Project The Project Begins (ZZR250)

From my other threads about my zed, everything now works the way its supposed to except the carbies... so the project has begun and thats EFI. living in an area that gets very cold during the winter, and its running alittle on the poor side, in some parts of the throttle range it drops some power and feels like its not getting enough fuel then all of a sudden its back on the power so i feel the zzr could benefit from an efi upgrade. luckly it isnt going to be that expensive.

i've seen the ecotrons efi kit but i'm not paying $1400 aud to put a kit on and not learn much at all, so i've gone for a more difficult route and opted to build my own efi system.

the parts i've bought (yet to recieve bought them last night) are as follows.

Megasquirt's microsquirt v3 + harness
ninja 300 throttle bodies + cables.
30GPH universal fuel pump
Fuel pressure regulator
high pressure fuel hose
claps/connectors/electrical connectors
Fuel filter

total spend $753

so half the price of the ecotrons kits. not buying the O2 sensors because the microsquirt can use throttle body pressure/vacuum to adjust on a basic level. and i'm not going to go full out on a dyno tune, for the time being just out to get it running better then it is. will eventually advance things when the wife allows to improve on the tune, add o2 sensors remake the exhaust and so on.

and before people start it may just be a 250 but when your banned from buying a bigger bike but given an allowance to upgrade the one i've got then i'll take what i can get, and make it the best 250 i can for the money i'm allowed to use....

will be posting photo's and updates as i go for this part of the project and adding vids on youtube aswell.

 

well first update, out of everything ordered 2 of the items, throttle body and cables arrived from south australia in 2 days ^_^..

now looking at the throttle body, i've got 2 ways of doing this, find a couple of plugs for the throttle body from either a store or a wiring loom. if anyone can point me in a general direction for this as i want to do this right the first time.
or 2nd way, jerry rig plugs from my connector collection and hope it works...
now just waiting on the rest of the parts before i get stuck into the swap over.

 

i just picked up a full harness from ebay for $42.12 free postage. should arrive with in the time frame for the rest of the parts,

@maelstrom no i hadnt see that page, i was more basing this off the ninja250 efi conversion threats in other forums and a diagram of sorts from www.turbo250.com the fuel system i'm setting up is identical in layout to the one he's using because the 300's fuel rail is non-return.

its going to be a challange thats for sure, and the plans for this bike are on the insane side of things, i do mean insane not just off the fancy.

once the efi system is inplace and running nice enough, i'm going to build an exhaust from scratch including building dual cans, have a few friends round town with the gear i can use,
drop the rear sprocket from 47 to 45 (front stays at 14).
after saving some money buy ninja 300 engine internals, and re-build my engine with 300 internals, then do a full tune.
plastic weld the side fairings to the headlight surround re-paint the lot,


going to do as much work on the bike myself, its just one of those gut feelings that the zzr250 could be more then what it is now.
and make the bike truly mine,

also nice to see some interest from others,

@Moo your racing ninja250 thread was a very nice read,

 

its more dropping the revs at 100.. sitting at 8.5k rpm at 100 feels alittle high and there is not much more power in the bike incase a twit decideds to jump out at me. being top torque at 12.5 and at current in 6th she very slow to pull to 12.5 so bringing the revs down alittle would give me enough of a slight boost if needed... though i dont know exactly how the bike will respond when i switch to efi,

but speaking from a 0 - 100 perspective it hits 100 in 13 seconds as is,

i'll wait and see what she does and plan accordingly

 

@my67xr thanks very much for that.. when i do go and get new sprockets and chain, i'll get a 14t/15t front and 45t/47t rear and play around with em and see what i like, but seems either direction i will be happy with it... once the efi is done i'll know more if i get better accel and can trade some of that off for lowering the revs to meet 100...

 

ok a few parts have arrived for the conversion,

throttle cable, throttle bodies, connectors, ecu + harness,

just waiting on a few more bits, adding to the list is 3 x 12v relays, sorted box of fuses, and air temp sensor.

relays and fuses were added because of the wiring diagram i looked at from the ecu's info page, air temp sensor forgot to buy it when i bought the other parts...

total parts so far bought and prices,

Megasquirt's microsquirt v3 + harness $494.59 + 14.84 (international transfer fee)
ninja 300 throttle bodies + cables. $100 + $40
30GPH universal fuel pump $31.80
Fuel pressure regulator $23.97
high pressure fuel hose 8mm $17.89
claps/T piece $19.59
electrical connectors $24.95 (not using all of them 480pcs set)
Fuel filter $8
usb to rs232 $1.82
complete wiring loom ninja 300 $42.12
intake air sensor $27.99
3 12v 20a relays $8
100pc fuses 2a-35a $4.57

total spend $860.13

alittle bit more then expected but still hasnt broken the bank... wife's not all that impressed but we have our agreement on this matter.

in the next week the rest of the parts should arrived, and then i can get started on before/after shots and strip the bike down.

 

just wondering does anyone have a true wiring diagram for the zzr250?

need to find the tacho wire from the cdi (colour) for the timing of the injectors in the microsquirt

 

thanks grey.

 

just alittle update, recieved the 300's harness (came with extra map sensor and tip over sensor + fues box) already pulled the parts i need out of the harness so far, and got the wiring done on the throttle bodies, crimped connectors onto the wires from the plugs, just waiting for the rest of the parts to arrive if alls good should have them all by the 5th of next month (next friday) and then the real fun starts,

also did some research on the microsquirt, there is a problem with the ex250 (all models) and the crank angle sensor, being the teeth on the flywheel are 3 small 1 large. and the new ecu cannot determine what to do rev by rev, but there is a bright side to this coin, the makers of the microsquirt thought ahead and made the rev/crank sensor inputs be able to read the revs from the tacho output on the cdi's, so that saves me a load of mucking around with electronics. as a side note, if anyone was to follow my poor footsteps, and go and buy an actual ninja300 throttle body, you also have to buy an IAC stepper adaptor, $60 USD plus postage because the 300's throttle body has a sub-throttle or auto choke,

which i will get around to doing, but to save some time i can just keep the subthrottle's butterflys open or make up a switch to manual open and close it. doesnt make much difference.

as the parts get here and i'm able to do work on the project (got plenty of time just need parts) i'll update here and there, good thing about this build, i'm not going to fall by the way side, (wife wont let me ;P) and as i start a new job on the 18th of next month i will have plenty of time to get as much done as possible, so hope to get all the hardware in and wired before the 18th so i will only need to do the tuning which will happen as i'm riding to and from work

i have a mini laptop with an rs232 port thats small enough to fit in my tank bag while open to do data logging, so ride to and from work then mod the tune and try it out the following day. and as i live 15 min drive from work and in the middle of no where i only can hurt myself if i stuff up.

 

bonus update.. started the swap over of parts,

throttle bodies in and fit nicely, throttle cables fit and work. located the place where the microsquirt is going to be located, sort have figured out where the fuel filter (make sure its super small as you have bugger all room to play with) and the regulator will sit (same as filter get a small one)

though now have a conundrum. need to figure out the fuel return line.. and i have no experience with fuel systems. i've thought of 3 ways to do it, with out buying more parts... least likely to work, run the return line from the pressure regulator to just below the petcock so it feeds back into the fuel pump... or kill the vacuum side of the petcock and get the fuel line return to fit the vacuum so it mixes the return line and output at the same point which in essence is if not the same as return line back to the base of the petcock... and or the third option find a petcock with a return in it.