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couple RANDOM ZX10r questions

Gen 3: 2008-10 
4K views 35 replies 11 participants last post by  Bigeclipse 
#1 ·
1st question, I am geared -1 up front. Other than hurting gas mileage, which I have noticed but not at all drastic...does this hurt the motor due to consistently running higher rpm's than stock? I think its probably 500-600rpms higher at highway speeds...this could be wrong...I havent ridden since last summer.

2nd question, im contemplating going +1 or +2 in the rear, along with keeping my -1 up front to get even more low end pull. If I go this route, will this put more strain on the motor? For example...if a standard motor went say 50,000 miles before rebuild and going with these mods made me get say 42,000 miles before rebuild...I wouldnt be too worried but if it cut the life of the motor in half then I would be worried.

3rd question, I have a slip-on pipe along with the akro link pipe which got rid of the BOOM box thing. As I understand it....the cats on this bike are up in the manifold so I do not need to worry about having a power commander and mapping. is this true?

4th and final question. I have heard this year bike had some issues with the shift-shaft lever part of the shifter... cracking...mostly when people dropped or crashed bike on the shifter side of the bike but some claimed they never dropped their bike. This made their bike un-able to shift due to it cracking and it being a weak part. I have about 7k miles on my bike now. It seems to be shifting fine...but is this a problem that "COULD" happen or "WILL" happen over time?

thanks for your time and patience, I know these may be dumb questions but any insight would be greatly appreciated.
 
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#5 ·
I've broken a shaft in mine. Well the shaft was broken when I got the bike but when I took the trans apart last fall due to weird feel I found that the locating pin in the 3-4? I think? shift fork had shattered. Must not have been heat treated right.

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#9 ·
IMO, and people correct me if i am wrong. but having a power commander installed on a completely stock bike will still enable you to tune it better than it comes from the factory. example a bike from factory at sea level may take advantage of 95% of its available power while tuning it for driving style and stuff can get you a few more % out of it. that being said if you ride at 2000 feet ASL then tuning it for the leaner air up there will give you more power.

i ride at 3500 feet normally and go into the mountains often. up to 8000 feet. so having a power commander for me is a must.
 
#29 · (Edited)
You don't have to split the case for pretty much any trans work on kawis. I replaced the shaft and a shift fork without even removing the engine... you do not need any special tools. You don't need to remove the engine and you dont need to bring it to a shop. I swapped the shaft in like an hour and a half( probably shorter if I didn't take everything off to drop the pan too to get the fork out. I just used the moto stands and set them on blocks to get them higher. Doesn't take long at all if youre remotely mechanically inclined. I think the shaft was like 90 bucks?

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#34 ·
If you have a 2008 like me then it could be a sign your "shift shaft" is cracked. You can search it on google or here. search zx10r 2008 shift shaft...it is a 100 dollar part, however, requires the clutch basket to be removed in order to remove the shift shaft. I have never done this...but others have and said it is relatively straight forward if you follow the zx10r shop manual. You need a special clutch basket tool which only costs 25 bucks online I think when I last looked it up a few months ago. There are a few threads discussing the shift shaft issue. You can find them if you search. My bike now has almost 8,000 miles on it with no signs of bad shifting so I am going to hold off changing mine out. You can bring it to a shop, but they most likely wont know what the "shift shaft" is unless you bring the zx10r manual with you and show them. Then they may be able to give you a price....ive heard 3-4hrs is what it takes so be prepared for the shop to charge you a lot....75 dollars an hour here. so including parts id guess 500 bucks would be fair. If it were me, id try and do it myself first.
 
#35 ·
If your motorcycle shop doesn't know what a shift shaft is then I'd probably take it else where. I bought the shaft I replaced in mine from my local dealer and it was 82 something. Don't be afraid to tackle it. Its not hard and you don't need any specialty tools.

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#36 · (Edited)
When I went to a Kawasaki dealer and asked them about the issue the 2008s had, they thought I was talking about the shifter itself. They had no idea what the shift shaft was. I had to point it out in the manual to them. They then were able to look the part up. This was their maintainence department, not sales. They are actually a pretty respectable place around here, doing dyno days and such so it was a surprise to me. Im just saying....not a lot of bikes going in needing a shiftshaft replacement, so some places may look at you funny. I thought you needed a special tool to help removing the clutch basket or something and it was around 20 bucks? actually I found it here http://starcycle.com/0810-kawasaki-...clutch-basket-removal-tool-ct004-p-51285.html
 
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