Kawasaki ZGRX 1200 Concours

bergmen

Well-known member
did the ZRX transmission not need the lubrication from the spray bar? maybe i'm misreading but if they're otherwise identical transmissions why does the ZRX need more oil on that area?

Spray bars are a good thing but after lots of thought on this, I figured this was a convenient way to deal with the oil supply that typically would go to the bevel gear case.

The oil system for the transmission in both bikes was identical, pressure fed to the roller/ball bearings on the input/output shafts as well as all of the gears on both shafts. I figured if the Concours could live happily without a spray bar then the Concours transmission would be okay without one as well.

Also, I think that Kawasaki realized that the ZRX was going to be owned by hard riders (wheelies, max acceleration, stoppies, etc.). That's okay, I was going to be a much more subdued rider even though I was going to have a lot more horsepower and torque. Here is a comparison of the two (horsepower/torque curves).
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
thanks!
calculated risk i totally get it

Also, I needed that oil supply for the bevel gear case or this project would have been dead in the water. It worked out fine in the end.

I made a commitment early on (to myself and my wife who was not all that thrilled about taking over the garage on some wild adventure) that if some brick wall showed up, I would back out, put everything back together as it was and sell the ZRX. I made a point of not modifying anything that would prevent it's return to normalcy. My engine mount was a bolt-on affair even though I considered modifying the ZRX head to attach it to the frame (I didn't trust that concept for several reasons).
 

bergmen

Well-known member
Moving to the bottom of the engine for a minute, I needed to have a Concours oil pan installed so my stock Concours exhaust would fit underneath. The ZRX pan would not allow this. Here is a comparison of the two.

In addition I mounted my spin-on oil filter adaptor kit (in gold) I designed and patented (for the Concours but would also work on a number of other Kawasaki motorcycles including the ZRX).
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
Back to the engine mount parts I designed several parts with pilot holes only so I could accurately position the final attachment holes "on assembly". I positioned the engine in the test frame carefully, attached all of the engine mount parts and began to locate the final holes. Once located, I removed them and went over to the drill press to drill and then tap as necessary.
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
Once drilled and tapped, I assembled the mount on the test fixture for a final fit check. Then I sent the aluminum parts out for hard anodizing and then did the final assembly to the engine.
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
Now we are getting serious. It is time to move over to the Concours and start the transplant surgery. This is when I really felt this was going to work.
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
Engine in the Concours frame with the coolant cumz-inta manifold installed. Second picture shows the carbs installed. The boots lined up perfectly with the Concours airbox and snapped in place. They were about an inch shorter than the Concours boots so I had to fabricate a couple of "Z" brackets to mount the air box (not shown in this view). This was actually a great advantage since I could pull the carbs out much easier than the Concours carbs which was a royal PITA. I used this feature many times doing the final carb tune on this bike (details later).
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
Assembly continues. Here you can see the radiator and oil cooler installed, the little "Z" brackets to secure the air box and I am routing cables, hydraulic and oil lines. Also you can see that I sent out my bevel gear case to have it powder coated to try to match the "gold" of the ZRX cases. It was close enough.
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
So now it was time to address the electrical system. I put together a consolidated schematic of the two bikes, found a ZRX1100 wiring harness (same as the ZRX1200) and invited my good friend Jerry to come down from Sonora, spend the weekend, and rewire the bike. He is an automotive electrical expert and jumped at the chance. He ended up with a nice clean wiring harness and we used the old holster for the smaller Concours ECU to hold the much larger ZRX ECU. The box is the left over wires at the end of this exercise.

I only had one tiny glitch when I was ready to do a test start and it was just one unconnected wire that I plugged in and shazam, it fired right up.
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
I used the headers off my Concours for the trial runs but in parallel I had secured a brand new set from the Cop-Fitters (place I got the frames). I saw that the collars were welded on from the inside in a manner that looked as though they could be restrictive. I bought a high speed carbide burr and using my air tool, hogged out the weld to open things up (original on the right, hogged out on the left). Thinking that I might be weakening the junction, I had the outside TIG welded to reinforce. Then I sent these headers out to an outfit in Washington to have them satin black ceramic coated inside and out.
 

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bergmen

Well-known member
I need you to come up and work on my 1959 Jeep CJ5 that the previous owner "modified"

Mad

This project was back in 2007 when I had a lot of vim and vigor. I'm old, slow and lazy right now and I doubt I would be much help. This is flattering though.

Dan
 

bergmen

Well-known member
Are you buddies with Steve in sunny florida?

Great pics!

As a matter of fact I am! He loves builds like this and he was an outstanding resource for all things tuning, especially carburetors (which know very little about).

Here is the interesting part. He runs an automotive and motorcycle repair business (successful I might add) and could charge for any parts/advice he could share with me. I tried several times to offer to pay (he would send out jets, emulsion tubes, high speed needles gratis). He would have none of it. He is a real standup guy, I owe an awful lot of the success of this project to Steve.

Towards the end I put together a box of things he might need (spin-on oil filter adaptor kit, one of three gold anodized units I had, an extra bevel gear case and other odds and ends) and sent them to him out of the blue. He deserved at least that much.

That reminds me, I haven't talked to him in ages - I need to give him a call, thanks for the reminder!

Dan
 
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bikewanker

Well-known member
I need to go back to the beginning for a minute. Before I could start this project, I needed donor parts from a healthy ZRX. I found that there were engines available (hooligans at the time were totalling these here and there making parts available). But I did not want to have to trust an engine from a crashed bike not knowing if it had laid on it's side with the throttle wide open before getting shut off.

So I did the next best thing and found a nice clean 2003 ZRX an hour south of me and bought it for $4000 (I ended up selling all of the unused ZRX and Concours parts for about the same so it was a wash).

I built two plywood roll-around platforms to do the surgery. One of them was used for the ZRX and the other ended up on saw horses for the engine/frame/ engine mount work.

Thank goodness you got the correct color ZRX.
I’m fascinated. :thumbup
 

bergmen

Well-known member
Thank goodness you got the correct color ZRX.
I’m fascinated. :thumbup

The body parts were in high demand and a piece-o-cake to sell them as a unit. Even though these get crashed often (or did), the owners want to restore them back to original condition. I just kept the front fender to use on the front forks that I grafted to the Concours frame (will cover this phase later in this post).

Also, I posted my project on the ZRXOA forum and got a bit of backlash for sacrificing a perfectly fine and healthy ZRX (which I expected). I was sympathetic to their concerns and basically said everything will live on, just in different forms. Also, I was providing much needed ZRX parts to those that really needed them. I also was able to sell my Concours engine to a poor guy in Sacramento that hydrolocked his. I also mentioned that many ZRXs were thrashed, crashed and totaled never to see the light of day again and that was a worse outcome. As the project progressed I was absolved from cruelty and actually got the blessing from the owner I bought the ZRX from (who called me a "genius" for diving in as I did).

I showed up at a ZRXOA Rally in Weaverville in June of 2009 and that attracted a lot of interest. The ZGRX is at the top of the picture just in front of a guy standing in a dark T-shirt, I'm standing on the porch of the cabin just above a Rex with a red tank in a black sweatshirt and hands in my pockets.

Dan
 

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