TOPIC:

These bikes eat both the ignition coils and the pulsing coils if you have the ignition that is mounted on the cylinder block. I bought Nology coils for mine.

I am not sure what type of ignition is on this bike, the Igniter unit is made by Mitsubishi, I haven't gotten into that yet. It dosen't look like the IC units in the manual or ones I have seen online, the coils and ballancing resistor appear to be stock. I haven't looked at the pickups yet.

In 1981 on the A3 model Kawasaki went to the pickups under the left engine cover and the Mitsubishi igniter. In 79/80 the pickups were on the right side of the cylinder block casting behind the cylinders and a Kawasaki igniter. I believe that the igniters are interchangeable. Looking at the picture of the engine you posted, the engine is a 1981 or later. The shape of your gas tank is also a 1981 A3 and not a 1980 A2. Your pulsing coils are under the left engine cover and you have no harmonic balancer which was on the 1979/80.This also means that the left engine cover will have a little rectangular cover toward the top of it held by two screws. There is quite a bit of difference between the 79/80 model and the 81&up models. They have different service manuals. The manual for your bike would be a -03 or -04 for the 79/80 it is a -01 or -02

Yeah I am figuring that out, yet the production date on the frame is late 1979, so this must be an early '81 model. My title is technically wrong too. The oil capacity is 6.2 liters which also would be found on the later engine. It makes sense that this is actualy an '81 model year bike.

I understand the '81 model is a hall effect type ignition pick-up How were these compared to the other years. Any better or worse? The pickups are completely different than the '79-'80 becasue I have electronic timing advance where the earlier system had a mechanical advancer.

What is the engine serial #?

KZT30AE012752

I have also read about this rare '81 ignition system and it has been prone to complete failure of the ingnition controller, however someone has had a run of new production ingniter boards made so there is hope if it is not functioning. I am going to check for spark today or tomorrow so I will see whats up there. My manual has a supplement for the '81 model year and that should get me through any diagnostics if need be.

The engine is definitely a 1981 engine.

he,he,he,
another recent kz1300 owner. i just picked one up on friday, 500 mile round trip. bought it from the second owner who had it for 12+ years. runs and rides, 15,000 miles. gonna order a a.p.e. manual cam chain tensioner and my chain is growling a bit. bought it with the plans to ditch the fairing and bags.
wait till you fire it up the first time, it sounds like a ferrari!

You haven't herd anything until you herd it with a 6 into one pipe. That's a sound that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. I'm putting a custom 1400 kit into my 79, with custom ground cams and oversize valves. I still don't know what to expect from an engine that put out 120HP from the factory, with these mods.

I put a battery in the bike today, changed oil, and pulled out all the plugs. I cranked it over and had nice bright spark on all 6 cylinders. When I turned the key on all the bells and whistles started woking to. The engine turned over smoothly.

The carburators are a mess inside, I have only just started tearing them down. I hope to get them torn down enough so I can put them in the ultrasonic cleaner at work. they will need a few hours in a heated ultrasonic bath to have any hope of working again. The fuel inlet pipe was cloged SOLID and the vapors form the decomposing fuel in the bowls depositied on everything inside the carbs. These have been sitting for at least ten years if not more. If I can get them back on the bike I feel very optamistic that she will run.

Z1E has rebuild kits available for these carbs.

I ordered kits form Z1-enterprises and a pingel petcock and adapter. The factory one is beyond salvage. I brough the tank to a local radiator repair shop to have it boiled clean and coated. He charges $60 and I can't really juistify doing it myslef for that cost.

The carbs are completely torn down and I found no serious issues other than they are extremely fouled with varnish. All the diaphrams are in excellent shape. I will start running parts through the ultrasonic cleaner over the next few days.

I need to find the upper half of the airbox and the rubber parts that mate it to the carburators. Other than that in a few weeks it should be ready to start.