Street Fighter Possibility

[cupofresh]

Hi,

I recently bought a 94 Katana as my first bike. I have been riding it around and I absolutely love it. Pretty much all stock w/ headers to a yoshimura exhaust.

I have been looking through a ton of street fighter builds and I absolutely love the way the katana looks as a street fighter. I have a couple of questions though. I have been reading through threads and haven't exactly found these answers, so I thought I would just ask.

Is there a way to achieve the street fighter look with the possibility of putting back all the fairings? I like the look of still having the tail on there, so I wouldn't want to chop that off.

Basically my thought was remove all fairings (except maybe the bottom fairing) and the headlight. Mount a round headlight up front, mount speedo and tach.

I think I could achieve a decent street fighter look this way. But i would love to hear opinions.

Also, I live in Washington and right now the kat is my only transportation. It rains a ton and I was wondering how much do fairings help with protection from rain/wind compared to a naked bike?

I appreciate any thoughts/help. If I did do the street fighter, it'd be over my christmas break since i am in college right now and don't have time atm.

Thanks.

[91_gsx600F katana]

On a pre its hard to make it look right with just the rear fairings. On the posts they can look decent. Other than that if you remove any of the plastics esp the headlight and keep the rest stock it looks rather funny. You can try it and see if you like it.

Certain things dont mix well with water, fuse box, CDI, coils etc. Try to keep water out of the spark plug holes too.

you could always do a tail swap and put whatever you want on it. and make some fairings out of aluminum or something to help protect some stuff.

[cupofresh]

So I am going to push forward and try out a street fighter look to my bike. What my plans are so far:
Round headlight mounted on forks w/ turn signals
Remove all fairing
Wrap Headers
Mount tach and speedometer
Bar end mirrors

Now a few questions, I am riding year round and this time of year in the pacific northwest is pretty wet. When i remove the rear fairings I am going to have to remove the rear fender. When I do that, I believe the battery will be exposed, correct? What do people do in order to protect their battery/wires when they remove their rear fender?

Is there anything huge that I am overlooking? I am basically doing this because I love to tinker. I am not a huge fan of the look of the bikes with the fairings on, and thought I would give it a go with the naked look. I will have some down time over winter break too, so why not try. If I don't like it I will put everything back together as she sits now and no harm done. I would just like a few tips/advice since this will be the first thing I have done to my bike. BTW I have a background in cars, I have modified them and worked on them, so this isn't completely new to me, just some bike specific advice would be great!

This is the look I am going for, found from another thread on this forum:

[Kreylyn]

What's the purpose or reasoning behind removing the rear fender?


Hard to suggest an alternative with out knowing why your doing it.


Krey

[cupofresh]

well once I remove the rear fairings, I think the rear fender will be visible. Maybe I will just have to cut into it a little bit while still keeping there to protect the batter and stuff. IDK, I'm just trying to gather as much info as I can before I venture into this.

[92xjunker]

IMAO, being that it is your only mode of transportation, I wouldn't even think of doing heavy mods. Buy a junk bike and have at it.

[cupofresh]

Well, I am going to have some down time over winter break, so I will have my brothers car to use if i need to do running around. I already ordered headlight and brackets and some other stuff to get me started. I think I have a pretty good plan of what I am going to do. I guess I will just update this thread with pictures if all works out. If it doesn't work out, then I will throw everything back together and keep riding it how it is.

[Danskat]

You could do a shovel chop and use that to mount your plate. That would pull it kinda out of the way with our exposing your battery and wiring to the elements and grime from the rear wheel (unless im missing the question completely lol). As far as weather goes, I imagine that the plastics do protect the electric stuff to an extent but isn't absolutely water tight. Your cdi and some other stuff would be exposed, and therefore visible. As Hannibal Lecter asked "And what must we do before we covet Clarice?" What people see, they want, even if they don't need it. I'd atleast keep the rear plastics on and do something to cover the battery imho.

[blackie]

go with your heart! for f*ck sake it's all a man has! (with irish accent)

[cupofresh]

Alright all. I ended up ordering a few parts and decided I would give this a shot. I have just been riding my kat around how I bought it, which is great! But now I want it to become my own bike by doing some work to it. I really like the naked look so that is what I am going for.

I started out by putting the clip ons below the triple tree. I mounted the headlight and thats about where I am at as of now.

I need some ideas for the wiring harness because right now it is zip tied to the frame, and I would prefer to hide it if at all possible. Please let me know what you all do.

Here are some really bad pictures, but will give you an idea of where I am at.

[c-rod90]

Blue and white is good combo

[cupofresh]

all up and running again.

[c-rod90]

Looks like a gsxr header? Hows the lean with the bars that low?

[cupofresh]

I have no idea about the headers, they were on when I got the bike. I like the sound though. I am thinking about wrapping them.
The lean isn't too bad, nothing compared to the R1 that I rode. It was really simple to put the bars under the triple tree and I think it looks good that way.
I want to cut the rear fairings up a bit, and make the front fender a little smaller, but I don't have a vision quite yet. Just a few ideas. But I like it so far.

[c-rod90]

is it a 7" front headlight? or a 6.5" or 6.25"? you have to be careful, those sellers from hong kong are tricky. sometimes they'll sell it as a 7" bc the housing is 7", not the lense. screws you when you go to buy a clear front headlight, only to find out its actually not a 7" headlight. ..... sucks.