FZRSupport: the FZROnline Archive

Its going to be slow going at first I think on this project and a few weeks before most of my parts are here for sure. But Ive pulled the trigger on a swingarm setup that should be really sweet, and R1 forks are more than likely not far behind. This thread is a bit premature as far as the build goes, but I wanted to get some opinions on a few points.

Most importantly I need to find a winter workspace for this bike, and that includes the engine. Right now, my workspace is in the basement, which gives me a good bit of room, but the stairs are narrow and turn and its very difficult to get large or heavy things down there safely.

Right now, my XS project consists of a no-title 81 XS11 special parts bike. It has a rebuilt engine thats 99% complete. Wiring harness, triple trees and steering stem(yay!), swingarm, final drive, and battery box. Thats pretty much it, and pretty much all I needed.

The engine should just need a refreshing and once over and everything else is coming from other bikes. Plus, I have a good, titled, bare frame for the final product, so I have a free frame to play with for fabrication testing and such.

For those who are not familiar with the XS1100, its Yamaha's standard/sport tourer from the late 70s/early 80s. 1100cc air cooled inline 4cyl. Here's a genereic google pic:



Here's my parts bike(sorry for small pic, Ill take/upload bigger/better later)



And the clean frame





Now on to the good stuff. Originally, I wanted to do a SSSA and chain drive conversion. The problem is, only one guy makes the conversion, and wont do a run until spring, and the cost is very high. So then I started pondering how to get a wider rear tire and still maintain the stock shaft drive. I am, after all, building this bike to be more comfortable for long rides than my FZR. Shaft drive is smoother and less maintenance intensive.

Plus there were some pretty big drawbacks to overcome still with the chain-drive conversion. Ive come across some interesting examples so far and come up with a solid plan for the rear end. I have gone ahead and started ordering the parts for the rear end. I will get to the wheel later.

The XS11 has a pretty short swingarm, a fairly steep steering angle, and a longish wheelbase compared to other sport tourers of the era. A lot of riders have found that deraking the front slightly, and extending the rear swingarm helps quite a bit with handling.

This is a heavy bike, so a low, manageable COG is important too. Ive decided to us a 03-05 FJR1300 swingarm. Unlike several other shaft drive swingarms, the pivot point does not span the width of the frame, like the Yamaha Vstar swingarms that some people have used. They had lots of interference problems with setups like that. I will need to fabricate a new mount for the left side of the swingarm pivot, but luckily, this has been done before, and I have a bike to use for reference.

The XS is originally a dual shock setup, so I will be converting to a monoshock as well, but Ill be putting it in the traditional location.




Supposedly most Yamaha final drives interchange, so I may be able to reuse my XS11 final drive with the FJR swingarm, I may need the FJR FD, but I will need the FJR driveshaft since the swingarm is 4” or so longer than the XS. The driveshaft splines mate up to the XS Ujoint, so that is one less part needed. It seems a lot of the shaft drive parts interchange between most Yamaha models. Its nice!

The stock XS usually runs a 130 or 140 tire, so making room for a wider tire requires spacing out the middle drive. This is where it is going to get tricky. I need a 30mm spacer machined(simple enough) and a extended middle drive shaft(tricky part). Ill probably have to have a new shaft machined. Luckily Ive got friends in the 4x4 axle shaft and drivetrain manufacturing industry and they make new splined shafts an stuff all day long. We will see how that pans out…



Note the aluminum spacer between the engine and the middle drive




Once I get the swingarm mounted and the driveshaft lined up, then comes the wheel selection. I have the option of using a stock FJR1300 wheel, which gives me a 180 or 190. But I don’t like the FJR wheel that much, it’s a straight 3 spoke, but split, and I really want forged 5 spokes this time around. One unique thing about the FJR final drive is that it uses a cush drive!



This cush drive matches R1 wheels! So I will eventually pick up a 04+ R1 rear wheel and run a 190 on it, shaft driven. I need to find the rotor diameters of the FJR and R1. I am hoping that the rotors are the same diameter and I can maintain the FJR caliper mount and caliper, but that is a matter for later down the road.

By using the R1 wheel on the FJR swingarm, I am perfectly set up to match a R1 front end(or 05+ R6 like Im bidding on now, something with radial brakes). If money allows this go-round, Im getting forks for this beast too. 07-08 R6 and R1 forks are scarily abundant and are going for about 500 for a complete front end, but that’s too much right now with the rear end parts too, so it will likely just be some fork tubes and triples for now. But radial calipers and MC are mandatory. I am also hoping to convert the XS to a hydraulic clutch and use a radial clutch MC as well. These are to be mounted to dirty bars I think

One other major decision I need to make is on the tank. I can use the stock XS11 tank, which is more flat top and bottom, and narrows a bit toward the seat. The other option is the XJ1100 tank. It is more downtuned at the rear from the side and looks more “chopperish.” I prefer the XJ tank, but Im not sure how a downturned tank will look with an upturned tail.

XS11


XJ11



For a tail, I was thinking a TZ solo tail or, I really like this YZF750 tail on this one. Note: This is a XS11 tank that has been added-to and oversized. This bike is also the primary inspiration for the swingarm setup. The rest of this bike is just insane! Turbo, DFI, etc. hehe.



