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Well I heard back from Electro Sport and unfortunately, they weren't much help with my specific problem. Here is what they said:

"Our ESR100 replaces both the rectifier and regulator on your KZ1000. I don't have a service manual for the 1978 KZ1000 so I don't know what wires from our regulator/rectifier go to your stock wiring harness. The three yellow wires from our R/R are for the rectifier side of the circuit, the black wire is the ground for the regulator circuit and the red wire is the power wire for the regulator circuit."

If that's the case, I'd have to hack into my wiring for sure to get this R/R working correctly. I think the brown wire should probably be left open and the red wire fron the regulator connected to whatever wire the rectifier is connected to now. I'll have to look at my wiring schematic again and try to figure this out.

On a related note, the "new" stock regulator isn't working properly. I'm hitting 16+ volts at around 5000 RPM....that will overcharge the battery for sure. So now I'm back to my original problem...two years and $150 later!

So for the ElectroSport regulator, I think the 3 yellow wires need to connect to the 3 yellow wires from the stator. The black wire goes to ground, and the red wire should supply the battery with power to charge it? Or maybe not....electro sport says that the red wire is power for the rectifier side of the circuit...then what wire is the output of the R/R? It has to have an output somewhere???

Sorry, I may have forgotten some of the details in this thread, but it sounds like you now have a combo reg/rec. If it's 5-wires, then it basically matches the wiring of the rectifier. Wire it as the rectifier and leave the regulator connections un-connected.

You likely know more about the reg/rec than the guy you spoke to on the phone. Your 5-wire combo reg/rec uses the output wire as the power wire for the regulator (thus eliminating the brown wire).

You got it Loudhvx....I wired it up in place of the rectifier and it works perfectly and still shuts off with the key!

To make things even better, I am able to leave it plugged in to the green connector where the regulator plugs in. So basically I can leave it exactly how I had it except that I had to cut the brown wire (red wire from the new R/R)and plug it into the white/red that goes to the battery (where the output of the rectifier went)...and unplug the rectifier. It would also work perfectly if it were plugged into the rectifier plug but it won't reach since I already had it wired for the regulator plug. The 3 wires from the stator are even oriented correctly in both plugs so it's a direct fit.

Thanks very much to everyone that helped!

I'm glad you have yours sorted out, I'm getting there with mine, here is the thread I started and am still updating: R/R Failure?

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around your system. You have an R/R combo unit only now right? If so, it only has 5 wires? The 3 yellow for the Stator, a black ground wire and red wire you are connecting to the brown one on the bike but you have that lead going to just the battery's white/red wire? So how does your Brown wire circuit on your bike get power now? Also wouldn't that mean the R/R is "hot" all the time and thus draining the battery?

Told you I was confused...

Yes, 5 wires, just as the original rectifier and original regulator had. The brown wire was used to "sense" the voltage in the old system and then triggered the regulator to dump the extra voltage to gound. I think the original regulators were mechanical and required a sensor wire, where the newer ones are electronic and that circuitry is built in.

So, in short, the brown wire is no longer used. The white/red wire that went from the rectifier to the battery has been replaced by the red wire from the new R/R.

New R/R wiring:
3 yellows - to 3 yellows coming from stator. Connected through original plug where voltage regulator was connected (can also be plugged into the connector where the original rectifier was connected as both are the same physically and electrically).

Black wire - ground

Red wire - R/R output to battery. Connected into stock connector where red/white from old rectifier was.

Make sense? Believe me, I was very confused myself. To start with, I thought I had bought just the regulator part and not the combo. I had it wired incorrectly and had been taking apart wiring everywhere trying to solve my ignition switch problem. Oh well.....all's well that ends well...right?

Here are some pictures of the final installation:

Here's what it looked like with the rectifier portion still installed. White/red wire already unplugged in this photo:

Nice job 79MKII.

