Well.
Eighteen months is a long time, particularly when that time includes COVID-19, a change in jobs and a whole lot of change in the bike space, including the realisation that Project FZR is indeed not done.
Or at least the main Project FZR.
The Victorian Parts Bike ended up turning into the Victorian Track Bike after plenty of small jobs (brakes, airbox, a solid service, wheel bearings, new tyres, a respray of the fairings after blocking off the lights, removing all the road going stuff, replacing the exhaust, reconnecting the oil cooler that had been blocked off and finally getting the nice lads at Yamaha World to do the valve clearances when I had a gutful of looking at the thing). To date it has done two track days, including one at The Bend where I fried a pair of boots and shaved some paint off the right hand side fairing when I ran out of ground clearance. Fun times.
The much bigger and more depressing news relates to Project FZR Proper, which very quickly developed a habit of jumping out of third gear. I farnarkled for a few months pretending that it might go away before realising the bare facts – the whole thing would need to be torn down and started again.
What’s to learn from this? That as a new kid it can be difficult to spot what a worn part looks like (in this case selector forks and gear dogs) when you’ve never seen a new one. The moral? For big, expensive jobs like this, get an expert to have a look before you put it all back together again, which is exactly where the crankcase is now – having some less worn parts installed along with a bunch of other new bits by Yamaha World ready for me to do the rest of the rebuild and put it all back together again.
C’est la vie.
There’s been another arrival however, which as these things can sometimes do happened on the spur of the moment. A pair of FZR400s, the smaller, rarer, EXUP-enabled, aluminium-framed, 20kg lighter and generally far more collectable Japanese import of the two 600s already in the shed (and which share many interchangeable parts), not running and one only 90% complete, but for the princely sum of $1000.
Or almost two 
Two for the price of one 
Some extra fairings to sit next to my unicorn poop 
And more bits, most of a bike’s worth
I’ve tried desperately to not start this project until the 600 is finished, but have managed to almost finish rebuilding the only set of carbs that came with the bike (and that were a mess when I opened them up), to replace a couple of broken bits and strip down the parts bike to the bare frame.
The challenge now – once the 600 is done – is to work out what to do with the one complete bike. Get it back running will be step one, but from there it will be a question of whether to restore it fully and attempt to get it on the road (and probably worth around $5k, but with at least that much to spend in all likelihood), or to restore it to be a track bike, which is the natural habitat of this little 14000RPM featherweight screamer, or if it all gets too hard then to do an engine transplant of another FZR600 motor into the 400 frame, which is more or less a direct bolt-in job.
But first, finish the 600.
For more pics, follow along on my Instagram account, and otherwise – watch this space as winter approaches…