Race Preps Get Serious, Permanent Mods are Happening!

As I go down the path of building the Ninja into my first (and hopefully not last) race machine I want to keep the modifications limited. I want to set it up so a future owner could put the bike back on the street. I finally crossed over into my first permanent modification as I removed the left hand switch cluster.


Here is the switch set as I took it off the bike. The purpose of this modification is to remove the wiring for the clutch safety switch (small black thing center top of the above pic) from the full switch set so that I can keep it. The rest of the switch cluster has controls for the high beam, turn signals and horn. All of which have been removed and thrown in a box. I want to keep the clutch switch as as safety feature. There are several discussions online about whether you need it or not for a race bike. For the time it took to do this mod, I figured having it around is easy enough.


Here are the three wires that make up the wiring for the clutch safety switch. Two are already routed in their own translucent connector. The other wire was removed from the black connector in the background of this pic. The black connector is for the rest of the switch cluster. The loose wire is the black/yellow ground wire for both the clutch safety switch and the left handlebar switch cluster. This ground wire runs through the entire wiring loom and eventually gets back to the negative terminal of the battery.


Here are the ground wires for both switches linked together to tie into the main ground line. This is where I needed to make the mod more permanent. I unwrapped the electrical tape and snipped one side of the connection coming from the switch cluster. I then wrapped the exposed metal connection with some small size shrink wrap. I removed the wires from the clear connector and inserted all three of them into some 3/8" shrink wrap and wrapped it all up neatly. I reconnected the wires in what I remembered was the right order in the connector and I was done.


Here it is all done on my bench. The entire project took only about 40 minutes. I took my time forming the plan after pulling the switch cluster from the bike once I could see what I'm dealing with. It only took a few simple tools like a screwdriver, a cutter and a heat gun to shrink the heat wrap to complete all the mods.


And here we are mounted on the bike. You can see the empty space left by the removal of the left handle bar switch cluster. One less thing to get in my way and I ended up removing a few ounces of weight. I am up to two boxes of removed parts as the race preps continue. Next up is to go through the wiring harness and get it cleaned and ready to go back on the bike. Now I am slowly cresting the hill of taking things off and will be in the assembly stage very soon. Check back in for more!

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