Custom SR400 running around Brisbane Streets

Custom SR400 running around Brisbane Streets

we would rather wrap gum boots to the rims and baste ourselves in vaseline during a torrential rainfall then put a set on a daily rider.

Recently we had a call from a guy chasing an SR400. To be honest it sounded terrible. There were plenty of modifications necessary, it was to a deadline and he already saw a bike that he wanted to borrow heavily from. Having said that, we did just have a container of bikes come in from Japan and even though we weren’t even 100% sure on what had made it into the container we thought there would be an SR that might be a good starting point. We worked out a budget and realised we could do everything he wanted for less money than it would cost for a new stock SR.

The deadline was a big national ride coming up with all proceeds going to Prostate cancer research and the customer really wanted to do the ride with his long time friend who has been diagnosed with cancer recently. We can’t think of a better reason to help get a guy on the road and it had been a few months since we did a pre-fuel injected SR.

First up the strip back including getting the motor out and painting/polishing. The bike we chose for the donor had an aftermarket hotdog pipe on it and air pod from Japan. It seemed to run ok but later we found out that the bike had still had the standard jets in it.

Most of the parts on this bike are off the shelf. Posh make the headlight and bracket as well as indicators and indicator brackets. Maybe not totally cafe racer style but at this stage there were plans afoot (more on on this later). We also stock the guards and the seat is a Mostyn one so overall we thought it could be done in time for the ride. Anyone into SR’s knows how many aftermarket options there are for them and with our catalogue of over 250 parts specifically for SR400 and SR500’s we might even have breathing room.

Turns out we didn’t have to worry as even the tank was one of ours and within a week of us getting the bike on the hoist, we had it in it’s current form. The notable exception were the tyres. Chester really liked the look of Firestones but unless the bike is only for display purposes we would rather wrap gum boots to the rims and baste ourselves in vaseline during a torrential rainfall then put a set on a daily rider. Instead we heard Shinko had bought out a new ‘classic’ tyre and it handled better and still had that look he loved. We did have to wait for them to come into the country but it was well and truly worth it.

 Now that the new exhaust and manifold were on the bike and we had the air inlet the way we wanted it was time to see how she went. Average is about the best you could say. We never need much of an excuse to get one of our bikes on our state of the art dyno so that is precisely what we did. Turns out it was mega rich except at idle. Plenty of cursing and a couple of changes later we had a smooth power line running with a perfect mixture right from idle. We got so much more top end out of it, I have no doubts this one could join the ‘ton up’ club!

Initially the idea was to fix this one up for the one ride (just cafe racer enough) and then do a proper pull down and make a hardtail SR that would go like a cut snake. After Chester rode it there was a slight change of heart and now it looks like this one will stay as it is and another SR or XS will be sourced to do the hardtail conversion. Check out our facebook page for that update:)

If you want something similar or want to know more about this (don’t bother asking about jetting as we’ll take this info to our graves hahaha) hit us up on our contact page or through any of our social media pages.