The bike was built in the mid eighties as a road legal drag bike.. I'm told by the original owner that it was one of the fastest such bikes of the time.
Fast forward twenty years, the poor Zed had been left languishing in a damp shed when I saw it, bought it and brought it home. The engine was stripped and found to have bent conrod and other serious problems.
The original plan was to restore it back to its turbocharged glory. But as ever life gets in the way and I sold it on to my friend who had other plans for the old Zed.
The turbo has long gone, as have the lightweight wheels, forks, frame an bodywork! But even so the engine is still something special. It has a big block from Orient Express which allows it to be taken out to 1400cc.
The good news is that the bike comes with a different 79 MK2 frame, that's been braced and strengthened and modified to take wider modern wheels, its even powder coated. In place of the classic Z1 bodywork, it comes with a good set of MK2 bodywork, though it'll be getting a new paintjob.
I'm still considering the details of the rebuild, its a road bike, so the engine will be built with the 1400cc block, no turbo, but with high end wheels, brakes and suspension. Unlike most of my projects which drag on for years, I'm aiming to complete this one by my next birthday in January 2022.
