Committed! Donor Bike Found, Money Down!

Still no "Secrets of El Ninja". 21Wheels sent me a second copy because the first hasn't shown yet. I listened to the author, John Bidwell, on a podcast/ interview on EV World that revealed a lot of good content. Afterwards I emailed him to ask about specific Ninja bikes and he responded the next morning!

Todd,

It is a matter of weight and ergonomics.. With a bigger bike that can take more and larger batteries you can play with weight by going from 6 to 4 batteries for example. I just did this recently with El Ninja. I went from 72V to 48V and like the weight for around town better but I gave up range and power.

It is all personal preference. If you can get good enough range from a Ninja 250 it is a nice smaller bike.

Regards,

John Bidwell

I've been following Craigslist and found a fixer to check - a 91 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-11 with a blown motor. I went to check it out tonight and met the owner who himself has pondered doing a conversion. For this bike though he was planning to rebuild the engine, even had a spare block and new exhaust and stuff I just don't need that he was going to send along with the bike.

We reached a deal where he's going to pull the engine and keep all the gas compents I don't need that can go with the engine project he was setting out on. I get the chassis/wheels/brakes/tank/fairings/subframe etc and will give him everything else I don't need as I figure it out. Getting rid of the engine and these bits was a concern for me, I think this will be a win-win for both of us. In fact, if I fail to get my conversion right, I could sell the chassis back to him for his rebuilt engine. A little money down on my part via Paypal, keys to the krypto disk lock on his, and the race is on!

Haven't told the spouse about it yet, late night deals post kids sleep time for both parties.

He'll pull the engine this week, I'll sign up for Zip Car to get a truck for a few hours. Now to learn about ZX-11's..