I purchased this bike in June of 2003 after growing increasingly disenchanted with the Aprilia Mille R. Although the Mille was stable like a rock on the brakes and had killer off corner torque, it's tall seat height and weight made it a chore to ride.
It was a toss up between the lightweight Yamaha R6 and the 636 Kawasaki and I ended up going with the 636 for the additional power it provided.
As with all of my bikes this one went through a a lot of changes and upgrades. The pictures really tell the story.
The first additions were to add a Power Commander PCIII and an Arata full titanium exhaust system. I added a Hyper Pro steering damper (this bike needed one badly!) and a set of Motivation frame and swingarm sliders along with a set of Sato fully adjustable rearsets.
I played with the gearing a bit until I was happy and installed an 520 RRP rear hardened sprocket with an AFAM front and an RK chain.
Once I determined that I was pretty much finished riding on the street (summer2003) I torn the bike down and installed an Ohlins shock and an Ohlins Super Sport fork kit with springs. I had a set of Fren Tubo brake lines built and installed SBS dual carbon brake pads.
Shortly there after I installed a Brembo GP master cylinder and a set of Braking front full floating wave rotors along with a rear wave rotor. These were acquired from Europe from a WSS series ZX6R through Motion Pro (the then distributor and a sponsor of mine)
A My Chron 3 Plus dash board was installed to replace the goofy dash this bike comes with. The tachometer on the stock dashboard was all but useless. Actually the whole dashboard was useless.
Bodywork was built by Brad Reese. Brad provided a carbon fibre lower and I used a Lockhart Speedscreen. The final 2004/2005 paint job was done by brothers Chris and Dave Theil. Both of these guys did an awesome job! I also added a carbon fibre front fender and rear hugger. These were sourced from Red Racing in Italy. (they do outstanding carbon fibre work)I also installed a Lockhart Speed Screen.
A Dyno Jet quick shifter was then added. Great track addition as it allows for full throttle upshifts and is virtually plug and play. . A Woodcraft billet alternator cover was installed.
At the end of 2004 I finally torn the bike down to the frame and had the frame powder coated satin black and started looking for ways to lighten the bike and began tinkering with the front end.
At that point I had replaced the Hypro steering damper with an Ohlins damper and installed a set of 25mm Ohlins Superbike cartridges.
After a ton of fiddling I never found a satisfactory feel for the cartridge setup as compared to the Ohlins supersport shim kit it felt very vauge and overly stiff. I removed them and purchased a set of Ohlins forks which started a whole chain of events in getting the bike going for the 2005 season.
Since Ohlins did not make ZX6R forks I had to work with a set from a GSXR 750 and that required a little additional machine work. An Attack ZX10 billet triple clamp mated to a ZX6R stem was used for the lower mounting. I then adaped an Arata adjustable race kit upper triple clamp to the Attack lower to get the forks mated up.
At the same time I had to hand machine new brackets to adapt the Ohlins steering damper to this setup. Major pain and a lot of work.
GP Tech supplied the kick ass folding levers alsong with the GYT kit billet folding clutch lever. Geoff also sourced a 1/4 turn throttle and the sweet Light Tech remote brake adjuster for the Brembo GP master cylinder. Geoff is the man when it comes to sourcing killer Italian billet and carbon fibre!
The bike itself had hundreds of hours worth of work on it and was a ton of fun to ride. Compared to the Mille R it was a real breath of fresh air. It never failed to perform. It convinced me that 600's are more fun than litre bikes on the race track.
I sold the bike complete in November 2005.
Thank you to those who hopped on and helped me on this project.
Chris Jensen, Doug Shaw, and Mike Watt at Ohlins, Chris Jensen at SBS,. Steve Turner at Bridgestone, Geoff Moloney at GP Tech, Shaun Higginbottom at RK Chain, Brad Reese, Braking USA, Chuck at Motorex, Chris and Theil for the awesome paint work, and my wife Karoline who tolerates this addiction to speed and the constant need to challenge myself mechanically.
