The End

There’s set up, a rotten rotor to sort and then a test ride: the mighty Zed is finished!

- Ralph Ferrand

At last I am on the final furlong of what has been a substantial build for me. I have to say that I have enjoyed many parts of the build, though not others!

Heavily customised bikes aren’t for me, but I do rather enjoy the challenge of building them. I love designing and making custom parts. What I am less keen on is sorting out other people’s screw ups! I really hate telling the owners of classic bikes that a previous person/owner has done bad things to their bike and it will cost a lot of money to put right. And so it proved with this bike on a few occasions.

So, the mighty Mikuni 34mm flat slides were pushed into the lovely new supple intake stubs ready to start their life of accurately metering the go juice and life-affirming oxygen through the oversize valves, opening far wider than Mr Kawasaki ever intended into the massive oversized combustion chambers to be compressed and exploded, forcing the high compression Wiseco pistons down at time warping speed making huge amounts of power to be transferred through the very wide rear hoop to the glorious tarmac of south Wales. (Editor’s note, you can tell Ralph is paid per word…) The genuine K&N pod air filters needed a finger of red rubber grease before they could be persuaded to take their place on the air intakes of the flat-slide racing carbs.

I removed the oil pipes from the top of the oil cooler so that I could fill it with oil to help it along. I used one of the dear little funnels I usually use for filling lead acid batteries with distilled water. After the first fill this step is unnecessary.

The oil pipes could then be secured in their final positions. I then fitted the fuel pipes to the carbs using the supplied fuel pipe and clips.