ETZ 250 – Bottom-end torque and riding position

[Ian Richards]

I have been an armchair enthusiast of MZs for years but have only recently bought one (1989 ETZ 250) and joined the Club. Initial impressions are very favourable – it’s a lot nippier than I expected and starts, handles and stops well. The widely-discussed issues of lack of bottom-end torque and the curious footrest position are very obvious however.
I have the time, interest and facilities to tackle most jobs but I don’t want to re-invent the wheel or head down a route that opthers already know is a dead end.
So here are my questions:
1. have any members past or present fitted a reed valve, not for racing but to improve the road manners of the bike?
2. Has anyone come up with a neat way to move the footpegs and controls back by about 50mm? It’s a job I’ve done on another bike but operation of the brake, gears and kickstart has always felt compromised compared to standard layout.
Any help would be much appreciated.
Ian

[Andy Pratt]

Hello Ian,you can lower the footrests down by about a 1″,by cutting/slotting the bends and then tig weld them back up,and to make Etz,s less boggy we drop a tooth on the front sprocket,loose a tad top end but the engine holds 5th gear a lot better,not having to drop it into fourth to get back in the Rev band range,Cheers Andy

[Ian Richards]

Thanks for advice, Andy. Ideally I would like to move the footrests backwards rather than downwards but I shall just have to see what’s practicable. I had read about the idea of using a smaller final drive sprocket but, as I have not yet seen the chain, I don’t know whether a previous owner may have already done this.
BW
Ian

[Gerry Mullin]

hi just to offer my advice on mods to a motorcycle ,is to leave it as the factory made it , the MZ engineer that made the bike knows more about motor cycles than you I found this out when I was young along time ago .

[Derek Reynolds]

That’s fine if you are an ‘average’ sized person – average to the nation of manfacture that is, though the smaller framed orientals have made their machines fit all – there comes a point when some personalisation can be beneficial to comfort and desires. Some changes will require cutting and/or welding.

Reed valves. Buy a Yamaha. Leave as designed with regard to the MZ. Two strokes can be tuned, but you steal from Peter to pay Paul, same goes for any engine tuning for more power, there inevitable will be a price.

Welcome to the club Ian, can’t help much more than that.

[Ian Richards]

I see exactly where you are coming from Gerry; most attempts to ‘improve’ MZs seem to end with a qualified success at best – and those are the ones you here about.
On the other hand I’ve no reason to believe that the brief given to the MZ designers 40 years ago matches my requirements or indeed what sort of bike the company would have liked to design had it not been constrained by cost, lack of modern machine tools and materials.
So, I shall continue to try to improve my ETZ. At the very least it will provide a future owner with an interesting project should he choose to return it to its original condition.
Ian

[Keith Angus]

Quietly swap the engine for a 301 while no-one’s looking. Boring it out might be enough. Maybe fit the Bing carb and electronic ignition at the same time. Or get an old TS250/1 engine and sneak that in. I believe (never having ridden an ETZ250) that both before and after were better for the torque band.

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