Kawasaki ZX9R Ergonomic Fuel Tap

The Headache

On the 2000 model Kawasaki ZX9R, the fuel gauge is your odometer and a manual petcock. The factory plastic tap was cracked and perished, but more importantly, it wasnt very user friendly...and if your get this wrong running out of fuel isnt much fun.

Normal operation is you operate in the on position, as soon as the bike starts to splutter you switch it over to reserve and go find a fuel station. You've got about 30 km to get there.To check if you were on 'On' or 'Reserve' while the engine was spluttering and you where in motion, you had to lean off the side of the bike to peer into the chassis. There was no way to easily confirm the tap position at a glance from the riding position. Being creatures of habit sometimes you would fill the bike up and forget to turn it back to the on position. This would definitely be a problem if you were just running to splutter due to the variable right wrist and fuel usage associated with it.

The Process

I started with a manual measure-up of the factory interface using calipers to ensure the mounting and internal geometry remained functional.

The design phase went through four iterations in CAD:

1. V1-V2: Focused on mechanical fitment to the petcock stem.
2. V3: Adjusted the "wing" geometry to extend slightly further out for better line-of-sight and provide easy turning with gloved hands whille not impeding the leg and foot movment while riding.
3. V4 (Final): Refined the pointer and text placement to be viewed from a top-down angle.

I utilized a dual-filament printing methodology. By using contrasting colors for the body and the inlaid text, I achieved high-contrast labels that won't wear off like paint or stickers.

The Result

The final tap provides "at-a-glance" status updates. I no longer have to hang off the bike to see if I'm about to run dry. The dual-color print looks OEM+ and provides a much more tactile movement into position than the degraded original plastic.