[Cheech]

Bring the bike home. You learned an expensive 18 month lesson.

I hear there's a guy in columbus that might be painting now....

Thanks for the info, I finally broke down and gave my fairings to the Russian body shop across the street from the shop where my bike is at. I was told they do decent work, at this point I just want it done. They have already shot the basecoat and first clear coat. Appreciate the heads-up.

What year Kat do you have? I have my stock exhaust left over (2006 750). I'll give it to ya, if it'll fit. I took the stock pipe and can off, and replaced with a D&D slip on, so you'd have to get headers...but the rear pipe and can are, again yours if they'll fit. Let me know if this is an option for ya...

Thank you immensely, I'll let you know what happens after this weekend. The headers themselves are just about done, the only thing that needs to be welded on them is the first 4 inches or so of the stock OEM that was cut off to the rest of the header, right now they are tack welded on. Of course, this means that the collector is about 2x the size of the OEM pipe, so I'll have to play it by ear. I'm told that he got the necessary materials today, and I told him I would be stopping by tomorrow to see what's up. If this all goes south, I'll be making preparations to remove the bike, in which case I might take you up on that offer, they should fit my 02 600. Thanks again.

i would tell him that i was going to to take it back if it isn't done by a certain point. if you're lucky he'll get it done, if not, well you gave him fair warning and has only himself to blame.

good luck

That's my fallback position after this weekend. He already didn't drop off the bike to the painters like he should have today, so I lost a few days with them. Between that and the metalwork, I'm at the end of my legendary patience. The only drawback to this is I have to find someone with a trailer (I might see if I can hit up Breeze or someone else local to Columbus), find the necessary parts, and probably bring my carbs to someone like ThaZKat to sync carbs and idiot-test them. I'm thinking all-in it's going to cost me somewhere in the ballpark of $1k, which I really don't want to part with right now. That's the main decision, whether or not to spend the cash to get it back running or not.

[zuma]

I wasn't clear; don't walk away from the bike...walk away with the bike as is. Sorry about the implication there.

[cleankat96]

go get that **** asap

[H-2 CHARLIE]

Show up early with a truck and a friend and take whats yours and load it up ... End of story .. Small trucks load easy cause thier low and bring a ramp ...

[DreKat]

go get it but try and be nice

[Cheech]

Thought I'd give an update. Stopped by the shop today after researching full exhausts last night, trying to figure out what plan B is going to be. He mentioned again about going to the Dragon in 2 weeks, i say again because he initially said it to me in front of a client, and acting as if I was going with him.

Long story short, I said I would love to go to the Dragon if he can get my bike there (of course, that means the bike needs to be done...). I also laid down dates, first fire needs to be April 10th, which leaves 5 days to work out bugs then I "take delivery" 2 days prior to the Dragon. Otherwise I'm buying the D&D full exhaust system and working the rest out on my own. After that, work resumed. I'm not sure what all got worked on today, but I know I re-set the fuel screws on the carbs (forgot to when I put them back on after the jet kit install), and when I left he was putting the almost-completed header back on to complete it.

Time will tell at this point, but thanks for the support.

[GSXfs600]

Torch his shop! He's no friend of yours!

[FASHER]

I hope you know what you're doing. I think my bike owuld be home with me at this point.

[The CyberPoet]

I would have had the bike home after 30 days. I literally can not imagine letting someone else hold onto the bike for that amount of time no matter what they were supposed to do to it and no matter what the cost-savings

You have obviously had justifiable reason to lose all faith. I suspect you're going to find out the shop-job headers are going to be a PIA to jet for (at best; incapable of jetting for them reliably across the entire RPM range at worst), the paint had to be farmed out (and you did all the prep work), and he damaged your bike in the process of acquiring it & transporting it to his shop. Personally, I'd leave him a bill for the parts damaged, take the bike home and go on about my life (without the honest expectation that you'd ever see payment for the parts). Whatever I did, the bike wouldn't be in his shop any more...

PS - did you have the Russians paint "This bike sat motionless in so-and-so's shop for 18 months - useless PIA!" on the fairings? By this point, I probably would have.

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

__________________________________________________ ________
CyberPoet's Katana Maintence and Upgrade Parts Offerings
The Best Metal Steel Aluminum Motorcycle Tire Valves in the World, plus lots of motorcycle & Katana (GSX600F / GSX750F) specific help files.

[Cheech]

That didn't occur to me, actually. He wants to put a decal of the shop logo on the tail of the bike, I am still on the fence if I'm going to allow it. If I pull the bike, obviously it's not going on. If I do have to go to plan B, I plan on asking him for half of the exhaust kit, since he damaged my existing exhaust beyond repair without finishing it.

Interesting point about the jetting with the fab'ed headers. Even with my 5 day window for solving issues like this, I'm not convinced that he would have the time to work on this.

[The CyberPoet]

Even with my 5 day window for solving issues like this, I'm not convinced that he would have the time to work on this.

What he couldn't accomplish in 180 or 365 days should suddenly be expected to happen in 5 days? I think at this stage, you're more fooling yourself than he's fooling you...

I'm not sure what you feel for this guy, but I don't see it... Someone with experience tuning cars doesn't necessarily have any insight into tuning bikes (no matter what the car) because of differences in packaging, layout and requirements. This has been proven over and over in the bike realms even at the professional levels (Lotus, Cosworth and a few other companies come to mind, all contracted at some point to help old & new bike manufacturers supposedly engineer the "next great thing" -- for firms like Petronas, Suzuki, Yamaha, etc.). Matter of fact, the only time I've seen a car company [a whole gaggle of tuners with engineering expertise] actually come through for a major bike firm was the porsche-designed V-Rod engine for HD, and even that went through many, many revisions to get where it is now.

Walk away... nay, run away, as fast as your feet, vehicle and trailer will carry you and your bike.

Oh, and I'd probably personally drive up to where you live and slap you in the back of the head if you let him put his shop's logo or sticker on your bike...

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

__________________________________________________ ________
CyberPoet's Katana Maintence and Upgrade Parts Offerings
The Best Metal Steel Aluminum Motorcycle Tire Valves in the World, plus lots of motorcycle & Katana (GSX600F / GSX750F) specific help files.

[scottynoface]

Go get your bike back, there is not one acceptable piece to this whole story. Seriously, go get it, right now, run...