[Ungarisch]

I do apologize, I did kind of just disappeared last July, and when it comes to motorcycle communities that's usually a pretty bad sign. No, nothing happened to me, bike is still in one piece and now looks better than ever! I basically just decided to take some time off social media, group chats, forums and the internet just in general to focus more on being in the "real world"... Did plenty of riding on the Z, I think I accumulated just about 12k mile's worth since last year, several 1000 mile plus road trips on it, plus maybe dozen track days (including the famous Laguna Seca a few weeks ago), and spent about another $5k on mods / restoration parts.

By restoration parts I mean that I bought every single body part / plastic brand new from Kawasaki so that I now have a cosmetically new looking bike. It all started when I highsided my supermoto in December, not much damage to it but I did scrape the rear side panels. Contacted KTM/Husqvarna to buy some new ones only to be told that they are now permanently out of production and no longer available. Looked on ebay and none were for sale. This freaked me out because the Kawi is even older and figured it's now just a matter of time before those parts become no longer available as well. While my factory plastics were in decent shape (would maybe pass a 5 feet test ), there was a small ding on the fuel tank that drove me nuts looking at it, as well as some minor stone chips throughout the painted bits. I ordered everything brand new, including the tank through Webike Japan as they had the best prices (I think it was around $1600 USD shipped all in), and I had them in under a week's time. All of the flat black plastic pieces I decided to order in plain weave matte carbon fiber (most understated look IMO) from MotoComposites, that however that did take nearly 3 months to get made, but in the end I was quite happy with the quality.

Since I got all the parts in at different times I didn't take a photo of all the new parts, however here is a photo of everything I replaced. I boxed this all up and put it away in long term storage in case I do something stupid on the bike in the future. Even replaced the battery box because the black plastic turned white from all the stone chips. Also I got a Ninja 1000 seat unit because it's over 1" taller than the stock Z seat, which allowed me to further raise my rearsets for ground clearance.

and here's some recent picture of the bike with all the new bodywork installed and a few aftermarket goodies that I got within the past year. The bike's a bit dirty since these were taken after my typical weekend ride.

The list of changes are as follows; I changed out the 310mm Brembo Serie Oro front discs to 320mm Brembo T-Drive full floating discs, the 320mm discs are only possible with certain aftermarket calipers that's why Brembo doesn't advertise it as a possible upgrade size for the Z, but if you use the 4th gen ZX10r part number it will fit onto the Z. While my Brembo M4.32 calipers did work with these discs, I changed out to the new Brembo GP4-RS monoblocks, mostly because my previous Brembo's were ready for a rebuild, plus these looked better / more modern. To match the front, I got Active 84mm rear brake adapter and used Brembo's P34 rear caliper. This softened up the rear brake feel a little as compared to stock, but I'd still prefer it softer so I'll most probably change out the rear master to the 13mm Brembo that comes on most Aprilia bikes. Speaking of Aprilia, a friend of mine gave me a broken rear seat delete cowl from his Tuono and I managed to ghetto-rid the seat cushion pad thingy onto my S2 Concepts seat cowl. I was initially going to buy a new radiator because mine was badly rock chipped, but found it much cheaper to cover it all up with an Evotech rad-guard. I think the only other mods I changed were the Hella red horn (it sucks), and went with the Tech-Spec tank grips instead of the previous Eazi Grips.

Thanks, I'll try to be more active here going forward.

 

[Skub]

Good to see you back and enjoying life Ungarisch,I wondered where you'd got to and missed your expertise on everything Z.

The bike looks fantastic,a real sorted machine.

I'd like to hear your take on possible ways to improve the rear brake on the Gen4. I've tried new Brembo sintered pads recently,but I think the are actually slightly worse than the Kawasaki original! Very little feel. Probably braided lines would help,but apparently it's a ballache to fit on the ABS models.

 

[rcannon]

Your bike looks great.

I'm sure Kawasaki will do that, eventually, with our plastic, but KTM stops stocking parts very early. And not just with plastic. They are not afraid to call it quits on hard parts, too. Things you need to keep a machine running like pistons and cylinders. I went through this back in 97 and never considered another bike from them because of this.

