Hard to believe these are the same basic Bike !

I still like the way it looks   .    A 500cc version might have me selling some calfs  !    

The bike I am building is not the gray scramble looking thing that folks have been posting.......I am building a Blue Collar Bobber Cafe' kit.  I am not using their large front tire, front fender, bottom mount headlight or the overly large speedo assembly - and I am not sure what I am going to do about paint yet.  It looks like this if you use everything in the kit.





No, hopping up the little Ninja motor shortens the engine life considerably....30 HP out of a 250cc engine is about all you can coax out and still get durability.  Left stock they can go a long time - one Ninja forum member got 87,000 miles on his first motor before the cam chain just got too long.....and it was cheaper and easier to just buy a good used motor than rebuild his high mileage engine.  The stock motor can push the little Ninja down the highway at 80 mph easily, and can get close to 80 mpg if you ride at normal speeds......it is best to accept the motor for what it is and just ride it.

Over the weekend I was able to push the new bearings in the powder coated swingarm, mount the new shock, get the back wheel on, install the side panels, and I got the headlight mounts on, and made turn signal mounts.  I also drained the fork oil and put new oil in.......the Factory Shop Manual says to use 10W-20 motor oil - but I could not find that so I used 5W-20....if that doesn't work well it is easy to change as the forks do have drain plugs.

The bike is somewhat hard to photograph in the garage with a cell phone....there is a lot of black.

If your good you will get him in the next turn !

Looking good Dave.  Sorry I confused people with that Scrambler (or a cool looking standard, brat or whatever you want to call it.) 

Ruttly wrote on 02/14/17 at 10:04:49:


It has carbs, and it is re-jetted and it runs smooth as silk.  I am not going to do any engine modifications.....I am just going to ride it and put miles on it!  A little 250 twin just isn't very good at making low rpm torque.

What you have to understand is that the stock Savage engine is a big single, it makes 31 HP at 5,400 rpm and 37 ft/lbs of torque at 3,400 rpm.....it is really good at accelerating out of corners (especially with engine mods that bump up the HP and torque.....the stock Savage motor is in a very mild state of tune).  The little Ninja 250 makes 28 HP at 12,000 rpm, and only 14 ft. lbs of torque at 9.000 rpm - it has 38% of the torque of the Savage, and then only if the engine is at 9.000 rpm!  Below 8.000 rpm the engine runs smoothly - but it is not making very much torque or HP (but it can get 70+ mpg when ridden that way).  The little Ninja engine already is built to a pretty high state of tune from the factory...it has 12.4:1 compression, pretty wild cams, good intake/exhaust ports - and the rods and crank don't last long if you try to coax more power out of the motor.  

Last night I was able to work for a little while making a mount for the Trailtech Vapor.  The mount looks a bit bulky and heavy in the photo - but when it is cleaned up, painted black and the Vapor is mounted - it will blend in and not be so gaudy looking.

The plate is made out of aluminum so it is not very heavy - I may be able to drill some holes in the plate below the speedometer to lighten up the look.....I will wait until I get it shaped and the speedo housing mounted to decide how to lighten up the look.

Cutting this thing out on my metal bandsaw is a bit cumbersome as the blade is thick and you can't follow curves easily.  I did find out that you can easily drill large holes in the aluminum with a "spade bit" made for drilling large holes in wood!  The hole for the ignition switch was drilled with a 1-1/4" spade bit.

Cutting out openings in the interior is really cumbersome, and I had to use a handheld "scroll saw" to cut the square hole where the wires come out of the back of the speedo housing.  If I cut additional holes to make the appearance less bulky, I will have to drill holes to create the corners, then cut out the metal in between using that same hand held scroll saw.

The spade bit worked surprising well on the aluminum, the edges of the hole are very clean.  I did find a video on youtube that shows you that it does work (I didn't use any lube - but cut slowly).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDbRHWGgy5w