Project xs400 - Cafe Racer

My xs400.

fork brace
tapered roller bearings
20 w 50 oil in fork
gas rear shocks
2 into 1 exhaust
adjustable clip-ons
dual front disk
Magura brake lever and master cylinder
upgraded headlight
fiberglass seat
battery relocation
K&N air filters
custom gauge mount
79' motor w/cdi
rear sets

FOR SALE.

Project xs400 - Cafe Racer

This is my xs400 cafe. A little inspiration supplied by me. I'm honestly almost done, honestly. Although I have made some changes since I took these crappy pictures with my phone. I know they say that you're never really done with these kinds of things and with vintage bikes thats often true, but I've decided to forgo the front suspension swap and move on to my new project. I'll let that one loose soon. Sketches will be the next thing that I post on the new bike.

I'll take some better photos in a few weeks.

Project CB750, Almost...

Well, here's a Honda 750 project that I would've loved to outline the progress of on Looks Fast, but i guess i missed out. The builder's been cooped up in his garage for the last few months so I havent had a chance to meet him till a couple weeks ago. He's a pretty smart cat and does nothing to do with bike building for a living. He did an excellent, sort of Carpy styled 750 for his first build. Really though, what I like best about him isn't his girlfriend, as the song goes, but his AWESOME garage/living space! I don't know how he found it, but I'm kicking myself for not even thinking to look for a place like this of my own. Basically, it's a full two car garage that he's lives above. Perfect. Bastard.

Back to the bike. The bike is nearly complete, but he's still trying to figure out a good comfortable handlebar set up and he's waiting for the tank to come in the mail. The tank was from Roc City Cafe, but to fit the 72' 750, a relief had to be made in the bottom of the tank on the right side for the carburetor. Aaron(the 750 owner) didn't test fit the tank while the carburetors were on so the tank was sent back, to Roc City fully painted. The Roc City guys were great about it and modified the tank for nothing. I don't you about the dealings that everybody else has had with parts resellers, but they are rarely that committed to standing behind their products. I'm definitely going to keep these guys in mind for my next project.

Roc City also has a really informative blog, which can be seen here:
http://roccitycafe.blogspot.com/

I'll spend a bit more time on the bike outlining whats on it, in it and how it rides at a later date. He did take it out for a ride with a 74' 750 tank thrown on and it sounded great. Here's some pictures of it without the new tank and our ride to the Dog and Duck pub in Austin.











































Picked up a Guzzy on the way there...

Royal Enfeild bullet 500

The Royal Enfield Bullet is an anomaly among motorcycles. The bullet is a single cylinder production bike that has remained relatively unchanged since the 1950's. this model along with the Continental GT were Enfield's greats and among the bikes considered to be some of the original cafe racers. Enfield, like many of the British motorcycle manufacturers, started out as a rifle maker, in fact, their tag line for the bikes was "Made like a gun, goes like a bullet". They produced precision firearms and the motorcycles that they produced during early years were of equal quality. The story goes, that the Indian government ordered such large amounts of the Bullet that Enfield set up a factory in India to meet the demand. Production continued there while in 1971, the Enfield company folded in response to the rise of the Japanese bike blitzkrieg. By this time, an Indian company was the majority shareholder of Enfield's Indian production arm. The tooling and rights to the Bullet were purchased for a song and they've been in production ever since. All that, makes the Bullet the longest motorcycle production run of all time...Lesson complete.

Extra credit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Enfield#cite_note-Mirco-1
http://www.enfieldmotorcycles.com/

This brings us to Russ's 1995 Bullet 500. Russ, my friend and appreciator of all things cafe, decided on a Bullet for his first bike. He's made limited modifications so far, but what he's done has made a huge difference. So far for looks, he hid the normally exposed electrics, put on a new tank off eBay, a seat and clubman bars off the Enfield gear site. Go fast parts are currently limited to a new mikuni carb to replace the garbage original and a reverse megaphone muffler. Plans for the future include new sticky tires and a stock triumph style seat. I'll keep posting pictures as the bike evolves.

Here's the bike on a sunny, 70 degree December day here in Austin...

Project xs 400

This bike is what my blog is all about. The idea of taking a boring commuter bike, originally designed to appeal to the masses and make it into something that only cool people stare at. This was Yamaha's answer to the 70's gas crisis, a four stroke twin that had very little going for it. What it did have however was a design modeled after the coveted RD series bikes and an engine that could squeeze out 70 miles per gallon. When I saw the bike in it stock form, it was pretty easy to imagine a cafe racer hidden inside(77' and 78' models anyway) and with the price tag of 200 bucks, i couldn't resist... keep in mind it was a pretty beat version of the stock bike when i found it.

The "mighty" xs400 in stock form:





















First project that I'll be outlining on the blog will be a battery tray that will hide the battery beneath the seat. I'll be using a near stock sized battery as I'm unwilling at this point to sacrifice electric start. Future entries will outline paint, upholstery and more...

here's the current bike as it stands in my friends garage.




Stay tuned...