garry55

It is a VJ21 motor that's fitted at the moment, but I will be fitting a fully re-furbished VJ22 lump come final assembly. The hose routing is a nightmare.........................

It's another water cooled, V-twin 2 stroke motor in a frame that originally housed a single cylinder motor..............

or TR750 - maybe too old?

VJ23A race tail - maybe too modern?

Not good for top-end performance, true - but they do enrich the low and mid-range performance, which is what I want from my road bike. And they sound like nothing else.................

It's a Strader system, made in the USA, and modified in the UK so that the tail pipe follows the line of the seat rail - hence the extensions to the header pipes. Also added some spring hanger attachments on the collector box and 3 pipes. Piper used to produce a similar system here in the UK.

Three.............................. into................................. one.............................

I like that

oooh! - I had a 600 like that..............

to preserve as many iconic Katana styling features as possible, whilst significantly updating the bike, I have had a replacement front mudguard fabricated. Shown alongside a 17" original from a GSX250S, it is wider to allow it to fit over a modern, wider 17" tyre...............

some more progress today...................... new air box mounting bracket fabricated and attached new air box mounting point installed air box butchered to allow clearance for frame rails and some frame bracing

I like the SB6 but I'm no fan of 1-piece fairings and batteries behind the clock set.............

you have to peek behind the fairing.................

fresh in from Holland, for less than the price of an RGV250................

today I have been mostly fitting the Kettle air box - the tw*t put up a hell of a fight - had to remove the original Katana air box mounting bracket on the frame, the Kettle air box side cover mounting lugs and the inlet trunking on the rear of the air box to get it somewhere near. Then I had to beat some subtle dents into the air box upper rear to allow it it to clear the top frame tubes. Funny how an air box for a 3 cylinder 2-stroke is as wide as that for a 4 cylinder 4-stroke, but it's in at last............. although the air box mountings are far from central in the Katana frame.......... tine for some more welding..........

yes - it's a hand laid carbon cover available from here.......... http://www.moto-works.jp/magicalracing.html

damaged Katana fuel tank........... who ya gonna call..........? Magical Racing .jp...........

the battery box, finished at last..........

been struggling to find a home for the battery, as it's usual place has been taken by the 2-stroke oil tank. But tonight, I had a Eureka moment, so it was out with the marker pen, drill and files.......... just a bit of cutting and grinding to do on the underside of the swing arm to get the battery box to sit flush

mounting the (Katana scooter!) 2T oil tank.... which is (mostly) hidden by the Katana's original electrics plate..... on the left side. The right side required a bit more work............. using the rear air filter section of a Katana 1100 airbox which has been attacked by a rampant hacksaw....... and the bit I need, fitted in place, but yet to be cleaned-up - this will disguise the 2T oil tank on the r/h side of the bike....... and help to retain the "standard Katana" look...........

part of my "brief" for this project is to retain as many of the defining styling cues that made the original Katana's so different - and this includes keeping the instrument binnacle, usually replaced by Koso clocksets or the like. So, having removed the internals from a (broken) set of Katana clocks, I set about fitting the Triumph speedo unit. Once mounted within the binnacle, it now required a new facia plate. to do this, you need the original facia plate and some Blue Tac......... a suitable material for the new facia (I used some Plasticard)...... a pen............ and a band saw helps too........ re-attach template........... whiling filing away the night........ out with the compass cutter......... just needs spraying and a couple of Katana decals and its done........

and it came back looking like this............... well pleased........

the bottom shock mounts.......... to be used to convert the mono-shocked TZR250 3MA swing arm to olde worlde twin shock spec..... So I set about locating the lower shock mounts onto the 3MA swing arm. The Gazi shocks that I purchased are 300mm between eye centres, adjustable to 310mm max. My ideal measurement is 330mm + adjustment, so the lower shock mounts would have to be moved nearer to the swing arm spindle. First, I drilled a piece of flat bar with a 10mm hole (lower shock mounting bolt size) and a 12mm hole (top mounting stud size) at 330mm centres, then attached it to the top mounting and jacked-up the swing arm until the lower bracket sat flush on the arm, like so.......... I then sized and fitted the correct bushes for the shock mountings - Gazi shock sets include 4 of each of 3 different-sized bushings - 10mm, 12mm and 13mm. with the swing arm still positioned at the 330mm height, I fitted the lower mountings to the shocks and attached them to the frame, thus............. ensuring both lower mountings were sat flush on the swingarm, I took the measurement, both sides, from the trailing edge of the mounting to the end of the swingarm box section - exactly 141mm both sides - result The swing arm was now ready for a trip to my welder.............

when I was looking for a Sprint ST speedo, to compliment the Sprint ST front end (and make the wiring-in simpler) it turned out cheaper to buy a whole instrument console - only £40 plus postage off everyone's favourite auction site.......... included in the comprehensive display of instrumentation is this dinky electronic time piece..... which I wanted to incorporate into the project - but where could I fit it without it looking like a cheap add-on..............? here of course - into one of the accessory ports thoughtfully provided by Suzuki....... a bit of measuring and drilling of 2 holes to accomodate the hour and minute adjustment buttons and...... it's in the r/h panel so at least I will be able to see it when the bike is at rest on it's sidestand