VJ22 Banana swingarm

[MK]

Sounds like someone sayin'
"I'm on the internet, but I don't watch Pornhub"

[Yellow and Black RZ]

I don’t have Facebook, motorcycle forums are as far as I have ventured into social media

It's all here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16291
I dump a bit on the FB RZ group once in a while.

[Yamavarna]

I don’t have Facebook, motorcycle forums are as far as I have ventured into social media

It's all here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16291
I dump a bit on the FB RZ group once in a while.

That’s very informative especially the part where he eventually got away with a 10mm offset sprocket and a 180 rear tire! Lots of great ideas; this place is really a wealthy source of information for anything rz350 that I can possibly think about doing, I’m getting a lot of great input for this new build.

[RuZty]

I used these parts;
750 Katana 4.5x17 wheel
Metzeler M7RR 150 tire
GS500 Cush drive
Penske Shock
Brembo P34 Caliper from a Ducati Monster
GSXR600 rotor

I made my own adapter plates and dogbones based on the drawings circulating on the internet that are supposed to preserve the RGV geometry.
The Penske shock was a used one I bought off eBay from a Honda NC30, for $200 Penske rebuilt it for my application. If you use the Penske, get a new spring, Honda's run very high spring rates and use a linkage ratio to suit that. The CBR spring will be about 900-1000 lb/in, almost double what you want.
The Brembo caliper is mounted with a modified caliper hanger that RGVSteve did for me years ago. Tyga also make a hanger for this caliper that could be made to work, http://tyga-performance.com/product_inf ... ts_id=2769 They have some other nice RGV bits too, carbon huggers and such.
I machined the Cush drive to use a flat front sprocket and the chain clears the tire.
In my opinion the 150 tire is plenty, this bike is still flickable and rock steady at speed. It does not need more rubber.

IMPORTANT POINTS;
-Do not assume that your front sprocket is parallel to the bike centreline. If you loosen the engine mounts you can move it all over the place. Find the centreline of the bike and mark it on your work surface, I had mine on a stand I made and ran a piece of fishing line as a reference. Get the engine in the right place first. Get the axle parallel to the swingarm pivot and then your wheel will be pointing the right way and you can check sprocket alignment to an accurate datum
-Take the spring and bump stop off the shock and run the suspension through it's full range of motion and check for interference. I put too much faith in the bump stop and didn't measure. I hit the once in a lifetime bump at high speed (~140kmh) and was lucky I didn't crash. The bump stop must have squished like a marshmallow and the swingarm went full travel, which was about 6mm into the rear subframe cross member. Damage was minor, but it could have been a lot worse.

Here's a picture Nokturnal took of it 5 minutes later;

[Yamavarna]

Wow RuZty that is a really nice bike I can’t believe there are that many bikes around that I envision mine becoming. I have a Penske shock on my fireblade track bike that I would for sure steal at this point and Racetech sells Eibach springs, I also have one of those Brembo calipers brand new as well as a mounting plate for it on one of my flat track bikes, if it works my buddy makes them on his CNC for race bikes so there is an unlimited supply. I understand the motor can be manipulated and needs a proper datum point to secure it perpendicularly to the wheels and chassis and I will use that to my advantage as I plan to make aluminum motor mounts anyway as I do for all my builds. This is going to be fun! Cmon brown truck!

[JonW]

I used these parts;
750 Katana 4.5x17 wheel
Metzeler M7RR 150 tire
GS500 Cush drive
Penske Shock
Brembo P34 Caliper from a Ducati Monster
GSXR600 rotor

I made my own adapter plates and dogbones based on the drawings circulating on the internet that are supposed to preserve the RGV geometry.
The Penske shock was a used one I bought off eBay from a Honda NC30, for $200 Penske rebuilt it for my application. If you use the Penske, get a new spring, Honda's run very high spring rates and use a linkage ratio to suit that. The CBR spring will be about 900-1000 lb/in, almost double what you want.
The Brembo caliper is mounted with a modified caliper hanger that RGVSteve did for me years ago. Tyga also make a hanger for this caliper that could be made to work, http://tyga-performance.com/product_inf ... ts_id=2769 They have some other nice RGV bits too, carbon huggers and such.
I machined the Cush drive to use a flat front sprocket and the chain clears the tire.
In my opinion the 150 tire is plenty, this bike is still flickable and rock steady at speed. It does not need more rubber.

IMPORTANT POINTS;
-Do not assume that your front sprocket is parallel to the bike centreline. If you loosen the engine mounts you can move it all over the place. Find the centreline of the bike and mark it on your work surface, I had mine on a stand I made and ran a piece of fishing line as a reference. Get the engine in the right place first. Get the axle parallel to the swingarm pivot and then your wheel will be pointing the right way and you can check sprocket alignment to an accurate datum
-Take the spring and bump stop off the shock and run the suspension through it's full range of motion and check for interference. I put too much faith in the bump stop and didn't measure. I hit the once in a lifetime bump at high speed (~140kmh) and was lucky I didn't crash. The bump stop must have squished like a marshmallow and the swingarm went full travel, which was about 6mm into the rear subframe cross member. Damage was minor, but it could have been a lot worse.

Here's a picture Nokturnal took of it 5 minutes later;

Superb advice as ever. Lovely bike.

