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Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum having purchased a ZXR400 race/track bike off of Ebay for £1600. It got dropped off the other day and was looking similar to this.



According to the Dynotech Performance Invoice sheet that came with it in 2004 it had an engine blue print and tune, race head flow, race cams and stainless steel valves put in,

a race ignition added



A race kit airbox fitted, cylinder rebore, ohlins rear shock fitted and the forks stripped and rebuilt.

The fella I bought it from said it had only done part of one season since then and after that had just been standing around.

I spent last night stripping it all down to see what condition it was in. I lost count after the 20th cable tie holding things together !Also I swear there was just not one bolt the same, it was a real mish mash of getting things to work. I've never had a race bike before but after just taking the body work off I decided to take it down all the way so I was happy with everything before riding it. The bike came with a wet on the front and a rock hard dunlop 208GP on the back.

The oil cooler and Radiator were looking really shabby, the radiator was missing a tab. When I drained the coolant it came out brown and rusty!





One good thing was it came with what I think are titanium headers. Despite being all dirty making it hard to tell they were so light they had to be Ti.



The frame and the swing arm are in good condition as was the battery. The triple tree is very pitted with white corrosion type stuff.


The exhaust outlets were very sooty making me think it was running rich for a long time and that may need sorting.



These are the calipers it came with. The braided lines are good but not coated in in a plastic protector to stop rubbing. They are tokico 4 pots with a Nissin master cylinder, is this standard?


The brake pads look a bit rusty but I don't think the brakes are seized. I may well strip them down and repaint them anyway to get them looking nice again.

I have a lot of questions having never owned one of these before. I have been pouring over the forum trying to pick up information here and there to help me.

If anyone could give me pointers on the folowing I'd appreciate it.

Given that it's had all this engine work done but hasn't run really since 04 - 05 is it worth stripping it down and replacing the valve springs.

At the same time I could clean up the piston heads if they need doing.

The oil when drained didn't look particularly clean but I have seen worse, The cap did have a bit of white emulsion in it, is this an indicator the head gasket could need replacing anyway?

I had some more questions but they have slipped my mind now. Hopefully I'll have it back up and running soon. I already picked up some Dunlop alpha 10's for it.

Cheers

Max

nice spec !

yes thats a titanium Beet exhaust system.. lucky bugger nigh on the best you can get and almost a grand new !

cable ties are common on racebike's (well mine anyway) quicer innit ! lol, and lighter than bolts !

i wouldnt worry about the valve springs or head gasket, a bit of white emulsion is normal on any zxr thats done short journeys or not been run properly in a while.. and ive not managed to snap the valve springs in a zxr yet, despite running an almost stock H1 to 15,500 rpm for half a season... (even putting over 70 thousand miles on our zx4 hasnt killed it yet)

change the fluid's and get it on a dyno...dynotech know their toad so it should be a good engine.

alpha 10's are great tyres, (and what i use) but most seem to favour the pirrelli's

good luck with it !

think zimm has answered your questions so i shall say no more than welcome to zxrworld!!

Thanks for the help Zimm,

That's an impressively quick turn around for answers!

I broke it down to components this evening, everything will get a clean and polish or paint and then I'll stick it all back together.

A grand brand new for the exhaust! Looks like it was definitely worth the money I paid for it then.

I'll put it on the dyno as soon as I can, I have an old dynograph here showing 76 HP



He said that was with a different exhaust though so it'll be worth redoing and checking that the jetting is ok.

Ive got the same exhaust system on mine, advertised as stainless steel when i saw the bike, but by the weight its defo titanium!

Really nice bike, any questions ask away its why we are here!

And finally, welcome to the forum!

I'd say you've got a bargain there with a blueprinted engine and beet exhaust!! well done ya lucky begger lol

Are you looking to race or just track days?

Wow a blue printed engine. That aint cheap!!!!

Thos brake calipers you have are standard, if you suffer with poor braking a quick and easy upgrade is to fit a 7r mastercyclinder. It fits straight on and is bigger than the zxr400 mc.

