2016 Superbike Story
Literally I bought this bike on a dare. Last Sunday a friend of mine was ragging on me for still playing with my 2009 Yamaha R1. I've got basically every suspension upgrade you can think of and the motor is currently at KWS Motorsports getting some love. He made a good point that this bike will never truly match up with the current liter bikes and that I should stop spending so much time trying to make it on par with bikes like the ZX10R, S1000RR or the current R1. So I dared him to find me a TRACK READY bike (specifically a 2016 ZX10R or newer) for $10,000. I figured there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell he'd find one. 10 minutes later I get a text with a link to this bike. $10,950 OBO for a bike with 2094 miles... Stuned that he was able to find one, I grudgingly offered $10,500 then the owner countered with $10,700 + a new set of Pirelli SC1 slicks and the deal was set. The whole transaction took less than 24hrs to complete. That's the LAST time I dare him on anything!
Here's the R1 I currently ride:
So this might not be that interesting to some but I wanted to start a thread to capture all the data from this new adventure I'm about to embark on. First things first, the bike is mostly setup already. I purchased a '16 Gen5 that was used for in CCS club racing since it rolled off the showroom floor. It was also used at the Daytona 200 at least once and the owner won his class (Formula 40 I believe). The bike was completely setup and maintained by TSE up in Wisconson.
Track Side Suspension Engineering Trackside Suspension & Engineering | Motorcycle Suspension For You did some prototype custom valving to the SHOWA forks which I'll get into detail on later. They also installed a K-Teck DDS Pro rear shock. That's about it for suspension actually, but I can't think of a better way to enter a superstock class for less money vs performance. I guess maybe full Ohlins carts/rear shock would be the top tier but you don't necessarily need that level of performance if you (the pilot) needs more improving than the bike.
For power, the trend of simple/economical parts continues. There's a Hindle slipon with a decat pipe and a flashed ECU. Done...the shift pattern was switched to GP during the flash as well but the blipper function wasn't activated (which I find odd actually).
Woodcraft is the other major vendor to get some love with all the protection goodies and egro's coming from their catolog. Rearsets, clipons, lever guards, case protectors, frame sliders, axle sliders and rear spools are all installed.
So, I'll be picking the bike up on Friday and start going through it to get familiar with the Kawasaki way of doing things. Plans for the future include A LOT of kit parts and as much weight loss as I can make happen. Let see where this goes!
Literally I bought this bike on a dare. Last Sunday a friend of mine was ragging on me for still playing with my 2009 Yamaha R1. I've got basically every suspension upgrade you can think of and the motor is currently at KWS Motorsports getting some love. He made a good point that this bike will never truly match up with the current liter bikes and that I should stop spending so much time trying to make it on par with bikes like the ZX10R, S1000RR or the current R1. So I dared him to find me a TRACK READY bike (specifically a 2016 ZX10R or newer) for $10,000. I figured there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell he'd find one. 10 minutes later I get a text with a link to this bike. $10,950 OBO for a bike with 2094 miles... Stuned that he was able to find one, I grudgingly offered $10,500 then the owner countered with $10,700 + a new set of Pirelli SC1 slicks and the deal was set. The whole transaction took less than 24hrs to complete. That's the LAST time I dare him on anything!
Here's the R1 I currently ride:
So this might not be that interesting to some but I wanted to start a thread to capture all the data from this new adventure I'm about to embark on. First things first, the bike is mostly setup already. I purchased a '16 Gen5 that was used for in CCS club racing since it rolled off the showroom floor. It was also used at the Daytona 200 at least once and the owner won his class (Formula 40 I believe). The bike was completely setup and maintained by TSE up in Wisconson.
Track Side Suspension Engineering Trackside Suspension & Engineering | Motorcycle Suspension For You did some prototype custom valving to the SHOWA forks which I'll get into detail on later. They also installed a K-Teck DDS Pro rear shock. That's about it for suspension actually, but I can't think of a better way to enter a superstock class for less money vs performance. I guess maybe full Ohlins carts/rear shock would be the top tier but you don't necessarily need that level of performance if you (the pilot) needs more improving than the bike.
For power, the trend of simple/economical parts continues. There's a Hindle slipon with a decat pipe and a flashed ECU. Done...the shift pattern was switched to GP during the flash as well but the blipper function wasn't activated (which I find odd actually).
Woodcraft is the other major vendor to get some love with all the protection goodies and egro's coming from their catolog. Rearsets, clipons, lever guards, case protectors, frame sliders, axle sliders and rear spools are all installed.
So, I'll be picking the bike up on Friday and start going through it to get familiar with the Kawasaki way of doing things. Plans for the future include A LOT of kit parts and as much weight loss as I can make happen. Let see where this goes!