I don't have a need to trade bikes very often, and that idea doesn't work with KTM. With their brand, you have to.

No, I have no idea what you are supposed to do with a crashed 5 yr old KTM. They update plastic so often that it might be impossible to maintain a reasonable stock, anyway?

 

[rcannon]

With your rear master cylinder, you said you wanted a 13mm. The 2010 zx10 was one of the last Kawasaki's to use a 12.8mm rear master. I mention this because eBay will have them for cheap. I paid 8.99 for mine. If it's cheap enough, it makes for a good test.

I had/have both the 32mm rear Brembo caliper and the 34mm. I preferred the 32mm with my 12.8mm rear master. I still had to switch the pads to Vesrah before the system was worth two shits. It's good now, but the Brembo pads it was supplied with might as well have been made by ebc for how bad they were .

Glad you are back. I missed you. Anyone who buys cool parts at the mentally ill level is someone I relate to and identify with.

 

[Ungarisch]

Your bike looks great.

I'm sure Kawasaki will do that, eventually, with our plastic, but KTM stops stocking parts very early. And not just with plastic. They are not afraid to call it quits on hard parts, too. Things you need to keep a machine running like pistons and cylinders. I went through this back in 97 and never considered another bike from them because of this.

I don't have a need to trade bikes very often, and that idea doesn't work with KTM. With their brand, you have to.

No, I have no idea what you are supposed to do with a crashed 5 yr old KTM. They update plastic so often that it might be impossible to maintain a reasonable stock, anyway?

my Husky is of the Italian variant, pre-merger, 2011 so 1 year newer than the Z. I was under the impression that California law requires all manufacturers to provide parts support for 10 years from date of manufacture, and considering my bike was made up until 2012 they should have had it in stock. Perhaps that law got repealed, or maybe it only applies to engine parts. Also, unfortunately the big plastic manufacturers (Acerbis, UFOplast, PoliSport) none of them make aftermarket plastics of the 630 platform. In the end I ended up sanding it down, polishing the plastic and placed a new vinyl sticker over it, good to go now.

I too keep my bikes for a long time, half the fun is modding it to the moon, and once you spent so much on it, it just doesn't make sense to sell it (especially if you still enjoy it), and I'm not really a big "part-out" kind of guy.

 

[Ungarisch]

With your rear master cylinder, you said you wanted a 13mm. The 2010 zx10 was one of the last Kawasaki's to use a 12.8mm rear master. I mention this because eBay will have them for cheap. I paid 8.99 for mine. If it's cheap enough, it makes for a good test.

I had/have both the 32mm rear Brembo caliper and the 34mm. I preferred the 32mm with my 12.8mm rear master. I still had to switch the pads to Vesrah before the system was worth two shits. It's good now, but the Brembo pads it was supplied with might as well have been made by ebc for how bad they were .

Glad you are back. I missed you. Anyone who buys cool parts at the mentally ill level is someone I relate to and identify with.

what generation is that ZX rear master from?

Speaking of ZX masters, I forgot to list that since I upgraded from the M4's which used 34mm pistons to the GP4-RS calipers which uses 30mm pistons (same as M50), I needed to downsize from my previous 18mm master cylinder to a 16mm to retain the same lever feel as previous. I'm quite happy with the performance of the PR slant masters, and also didn't want to spend money on an aftermarket RCS, so I ended up getting the 16mm Brembo PR/MCS master that comes stock 16-20 ZX10r from a friend of mine's crashed bike.

Overall really happy with the performance of the stock pads that came in the front GP4 calipers, should probably look up what they are. However the pads that came stock in the P34 rear caliper are complete ****. The amount of brake dust they emit is insane, and I'm not even that heavy on the rear brake.

 

[rcannon]

3rd gen, I believe? Zx10 from 2008-2010.

It may have been in use on earlier bikes, but I wanted the newest one possible. The cost was so low that it made sense to try and find one that didn't need a rebuild kit as the kit cost more than the entire master cylinder did. If I'm being cheap, I'm going all in.

Those stock rear Brembo pads were as bad as our stock bike was supplied with. I wonder if it costs more to make a quality pad?

