After riding one a mate bought, I was keeping my eye out for one. Not really thinking of selling the K1200R, but when a 1290 popped up for a song, I couldn’t help myself. The engine is ridiculous! It was pretty much stock, only had a tail tidy and decat pipe.
I can’t help but modify bikes to my taste, and this one needed a few tweaks.
So far I have done
- Bar end mirrors from Highside.
- Tank ring for tank bag.
- LED headlight conversion.
- Oopart shorty exhaust.
- Cobrra Nemo 2 chain oiler (with Scott applicator).
- Healtech Quickshifter.
- Bellypan.
- Powerparts luggage.
- Rear seat cowl.
I did a 5 day ride with a couple of mates shortly after purchase. Pretty good on the touring. but fuelling pretty snatchy and didn’t pull cleanly in top below 4000rpm. I have now installed a Rapid Bike EVO. It took a bit of effort as the Healtech quickshifter and the EVO are not compatible. The bike threw codes and wouldn’t run with both connected. I ended up also purchasing the Rapid Bike quickshifter, which I think is even better than the Healtech. The fuelling is much better now. It pulls smoothly from 3000rpm in 6th.
I had to modify the belly pan as it scrapped whenever I went hard in the twisties.
Update on Oopart exhaust.
I’ve had the mount point fail twice on me now, so time to find another exhaust. My preferred option is a Austin Racing high pipe, but VERY expensive. After powder coating it comes in at $2100. I put out a message on Facebook and managed to find an AR pipe from another owner for a great price, and he was only 5km away!
I removed the fibreglass belly pad and replaced it with I high quality SW-Motech item.
The Gen 1’s have a known problem where the rear hub bearings fail. I discovered mine failing 450km from home when I felt the rear wheel steering when going on-off throttle. I risked limping home, and fortunately made it.
The repair by a shop with genuine parts would have been around $1,000. I bought some high quality Japanese bearings and did it for around $150.
The next common failure is the radiator. It is hung from top mounts which split the top of the core. KTM don’t acknowledge the issue, and a new one is $900. I took it off and got it repaired for $120.
I bought the bike with 7000km, now got 42,000km. Still a great bike, but getting itchy for an upgrade. I thought if I sold it, plus the Yamaha XT600, it could be a low cost upgrade to a gen 2. So I did.
hey! was curious if you could tell me the type of indicators you bought the second time around! im looking for those for my k100!!!
There are hyper links on my blog for the indicators
Hi there! I wanna start my k75 project. Do you have any links on your speedometer? Thank you in advance 🙂 and any tips you can give on everything as this will be my first bike and my first project , will be more than welcome .
Hi,
There are hyperlinks to the major products in my blog. Good luck with the build.
Thank you for the reply !Have fun with that awesome bike of yours!
perfect bike. i like it. can you tell me please where you found the indicators? not under the tree i hope! lol.
“I have found the rear indicators not bright enough in direct sunlight. Santa made a late delivery of these beauties! ”
regards,
Wilfred.
There is a hyperlink in the blog
Found it. Thanks.
Another question.
Did you het all the things working on the speedo? I am looking for a speedo but can’t dicide which one.
Is the gear indicator working? And the tank indicator. I found a wiring diagram, but does it work.
Regards
Wilfred
I used the gear position indicator incorporated in the speedo unit.
I believe everything posted was very reasonable. However, what about this?
suppose you wrote a catchier title? I am not saying your content is not good, however what if you
added a post title to maybe get people’s attention? I
mean KTM 1290 Superduke R – THE K100 PROJECT (Don't Call it
A Cafè Racer) is a little plain. You might peek at Yahoo’s home page and note how
they create article titles to grab people interested. You might add a related video or a picture or two to
grab readers excited about what you’ve written. Just my opinion, it could bring your blog a little bit more interesting.