My 2002 Yamaha FZ1 Overhaul

[Slim Johnson]

I have had my bike for a few years now, and last spring, I came very close to buying a Yamaha R1 to build as a track bike. Well, I am a father of twins; which had me thinking about the purchase of a second bike, and how it would double my maintenance expenses.. It would have also left me with a motorcycle that would hardly be ridden. SO I opted to take the money I had set aside for a second bike, and spent it on building up the FZ1.

This is what the bike looked like when I purchased it. It is completely stock, minus the S/O exhaust, and the Corbin seat (not pictured).



In the first couple of years, I added pod filters, rejetted the carburetors, cut the fender, added the frame sliders, bar end mirrors, and made a few other minor changes.



Finally, when I parked it in April 2011, I went with the full monty. I decided to upgrade the suspension, brakes, Ti-Force racing exhaust, and add a custom set of needles, compliments of Glenn Hinton. I installed R1 wheels, which gave me a 6" rear rim, up from 5.5". This allowed for a 190 tire. It slowed the turn in just a tad, yet gave it more of a stable feel with the slightly larger contact patch.

Here are the wheels all ready to go onto the bike. I had to have a wheel spacer fabbed up to get the R1 rear wheel to fit, as well as modifying a rear caliper bracket from an R6, because the rotor placement was totally different on the wheels.




The front wheel provided it's own challenge. The rotors on the R1 are 320mm, and the FZ1 are 298mm. There is also a difference in the lug pattern. My solution was to purchase rotors for the FZ6, which met both criteria.

I also went with the front master cylinder from an '07 R1. It added more stopping power, given it's larger piston size. I also added custom HEL SS brake lines to go along with the new MC. This required me to fab up a mounting bracket for the fluid reservoir, which I made from a mirror post.



To improve the suspension, I contacted Lee at Traxxion Dynamics. I decided to send off my forks for the once over! Had the Axxion AK-20's installed, and added the Penske 8983 on the rear. May I say, it was the best modification to date!



Since some of the suspension parts were on back order, I decided to add some HID headlights. I went with the Xenon Bi-HID's. Using two colors, both the 3k, and 6k IIRC. At 35 watts, they use less energy, and they are significantly brighter than the OEM lights! I also took the extra down time to add some Woodcraft racing engine covers, CRG bar end mirrors, alarm, and some Pro-taper motocross bars. I also managed to find some carbon fiber inserts for the fairing, some side covers, and trim for the instrument cluster, and top clamp. Oh yeah... a bellypan, and a PIAA horn too!!

I also purchased a pair of brake calipers off of an '09 FZ1. Since the calipers had silver, rather than the blue bolts that are on the OEM calipers. I wanted to get all of the blue off of the bike, since it really didn't fit...





I am pretty sure that about covers it... This is what the bike looked like once I was finished with all the work. I also took it to Salt Lake Motorsports, to put it on their dyno. I wanted to dial in the jetting after making all the changes to the bike, as well as getting a good idea of how much power I was putting on the ground. I found out I needed some minor adjustments to the A/F mix, and that I am getting 134hp to the wheel. That is about a 15hp increase over stock.

[rexmitchell]

Looks nice mang, love the CF dash work.

[Tdubb]

Yes, that thing is bad.

Now where did you say that spare key was again?

[Slim Johnson]

The spare is hanging on a nail in the garage, right next to the bike.