Yep, I'll have on bike footage. A friend with an S1000RR is coming out, so if he can keep up with me, I'll get some bike to bike shots as well.
At the start of my project, I had considered an ST11 because I was offered one locally in one piece and good shape for a real song and a dance. Ultimately, the EFI, more power, aluminum frame and swing arm, and what I consider a more attractive engine and set of headers swayed me towards the ST13. However, the ST11 has much potential.
That's a picture I found from a google search. Not sure if that's anyone's here or not, but if it his, hi. The steel frame and swing arm and shock location have a real retro feel to them. If I were to do something with what's pictured above, I'd lean towards a retromodern cafe racer. Being a steel frame, that's easy to work with and add metal to or whatnot. A $112 Harbor Freight MIG welder would have you rollin'. The welds won't be pretty, but that's what grinders and paint are for.
Anyway, I'd maybe run some tubes from where the frame turns down behind the engine back to where the shock mounts to the frame. That'll get you a somewhat level, somewhat straight platform to build on. For a tank, I'd have to go walk through a local MC boneyard and find one that talked to me, but maybe something from a Kawi or an '80's Honda since they're blocky tanks that'd fit the lines of blocky cylinder heads. For a tail, maybe the same thing- something blocky. Not one of those round, quarter sphere tails you see all the hipsters putting on their CBs, but something off a KZ or a CB1100F. Actually, the CB1100F tail would be pretty neat because it has that pseudo- whale tail. Now that I'm googling pictures of a CB1100F, I'm looking at the tank, side covers, seat and tail, and overall proportions of the bike and you know what...?
I think all that would work on an ST11. You might have to modify the bottom of the tank to work with the ST11 frame, but that's some easy sheet metal work and who cares what it looks like because nobody would ever see it. I think that'd be a pretty cool, relatively simple project with minimal mods to the ST frame.
Suspension- wise, you could leave it be, or you could do a fork swap like I did. If the ST11 is like the ST13, it's a very simple procedure to get a different front end on there. You'll lose weight and gain better damping and brakes. Since the swing arm is steel, some inverted bracing kind of like on the old Superbikes would be pretty sweet looking if you painted it silver.
For the exhaust, you might be able to pull off a scrambler style exhaust by using flex pipe and then wrapping it with heat wrap. Instead of the headers going down, wrap them up and around the front of the engine and over the top of the heads, then tuck 'em up under the rear of the tank, and then back out from under the tail. Fun fact: If you ever see some done up cafe racer with a unique routing of the exhaust, and the exhaust is wrapped, there's a 99% chance they just used flex pipe to make it happen.
Anyway, that's just what all comes to mind after looking at the above two pictures. YMMV.