Earlier version with different swingarm and FJR wheel




So, let's hear it. Opinions? I think this setup will be more feasible than a chain drive conversion, and I think its kinda neat putting a wider rear tire on a shaft driven bike. Its an interesting challenge. I will feel really pleased if I can actually mate a R1 wheel to a shaft drive too!

cool ideas you got there sounds like you need a garage (me too). ive been building mine inthe basement also i think im gonna get a winch or a rope and pully tied to a car to get mine out of the bulk head thats gonna be fun. are you gonna put all the high performance goodies on too

No, Im not adding a turbo or FI anytime soon, Ill just be relying on the 1100 itself. The idea is to NOT take nearly 3 years to get to ride this project. I want to get it running and rolling in a relatively simple manner. The fancy stuff can come later.

i like that silver one with the blue rims. these builds are like the flu, really catchy. i got a fever and the only perscription is more bike building. now i just gotta catch rich and im good to go. i think im going to enjoy this. lets see if you get as many veiws as your fighter project did

That sounds sweet.I've got a shaft drive project going too.Well it's been on the back burner for a while.
83 KZ1100 on a denvers chopper frame,open shaft

is that all your stuff or do you repair bikes. i love the bottle just laying there

Looks interesting: can't wait to see how it pans out. I would definitely go with the R1 rims. For the tank, I want to say a saw a model or two of Yamaha TDM or TRX (parallel twin) that had tubes running down the middle instead of the perimeter, if you wanted to have a little more of a "sport bike" tank on the bike, but if not I really like the tank on the silver custom above: really cafe-racer-ish.

As for the tail, if you decide to go the YZF750 tail route, I happen to have a 1st gen YZF600 tail that looks just like the one on the silver custom above that I bought to go on my bike that I'm not gonna use (I decided to go with a FZR race tail that I got from Thatkid).

So ebay is the devil. I now have a set of 01 R1 forks on the way. The bad part is that I dont have a specific use in mind for these, but couldnt resist a set of R1 forks for $40 shipped. One of the chrome tubes has a small dent, but I actually have a spare, so its all good. I think Im going to hold on to these forks and use them to help with mockup, or even throw them on another FZR frame down the road. But these wont do for the XS11. Its a heavy beast, so I need the best I can get. I will find out in a few hours if i won the 07 R6 forks and calipers Im bidding on now. If I win that, those are going on the XS. If I dont, Ill have to track down another set. If I get a set of Gold forks, I have to think about the color scheme of the rest of the bike. Its not so easy to work in Gold forks as black ones, but I want something different. Also, thanks to a hook up from R3tard, Im getting set up with radial brake MC, thats for the XS for sure. Hopefully mu FJR swingarm will be here soon and I will have close to a roller!

Finch, I am a long way out from doing the tail. I am going to try and do this build in a logical progression, so Ill be dealing with body work AFTER i work out the chassis issues, so getting a tail now would be a bit premature, unless the price is right.

Over here in Australia, a race team made a chain drive conversion for their XS1100. They rode it in the Arai 500 race at Bathurst NSW. Im pretty sure it won the race [F1 class]. An XS1100 won the production class as well.

They were a big heavy lump of a bike that should not have won anything, execpt for being a good long distance touring bike. But they won a lot of races over here..
http://www.castrol6hour.com.au/

sbutler wrote:Over here in Australia, a race team made a chain drive conversion for their XS1100. They rode it in the Arai 500 race at Bathurst NSW. Im pretty sure it won the race [F1 class]. An XS1100 won the production class as well.

They were a big heavy lump of a bike that should not have won anything, execpt for being a good long distance touring bike. But they won a lot of races over here..
http://www.castrol6hour.com.au/

Yeah, its pretty hefty. My intention is not to make a super high performance machine, in fact the engine will remain pretty much untouched for a while. I wanted something more comfortable for longer rides since 30min on my FZR and my thumb is numb for the next 24 hours. I havent seen many of these done and I like how I can turn an old standard tourer into something a little sportier and a lot more fun.

This front end swap is looking to be a super easy on this frame. I am planning on using a 06 R1 front end, but wont have it for a few weeks, but I got my hand on a really cheap 01 front end pieces so i decided to grab them for mock up, and Im sure Ill use them on something. But the stems are the same size, so it doesnt really matter right now. The lower bearing of the R1 is a perfect fit and can be reused. The upper bearing, however is a oddball size 30x47x17. It was hard to track this bearing down, but I believe I have found it to be a pinion bearing in a honda hybrid manual transmission. This bearing is Honda PN 91101-657-014 and available for order here:

http://www.hondapartsnow.com/genuine/ho ... 7-014.html

The only hangup I have encountered so far is the stem is just a hair too short, so I am going to see if I can get maybe a mm or two down total out of the triples. This shouldnt be too hard at all though. The other issue is that the steering stops just barely touch each other, and the frame stop may need to be shaved a little. So Ill probably need to weld a small extension on it to make sure the stops dont slip past each other.
Ill have the fork tubes here soon.

mrfreeze5 wrote:Finch, I am a long way out from doing the tail. I am going to try and do this build in a logical progression, so Ill be dealing with body work AFTER i work out the chassis issues, so getting a tail now would be a bit premature, unless the price is right.

I'm not in any hurry to move it, and all I'm gonna try to get out of it is what I have in it. I guess just PM me when you get closer to time to do bodywork and we can work something out. It's good to keep your priotities in order: get the thing moving first, then you can make it pretty.

Can't wait to see how this project turns out, btw.

digging that last one with the race tail man. very ZRXlike.

the_finch wrote: It's good to keep your priotities in order: get the thing moving first, then you can make it pretty.

Can't wait to see how this project turns out, btw.

Ive learned my lesson If Im going to blow my wad on parts, , make sure theyre parts I can use now.

I think I have decided on the front end for this project. I really like this Emgo cafe/drag fairing, and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the price. It uses a 7" round headlight. I think this would look great with a big ole chunky FZR or YZF solo tail! I also think I am going to be painting the body white with black accents, but thats not set in stone. What do ya think?