[gpaddict]

Ruzty, do you recall how long your Penske shock is eye to eye?

[Yamavarna]

RuZty,
I just clued in that the link was specific to my swingarm application thank you very much and I will by ordering some parts from them this project is like Christmas in June and keeps getting better! I too would like the specs on the shock length for the Penske shock as well as the spring rate if possible. Thanks for the reply this place is such an unbelievable source of Information and great people. My package from Cognito Moto just got here today to mount the forks and my package from MK racing should be here Tuesday so I guess it’s build time starting next week, and I look forward to everyone giving me guidance as well as crap for all my mistakes along the way, cheers
Edit: Tyga billet and carbon parts on the way!

Charlie

[gpaddict]

Yamavarna, I ordered the Tyga brake hanger also, but the detail I overlooked is that the SV rotor diameter is too large. looking through Charlies build (I think), I noticed that he purchased a Burgman scooter rear disc that has the correct diameter. Mine has arrived, but I have not mounted it yet to confirm proper fitment.

[Yamavarna]

Yamavarna, I ordered the Tyga brake hanger also, but the detail I overlooked is that the SV rotor diameter is too large. looking through Charlies build (I think), I noticed that he purchased a Burgman scooter rear disc that has the correct diameter. Mine has arrived, but I have not mounted it yet to confirm proper fitment.

Thanks, What year burgman?

[RuZty]

Superb advice as ever. Lovely bike.

Thanks Jon! I haven't been around much in the last year, nice to see some familiar names, I hope you are well. The RZ is going to get some attention again, I got side tracked with a VFR800 I bought last year (wonderful bike). Of course it's getting modified too and I can't bear to have them both out of commission at the same time so I need to refocus. I am in the process of fitting some stainless pipes I bought from Kenny years ago, the stingers need some rework to clear the RGV arm, and I've made new cylinder spigots as well. I'm also adapting a twin headlight FZ600 fairing upper and mids that I'm splicing into the RZ lower, no promises on how that will go, but the mock up looked good. The upper should be done soon, the rest will be a winter project.

[RuZty]

Ruzty, do you recall how long your Penske shock is eye to eye?

I just measured it, 315mm center to center and it's in the middle of roughly 10mm total adjustment. I set it so the minimum length still allows it to clear the frame cross member when bottomed and then used the adjustment to get the ride height where I wanted it. I had to make new dogbones to achieve this and they are now 205mm center to center.

Yamavarna, I told Penske the shock was going on a bike with RGV250 rear geometry, told them the bikes weight and my weight (which was about 210lbs at the time) and they supplied a 425lb/in spring, which I find works great.

[JonW]

Superb advice as ever. Lovely bike.

Thanks Jon! I haven't been around much in the last year, nice to see some familiar names, I hope you are well. The RZ is going to get some attention again, I got side tracked with a VFR800 I bought last year (wonderful bike). Of course it's getting modified too and I can't bear to have them both out of commission at the same time so I need to refocus. I am in the process of fitting some stainless pipes I bought from Kenny years ago, the stingers need some rework to clear the RGV arm, and I've made new cylinder spigots as well. I'm also adapting a twin headlight FZ600 fairing upper and mids that I'm splicing into the RZ lower, no promises on how that will go, but the mock up looked good. The upper should be done soon, the rest will be a winter project.

Im the same, Ive got so many projects that Im spread pretty thin these days :/ Like you its great to see my old mates pop up again tho :)

Loving the grafting of the FZ top frg. I looked at that as well for my JDM style F2 build, I was looking at the FZ400 parts as they seemed to be what Yam used in Brazil but with obvious mods to get it to fit the RZ, but I will say that the whole fairing is so different and i needed so many parts (plus the light bulbs seemed an issue according to FZ forums) that I gave up. I didnt think of grafting to the existing mids though it would be needed as the angles are very different. I also struggled to find enough of the parts as we didnt get many of the FZs here it seems and found out that most of the FZ600 mids have been broken by racers. The good news is that there is a guy in the USA making new ones in plastic that looked really good, I almost ended up with those but found some mislisted ones on UK ebay as i was pointed there by a helpful forumer. In the end on my build I went another way by grafting FZ mids onto the RZ upper (with the birdcage rejigged and top plastic welded to use TZR mirrors) yet with no belly as that is the JDM look I was going for. Its a project for the future and Ive not dialed in the aesthetics fully yet. I love stuff like this work but its not for the faint of heart as none of these parts are cheap nowadays. Defo keen to see how you go with yours, do keep us posted :)

[Yamavarna]

There appears to be 2 different chain tensioning methods on these swingarms, Ken has what I am use to with the blocks and push screws, RuZty has what I have (I think) and for the life of me I can’t figure how it works! Is there a retrofit to change over to axle blocks like Ken has?

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[Yamavarna]

I went to the Yamaha dealer and I’m sol for parts for this thing as they where never imported into this market so he doesn’t even have a microfiche for it, I’m going to have to get ingenious and figure out how to adapt some axle blocks; the first problem is that there is not a lot of room for even an 8mm screw to push the blocks. Then I could do an old school pull type adjuster but I really don’t want to, I’m hoping someone will chime in and help me out here before I make a mess out of it