Even though the old regulator was electronic, it still needed a separate power source to power the regulator circuit. That's why it has the brown wire. It used enough power that they wanted that wire switched to prevent draining the battery when the bike was not in use. Later, they developed a regulator circuit that could use the rectifier's output wire as the power source for the regulator in the combo units (found on KZ650's), without draining power while the bike was turned off. Thus the brown wire was eliminated on those reg/rec combo units. However, I think they may have had some problematic ones, because even later, the combo reg/recs once again had the brown wire on the 550's, 750's and 1000's.

Now the recent aftermarket has once again developed a way to eliminate the brown wire. Some still sport the brown wire, but it may only be to conform to the existing wiring (and not confuse owners). But there is a chance that the brown wire on some aftermarket combo reg/recs is just a "dummy" wire. By this, I don't mean that the brown wire is connected to nothing, (though, I guess it could be), but that the brown wire is just a secondary source coupled to the detection circuit (and the output wire) through a diode. If this diode shorts out, then you have the symptom that KZ_Rage is experiencing. This is just conjecture at this point... definitely not to be taken as fact. (I'll post in his thread some tests he can do.)

When it shorts out, what's happening is that the brown wire on the reg/rec, which is supposed to receive power from the ignition switch, is now supplying power to the ignition switch, and everything else that the brown wire is connected to. It's getting that power from the white/red wire. That white/red is supposed to be an output wire to the battery, but now it is acting like a power input wire to the regulator (which sends the power out of the brown wire).

Just for fun, here is the inside of the original type regulator from that era. Notice that the oldest of the big motor KZ's use 3 different color alternator wires (pink blue yellow). This is because the earliest regulators of that type used sequential-shunting. That is when one of the three phases gets shorted to ground by the regulator (to reduce the output of the rectifer). That shunted phase then triggers the next phase to shunt, then that phase triggers the next phase to shunt. To work 100%, they had to be in the correct order. Later, they developed a circuit to just let the regulator shunt all three phases at the same time, and whichever phase was supplying power at that moment would get shorted. That meant the phases no longer mattered, so eventually Kawasaki just made all 3 of the wires the same color.. yellow. (One could make the argument that the earlier design was better in some ways, actually, but that would take some time to explain.)

Awesome information! Thanks for sharing. Have you had any success repairing the old regulators?

No I haven't tried. I think there are too many parts that would have to be replaced... basically everything except the resistors.

That one was taken apart by someone else. He emailed me because he wasnted to build a new one based on the old design. But with the sequential shunting, it's not feasible since the later alternators don't have color coded wires. Plus, at a little over a hundred bucks for an aftermarket one, it's not worth the time and parts cost.

However, with all of the troubles you and KZ_Rage have been through, I may start to tinker with the design I made many years ago. Or, I might try OregonMotorcycleparts.com the next time I need one.

I know this is an OLD thread but I had to reply... I HAD the exact same problem. Turning the key off would not kill the motor. Turning the key off only made it run like crap AND with the key off I could kick start the bike - just like you described in this thread. Turns out, someone had installed what looks like the same R/R in your photo (3 yellows, a black and a red wire connected to the brown – all plugged into the green connector). I cut the brown loose and connected with the white/red that goes to the battery, and FIXED it! My guess is, the original install instructions were flat wrong or too confusing! I had to re-read this whole thread - the last time SLOWLY and boom! That was the trick! Thanks guys....

Awesome! So glad you found this! As you can tell from the thread, it took me quite a while to figure it out. I still can't believe that happened. Like you said though, makes me wonder if the instructions were wrong or not very clear. It's probably happened more times than just these two. I love this forum!

Just thought I add one more interesting bit of information. Again from what I can tell, my wiring was done (incorrectly) just like yours. As it turns out, that brown wire the red (charging) wire WAS connected to, runs out of the back of that green connector over to the brown connector on the left. Well, that runs directly to the tail light (brown) lead wire. THAT means for some time, the battery was being charged thru the tail light circuit! Mine was BADLY overheated and melted throughout the wiring harness. Had to replace it all the way into the head light bucket. Even the white 6-wire connector was toasted. After I replaced the brown wire completely, all is well. Needless to say, RED wire of the R/R to the BROWN wire is horribly WRONG!

So if you are reading this thread and have this same wiring problem screw up, CHECK YOUR WIREs!