Totally Tz

TOTALLY TZ

Not like a racebike,it is a racebike!

MANY OF US MODIFY OUR STREET-bikes to make them lighter, faster and tricker. Well, imagine pursuing your goals from the opposite end of the problem by purchasing a for-real racebike and adding enough parts to make it street-legal. That's the idea behind this TZ250 Yamaha.

DMV officials being humorless types, the TZ's owner wishes to remain nameless, but he's a dedicated buzz-bomb fan. "I have a super-clean RD400, and have always loved the TZ racers," he says. "So, I got this crazy idea to build a TZ250 streetbike, and contacted Steve Biganski at Extreme Lean. He told me, `No problem!

Biganski, a noted race tuner, located a clean `91 TZ and mapped out a plan: "My main goals were ridability and engine longevity. I already knew how to make them run hard, but the trick was getting the powerband and gearing

right for the street." Street legality means lights and a horn, so Extreme Lean fitted tery between the vee of the cylinders in a constant-loss sys tem requiring occasional overnight charg ing. The owner has to premix oil and premium fuel, and searches for a good wall to lean the bike against when parking-at least until he figures out a kickstand. The lights came from a junkyard, but Airlech provided the fiberglass body work, Zero Gravity the windscreen and Street & Competition the steering damper. Crowning touch came from

Classic which sprayed the e in a modern version of the clas c Yamaha bumblebee paint design. This little TZ pumps out approxi mately 80 horsepower and weighs-in at 220 pounds. That means high 10-sec ond quarter-miles at 130 mph, with a Daytona-like top speed approaching 170 mph-all from a 250! Care to top that, cc for cc? Nick Ienatsch