You can also scrap the oil cooler and fit blanking plates, you don't need it and it will save a bit of weight.

As zimm said, replace the fluid and give it a run, let it go through a heat cycle.

If you do decide to strip the calipers, I have some dust seals somewhere left over from my old calipers, you can have em cheap, save you abit of money.

Thanks everyone. This forum is great!!

Scott221 you said I could ditch the oil cooler? I was looking through the race manual and it says to reposition it up just under the clocks? I'm a little worried about removing it completely.

The bike still has a starter motor and I am wondering about removing that. Are these bikes easy to bump start or could you rig something up to use the motor with a sepoerate battery from the other side of the casing just to get the bike started and then disconnect it?

The front hub still has the old speedo sender unit piece and not the kit parts? Is there much to be saved by getting hold of the kit parts?

Finally (for the moment), I have stripped the frame sub frame and swingarm and I'm going to grind off the unecessary tabs on the sub frame and swing arm. I had planned to spray the frames but I have read something about aluminium needing to be prepared in some way before it could be painted. Tips here would be handy.

Cheers

Max

Have a look at this thread with regards to the oil cooler.
viewtopic.php?f=37&t=8039&p=67554&hilit ... ler#p67554

Some people use it, many don't. I'm no racer so maybe one of the guys who race the zxr would explain the advantages and disadvantages of removing it.

Jeppo wrote:I'd say you've got a bargain there with a blueprinted engine and beet exhaust!! well done ya lucky begger lol

Are you looking to race or just track days?

Sorry Jeppo, I missed your reply earlier. I'm going to track it but would look to race it later this year or next year if I get round to it and once I get used to it and get my skills up.

Just a quick update.

I have stripped the paint of the frame, subframe and swingarm and got rid of the uneccessary tabs. I stripped the wheels to metal and bought and stripped some spare wheels for wets.

I'm getting the frame bead blasted to remove the last bits of paint from the fiddly bits amd I'll take some pictures when it returns and post some up.

To save a bit more weight I have bought a 4 cell carbonspeed battery http://www.carbon-speed.com/prod.htm.

This should be more than enough to run the 400 and I think I'm probably going to junk the starter motor as well. Where do the parts come from to block up the holes?

Hopefully this week I'll get sort of spray area set up in a friends garage and start spraying the bodywork and wheels. For undercoating the aluminium Hammerite do a special metals primer which I'm going to try.

Cheers

Max

#To block the holes fromt he starter i think most people make up a blanking plate n seal it that way.

Cant believe the size of that battery! And that will do the same job as the standard fitment? Or is it just a case of providing enough to last a race?

Cheers Rob, I'll take a look at it later today.

The battery works just like a standard one. If your bike still has the charging system it will recharge off that just like your normal battery. As my bike is total loss it will be a case of trial and error to see how long it will last before needing recharging but I am expecting to get at least 3 20 minutes sessions as there is so little to power on a carbed track bike as opposed to a fuel injected one.

Sounds like a bit of a bargain to me.

Do not junk the oil cooler.
As it's a Dynotech enogine, I assume it's 76bhp on their Dyno in that case good bhp for 2004. Do not take the ignition pickups off, you (Dynotech) have to dial the pickups for the Dyna 2000 in with the cam timing, Dynotech don't use Dyna 2000 anymore as they became unreliable, but as your's appears to be an early setup should be OK.
Why junk the starter?

Oh, and a lot of old racebikes have parts held together with cable ties, easy/quick to get off/replace and saves weight
Also, the Dyna 2000 apparently uses a lot more battery power than standard igniyion systems, get an optimate and keep it on charge between sessions. I've not finished races due to battery power loss :smt013

Thanks for the advice on the pickups Ballsout. I think I will be putting the oil cooler back on as a lot of people say to keep it and I'm uneasy leaving it off.

I wanted to get rid of the starter so that I saved a bit more weight on the bike and I wouldn't be stressing the battery turning the engine over to start the bike.

Or I suppose I could eat less pies

What I'd really like to do is just get the thing back together and ride it . However thw more time I spend looking through these forums the more things I see that I'd like to do while it's apart.