That rule for replacement parts sounds reasonable. Im sure a person could file a lawsuit against them and win.

 

[Z1kBosnia]

Looks awesome compared to the stock one. I'm curious about those silver decals, is there any chance they could be ordered separately?

 

[Ungarisch]

Looks awesome compared to the stock one. I'm curious about those silver decals, is there any chance they could be ordered separately?

The matte chrome emblems are from the 2013 "special edition" model, see below. They do have to be ordered separately because when you order new OEM plastics they do not come with any emblems. The plastics do already come painted though, perfectly matched to original factory color. Speaking of which, the 2010 model that came with the burnt orange paint has a bit of fluo pigment in it, so when I compared the old plastic to the new one, there was definitely a bit more vibrance to it as the fluo on the old plastic has faded in the sun over the 12 years, not a lot but it is noticeable. The color did not change, but the new one is definitely a bit more punchy of a red than just burnt orange.

 

[Z1kBosnia]

I prefer the orange/white color scheme to be honest, it's an eye candy. I've found these on Ebay in the meantime, I might give them a go, not sure about the quality though.

LINKS:

14.5cm Motorcycle 3D Emblem Decals For Kawasaki Fuel Gas Tank Body Badge Sticker | eBay

Motorcycle 3D Emblem Decal for Kawasaki Fuel Tank Badge Stickers. Tear off glue cover,press emblem firm down on the designated place. No wash ing within 24 hours after installation. M ateri al: make of top quality Soft adhesive tape.

www.ebay.com

Motorcycle 3D Raise Fairing Body Emblem Stickers Decals Set for Kawasaki Z1000 | eBay

Universal Motorcycle 3D Raise Emblem Stickers Decals Set for Kawasaki Z1000. Size: 100mm 10mm (Z1000 sticker). Easy installation, NO installation manual.

www.ebay.com

 

[rcannon]

I always liked the orange color as well. Kawasaki had a zx14 from a few years back that had a gray background with orange trim. In person, the look was amazing.

I don't have any mods planned,currently, except I need to replace my shorai battery....I think I should.

The battery is ten years old. It works as well as the day I bought it, but everything has it's limits.

 

[Ungarisch]

I prefer the orange/white color scheme to be honest, it's an eye candy. I've found these on Ebay in the meantime, I might give them a go, not sure about the quality though.

LINKS:

14.5cm Motorcycle 3D Emblem Decals For Kawasaki Fuel Gas Tank Body Badge Sticker | eBay

Motorcycle 3D Emblem Decal for Kawasaki Fuel Tank Badge Stickers. Tear off glue cover,press emblem firm down on the designated place. No wash ing within 24 hours after installation. M ateri al: make of top quality Soft adhesive tape.

www.ebay.com

Motorcycle 3D Raise Fairing Body Emblem Stickers Decals Set for Kawasaki Z1000 | eBay

Universal Motorcycle 3D Raise Emblem Stickers Decals Set for Kawasaki Z1000. Size: 100mm 10mm (Z1000 sticker). Easy installation, NO installation manual.

www.ebay.com

The original Kawasaki emblem is matte/frosted chrome and is obviously much higher quality. I think I paid 90 USD for all 8 emblem, which is maybe 3x more than the Chinese ebay ones.

 

[Ungarisch]

I always liked the orange color as well. Kawasaki had a zx14 from a few years back that had a gray background with orange trim. In person, the look was amazing.

I don't have any mods planned,currently, except I need to replace my shorai battery....I think I should.

The battery is ten years old. It works as well as the day I bought it, but everything has it's limits.

I have the WPS lithium in both the Kawi and my Husky, going on 3 years now zero issues. The Kawi uses the size 9 ($73) while the supermoto uses size 14 ($96), but they are physically the same shape, so next time around I'll probably get the size 14 for all my bikes because you get a ton more amp hours out of the 14 with only marginal weight gains, and that can be useful in sub 32*F weather. My Gixxer track bike has an Anti-Gravity lithium battery, but that one's surprisingly heavy for some reason. I think the WPS is a more modern battery with more sophisticated battery management circuitry, so perhaps that's why it's lighter than the Anti-Gravity