1992 Kona Hei Hei

romanrinos

Kona Fan
This is a bit of a Time Machine thread..

This frame has had a small past, on a thread I discovered on here from 7 years ago.

It's first life being here:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=149001

As far as it seems the build was never completed.

I bought this 20" frame over 2 years in June of 2016, after an internet search led me to a fellow local Konahead, with a small stock of assorted Kona frames in his apartment.

Having only owned a purple 1991 19" Explosif at the time, which I've owned from new during the 90s, the titanium Hei Hei was always a bit of an enigma. And after a few months, and a some negotiations, having never handled a Ti bike, I finally bought the frame. I couldn't quite believe how light the thing was.

It's also some thing of an anomoly. The seat tube clamp is straight from a 1992 model, but the serial dates it as a 1993 model.

Condition wise, other than having replacement decals at some point (they don't look like top quality Gil productions) the frame surface is pretty immaculate and had the original Ti-3Al-2.5 sticker intact.

After a gentle rub down with scotchbrite, and a heavy dose of lemon juice, the frame is near-enough brand new. The only issue being that the ti brake noodle was famously missing. More about this later in the thread.

I gave myself a brief: to build the best vintage XTR race worthy Hei Hei I could.

With the final purchase of a decent low profile BB today, this journey of searching / collecting has almost come to an end..

Quite a few people have made a very valuable contribution to this build to date that I'd like to thank, which otherwise wouldn't have resulted including judd peterson, raidan73 and zoda, and gratitude to pipmeister and minifreak for their general support.
 

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Re: 1992 Kona Hei Hei reboot

Can’t wait to see this build come together and getting very excited about a shaped peice of Titanium tubing ;)
 
Re:

Jig currently being made for a three-part bend to achieve the replica. 5mm Ti tube sourced.
 

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  • Hei Hei Noodle Brake Guide.jpg
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Re:

Inspiration pic attached. This is a photo of an original Hei Hei test bike.

According to the rider (who tested for Dave Hemming apparently) on this bike had a ti leader fork setup (identical to the doomed steel Futureshock)

Blue bits have been identified as grafton speed stick cranks with ringle chainrings and brakes...this was like a primitive v brake but cnc machined and anodised.

Ringle Superbubba or Bigfoot hubs on the front wheel. Note the snowflake spoke pattern for stiffening up that front-end .
 

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Great pic, have you got anymore of the bike?

mark
 
Re:

I’ve asked - will see if any more can see found.

Apparently the ti stem was too flexy, this is likely the reason why Steve Peats Hei Hei featured a 150 Ti bar but just the standard steel stem.
 
Re: Re:

romanrinos":zu0pjtw9 said:
I’ve asked - will see if any more can see found.

Apparently the ti stem was too flexy, this is likely the reason why Steve Peats Hei Hei featured a 150 Ti bar but just the standard steel stem.

You have any old skool pics of steves bike?
 

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