Testarossa's 78 KZ1000 Fighter Build

Schwing................!

LUV that DYNA plate ..... yummy......

trianglelaguna wrote:

nice video...keep it moving at your pace...great spark jumping story...lucky no fuel was hanging in the air......i saw a guy pull the plug on a flooded husky and give it a kick to clear the jug.....shot flames into his hair...plug was arcing near the compressed fuel mist shot....he was running away while the bike was still balanced for a brief moment


.. i was lmfao...which he got mad about later....sparks work...just get a little fuel near em...


gonna be cool to see it rolling

You're right about the fuel vapors. I took no chances there. Didn't bust out the gas can until the ignition was well buttoned up. I'm also glad I caught that split overflow tube. It was causing a slow gas drip from the #2 carb.

Last night I took my first step back in a while. I guess it was inevitable, since so much stuff has gone well here lately. I wanted to make the brakes work so that a trip down the street might be possible. I know that the rear master cylinder works well since I messed with it so much while fabricating rearsets, but the rear caliper is stuck. The caliper is disassembled and soaking.

Now I thought I would get lucky with the front, but I have never touched the m/c. Went ahead and installed the new brake pads on the busa calipers, and cobbled together a set of brake lines that will work in a pinch. Unfortunately, with about 1.5 hrs of trying to bleed the front brakes, it won't build pressure. There is no evidence of fluid leaking to the outside. I guess, I'll be re-building the m/c as well. It looked pretty good on the outside, but I had to replace the elbow connecting to the reservoir and I noticed a little rusty accumulation in there. Not surprising, considering the condition of the front calipers when I got them. One more hurdle....

Imlooking at brake lines myself. being the cheap%-- I am I found bike bandit to be somewhat reasonable.did look at spiegler. very nice lines but, not inexpensive? Hope the stock master will work with the 6 pot calipers. had an issue with my car that m/c bore was somewhat critical for correct operation?I have those exact brakes on my old gsxr and when working properly they are VERY good.

I wouldn't catagorize that as a step backward, it's just slightly slower forward progress. Damn, that shoots my first ride prediction for this weekend all to hell :laugh:

Looks like your in the final stage, that sucks about the m/c if you can't find one or you don't want to rebuild it let me know I might have one it might be from a newer year gixxer but it will work.

i'm with Leon...brakes are a good project at this point...:laugh:


you might really wanna get em as close to good ,from there , you know,once you can ride it can shake em down a bit more...funky brakes for me early on on a project make it way worse if you got other stuff to try and sort out...stalls...idles...ect.. handling...gas dripping from aline....go to stop quick to fix it and skid...


tip that bitch over in heartbeat at the bottom of the driveway...i have....snapped levers,bent shit,scratch up perfectly good instruments and even dimpled a tank...over the yrs

all could have been avoided if i had done a few more inspections and stuff...

probably do it again too...:woohoo:

Camaroguy, I used the GSXR master cylinder as well so it's a matched set. Funny that Suzuki chose a Nissin MC with Tokico calipers, but who cares.

Rslingshot, I really appreciate the offer, but I got my MC pumpin' today. I guess it just needed to be cleaned out. I didn't see anything weird in there just a little of that rusty brake fluid junk that you always find in vehicles that have sat forever. It was like I couldn't prime the pump yesterday, but it's all good now.

I also got the the rear caliper re-assembled today, so all the brakes should be solid with new pads all around.

The wiring harness got shrink wrapped today, and I started playing with the carbs.

Adam, it's not impossible that I could still ride it this weekend, but I have to bust my ass tomorrow. I have to get the carbs synced and adjusted. Right now I started to sync the carbs, but if I get them anywhere close, the idle jumps up to 2500 rpm or more. Even with the idle stop totally unscrewed, so I have something wrong. I'll need to weld in my fuel tank bung for the new petcock. I made it the other day on a lathe at work. Last, I'll need to rig up a shift rod to my DIY rearsets. It wouldn't hurt to install the rear breaks as well.

Well, next weekend for sure, you'll take her for her maiden voyage around the patch. If you're lucky and everything fall into place, she might make it in time for that ride with your father in law

Ok, it looks like I'm in for a new set of carb boots. I should have got them in the first place, but mine looked real good. After syncing the carbs, the lowest idle that I can achieve is 1500. I also noticed that the vent on the #3 carb is drawing a substantial vacuum, but the other vents have none. Also, after I cut it off, the next time I put the ignition on, I get a small backfire through the exhaust. Do these sound like symptoms of leaky carb boots?

Allow me to clarify on thing. When I say 1500 rpm idle, I mean that the idle stop screw is completely backed out and this is as slow as the engine will turn over. I DO NOT mean to say that I can only keep it running at 1500.

Well Adam, I managed to meet your second deadline as well but with a serious asterisk. I slapped the rearsets on there and put the old KZ shifter on just to get her in gear. I strapped the go kart gas tank to the frame and off to the races. I completed three laps of the Bridgestone West GP, and made it home in one piece.

The good stuff:
-Brakes work flawless.
-Suspension seems good. I'm sure there will be plenty of adjusting once I get up to speed.
-No squeeks or rattles.
-Turns nicely at subdivision speed.
-Shifts like butter.
-Got up to third gear, about 30mph, and everything is smooth.
-No leaks

The bad stuff:
-It's pretty much all about tuning right now.
-Difficult to get rolling without quite a bit of throttle input combined with slipping the clutch.
-Once rolling it sort of chugs up to 10mph or so and then smooths out. It seems to stutter up to 1/8 throttle.
-I tried to give it 1/2 throttle briefly, and at first it chugs and makes that dull noise in the exhaust then wham here comes the power.
-I think I fried my fancy taillight. It's going haywire, and I discovered that the running light circuit is only getting about 10.5V. Can't seem to find where the resistance is yet. I checked the headlight switch, dimmer switch, and all the connectors and wires individually all return 0.3 ohms. Just for reference I get 0.3 ohms when I cross the leads on my multimeter. Could my new ignition switch be the problem?

WooHoo! I mean, most of that stuff is to be expected after resurecting an old, neglected bike after so long. That sucks about the tail light though I hope it's salvagable. If you need, I have a working set of VM26's that you're welcome to use to help sort things out