ZX6R street conversion

Last year I wrote a blog post or two about converting my ZX6R for track/race duty. Well due to this C19 nonsense all my trackdays and race weekends have been cancelled up to June at least. If you read my previous vent post you know that the uncertainty and lack of control was driving my insane. So I ordered the cheapest fairing kit on ebay and decided to enjoy my Ninja on the street in the meantime. At the very least this would give me a chance to be mad at something more tangible (misfitting fairings, me being bad at fitting fairings, etc) instead of C19.

I started with the tail because its the easiest. I knocked that out on Friday after work. The hardest part was remembering how the locking mechanism goes together. Here's the funny thing: I ordered a Black-Matte kit, and my tank and solo seat cowl are shiny-black. So that it wouldn't clash I rebuilt the tail with my existing parts, which weren't all that damaged from my crashes.

Saturday morning after watching old races (two races were MM93 didn't win) and talking to my dad, I started on the main body.

I started with assembling as much as I could on the living room floor. The ZX6R has the benefit of being able to put the top cowl/nose and both mid-fairings together with the headlight. This is where I started running into the problem of 1. I'm bad at doing this and 2. I bought the cheapest kit possible. The kit didn't have all the right kinds of bolts/screws/wellnuts/quick rivets to actually put it together. My morning was spent back and forth to the garage to scavenge bits from the old trashed fairings (good thing I didn't bin them) and putting them into the new. Fit was another issue. For instance one side the turn signal fit right in, the other it didn't and I broke a bit of plastic. This particular kit was probably manufactured in 2010ish and felt super brittle.

This is also where I started running into the problem of being unable to fit certain trim parts because I suck and can't get the tabs and slots to line up. They must have a special jig for doing this in the factory. Anyways by mid afternoon I was able to get it into the garage and test fit it.

Thanks to having lots of spare bolts and connectors from other bikes I was able to start making progress. I eventually just gave up on most of the trim parts. The body is going to come off in two months (hopefully) anyways, screw it. Kawasaki in their wisdom put the R/R heatsink mounted on the inside the right fairing on the turn signal, which was a pain to put back in place.

Anyways I was able to finish good enough for a picture without mirrors(rainy outside so I stayed in).

Next week is forecast for some good weather. So maybe I'll get to ride the Ninja for the first time since September. Gotta take it easy, break in the tires, make sure nothing falls off, and most important remember how to ride it!