W650 Cafe Racer – Black paint and deeper breaths

All you need to do is remove the right side cover by unscrewing the 2 screws on the side and the one under the seat. Then you simply cut a big hole in the plastic airbox being sure to cut beneath the air filter and you’re done! This will liven the engine up a little without requiring re-jetting. If you did this properly with hi-flow filters and adjusting the fuel flow you can expect as much as a 5HP boost in power.

Check out the pic below to see how mine was done.


Flat Black: In my opinion the one colour that compliments chrome better than any other is black (I know black isn’t a colour)…especially flat or satin finish black. I wasn’t happy with all the gloss black on the bike and the chrome housing of my headlight so I went to a local car mart and picked up a tin of Satin Black, heat resistant spray paint for the bargain price of $10.


I removed the side panels, the exhaust clamps/fins and the headlight housing gave them a sand and applied several coats of the paint. They came out great and have given the bike a more aggressive look. Check out the pics…

Next mods will be improving the front suspension with some thicker fluid and stiffer springs, fitting the Firestones I bought a while back, buffing the clear coat off the engine (it’s starting to corrode) and getting my hands on a 2 into 1, somewhat loud, exhaust system.

Kawasaki W650 Airbox mod – With most stock engines there are 2 ways of seeing significant power improvements. One is to improve the extraction of gases from the engine (exhaust) and the other is to help the engine breath more freely. This mod is a “this will do for now” job as later on down the track I will be fitting hi-flow K&N filters to the W650.