

1 minute ago, FrodoFZ said:

I agree it is a better looking bike, but the Desmo's motor just gives me a chub. Im partial to exhaust notes, and Big Bang v4's, cross plane I4's and 270 degree twins just do it for me 

I look at Ducati as jewelry... Very pretty /shiney, but essentially useless.... The R1 cross-plane motor is just ANGRY sounding, in a very bad-ass way! The FZ/MT-07 is a close second -

[FrodoFZ]

7 minutes ago, cornerslider said:

I look at Ducati as jewelry... Very pretty /shiney, but essentially useless.... The R1 cross-plane motor is just ANGRY sounding, in a very bad-ass way! The FZ/MT-07 is a close second -

I plan on fabbing up a full 2-1-2 titanium exhaust for the hooligan, not sure yet if I want to also fab a "resonator"  up stream of the exhaust exit or just leave it as an un-muffled system... it might be a little obnoxious but it won't be a daily rider (I say that now knowing dam well I'll be riding it as much as I can LOL). either way it'll sound soooo good 

[FrodoFZ]

37 minutes ago, 1tondriver said:

 Very cool build . Another I can’t wait to see done. You have some skills my friend!

 

Thank you man! I made one attempt at a project bike about 8 years ago BEFORE I had acquired any type of usable skill, and well, its safe to say that bike never made it out of retirement. I feel much better about this one though LOL

[FrodoFZ]

UPDATE!

This post touches on the battery/electronics box fabrication, box mounts, and getting the tail/seat pan section mounted to the bike.

 

I wanted the battery box to fit nicely within the subframe and mimic the lines of it somewhat, so I just measured and cut two pieces of .090" thick 5052 aluminum just slim enough to fit between the top rails of the subframe for the bottom portion of the box. I then crudely went back 'n forth between using the actual main frame rails (used as a template) and a bench vise to bend and shape the curved section of the box . Once I got close enough to match the factory lines of the main frame, I tacked the two bottom pieces together, and proceeded to use them as a template for the side panels of the battery box:

 

After it was tacked and fit-up was checked, I began welding it together:

 

At this point it was time to fabricate and install the battery box mounts to the frame, just using some regular 3/16" x 3/4" steel flat bar. I essentially clamped (lightly) the battery box in place and made sure it sat 3/16'' below flush with the top subframe rails while keeping it level. I then cut two 3/4" long pieces and one 4 1/2" piece of the aforementioned flat bar and tacked them into place underneath the suspended battery box. I double-checked the fit up and once it was sound I welded the brackets solid (I tried keeping the mounts as square as possible with the frame, but that was a task in itself), and then drilled (using a 5/32 bit) 5 mounting holes through the box into the mounts. I then tapped the holes using a 10-24 tapered tap. I don't have pictures of all those steps but here ya go:

 

As you can see in the picture below, the gap between the main frame rail and battery box on the bike's right side was larger than on the left side (not shown):

 

So I decided to do a little weld build-up on the right side of the box and blend it in to even the gaps:

 

But after a long duration of time spent being fed up with the never-ending uneven gaps and lop-sided weld build-up, I finally realized it was due to my piss-poor fab work of the box (rushing vs. taking my time) and putting an asymmetrical bend on the curved section of the box. Clearly, eyeballing doesn't work well in some instances as compared to others

So to remedy this predicament, I used the sides of the existing box for a template of its shape from the the side view, and used the same dimensions of the bottom pieces of the box (and took more accurate measurements and bent the curved portion in more precise, slightly smaller increments using the right tools along with doubling and triple checking this time) to create an all-new, much nicer, more better, battery box:

 

I also did a little weld build-up and blending on the front edges of the new battery box to just close the gaps a little bit more. (the gaps were dead-nuts even this time):

 

Once I had the new battery box all settled in, mounting the seat/tail was the next logical step. I used some steel angle and a boat load of clamps to hold in place some 3/4" x 1/8"aluminum angle for the seat/tail mounts. I wanted the aluminum angle to be as flush as possible with the top of the subframe to help better distribute the weight of the rider (me) versus having the battery box being the primary load-bearing point for my fat arse:

 

Once the mounts were evened up, I tacked, and then welded them to the batter box

 

Next was squaring up the seat/tail along with finding the exact location of the brackets to properly lay out and space the mounting holes:

 

I used 10-24 x 1/2" SS cap screws to fasten the seat/tail down.

 

Here are better photos to compare the insides of each box (you'll definitely see what I was talking about when I said piss-poor):

 

 

There are a few things some of y'all will probably notice in these photos that I didn't touch on; I'll save that for the next update post. Thanks for reading I'll have more coming down the pipeline here soon! 

Austin

 

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by FrodoFZ
Removed unwanted pictures

[Evill_Ed]

Lookin Great. Nice progress

[FrodoFZ]

Thank you! I can't wait til its road ready...I'll probably have grey hair by then

[blackout]

Awesome build!  Thanks for sharing! 

[bornagainbiker]

I second that.  ^^^