Better Than Nothing---The rebirth of a Superbike.

Very cool, PM sent

Dr. Gamma wrote: ............ Avon is the only people that still make 19" front tires in a race compound. .........

That's a shame. Back it the day I ran Michelin A-48 / M-48 tires with PZ2 compound on my KZ650 on the street. They provided really great traction, but of course they wore out extremely quickly. Still - they were loads of fun. Ed

650ed wrote:

Dr. Gamma wrote: ............ Avon is the only people that still make 19" front tires in a race compound. .........

That's a shame. Back it the day I ran Michelin A-48 / M-48 tires with PZ2 compound on my KZ650 on the street. They provided really great traction, but of course they wore out extremely quickly. Still - they were loads of fun. Ed

I got Michelin's on there now from back in 1985. A Hi-SportTG22 rear, and a race intermediate/rain TG11 front. They worked great when they were not hockey pucks!!! I ran PZ2's on my KH400 triple road racer, a S41 front and a M45 rear both in PZ2 compound back in the late 70's. I agreed, Great tires in their day.

Believe it or not, the best tires I ran on my KZ1000, were Goodyear road race slicks!!!! I NEVER had any tire on the street with that much traction. They just did not like the white painted lines on the road. I loved them on the track even more!!!! Got my best finishes on Goodyear slicks!!!!!!!

Very nice bike. Loved the video, thanks!

Ed_in_Miami wrote: Very nice bike. Loved the video, thanks!

Going have to make another video. My motor sounds completely different now that the jetting is spot on!!!!

I checked my valve clearance again in my KZ motor. This time I had to change a few shims. Couple of my valves moved .0015ths.
Luckily they were all on the exhaust side. Here's a little trick. The shop manual won't tell you that you can pull just the exhaust cam, but if you follow a few important steps. You can!!! #1 remove the top center tensioner if your motor has one. #2 Back off your cam chain tensioner. #3 Remove cam caps. #4 Now roll exhaust cam off of shim buckets keeping the cam chain taut on the front side of cam sprocket so cam chain does not come off crank. And make sure all the slack in cam chain is between the two cam sprockets!!! Reverse steps of disassembly and you can now check your new clearances!!!!! Pretty trick huh!!!!!

Found what I think is the starting of a crack in one of my fancy shim buckets. Its only on the pad where the shim rides inside of bucket. If you run your fingernail over it, you can feel it. Can't see it on the top side of bucket. In all my years of working with 650 style buckets, this is a first. Got to find someone nearby that can magnaflux it and see if it is a crack just starting. Glad I caught it before the bucket shattered taking my fancy head with it!!!!



You can see and feel crack on the shim pad.


Nothing visible on top of bucket yet!!!

Great write up!

Got a bug up my ass to put a few miles on my KZ. Took the number plates off, and stuck in a dummy headlight to make it street legal. Trailered it down south of Prescott on highway 89 to a tiny town called Wilhoit Highway 89 from Wilhoit to Yarnell is great for some high speed running plus never seen many cops on that road either. This is really the first time I got to run my rebuilt Superbike at high speeds for any real distances. The road down there is mostly gentle curves up and down hills with a few long straights connecting them. Mostly huge ranches on both sides of the road. Hardly any side roads for some moron to pull out in front of you!!! Just have to slow down through Peoples Valley then back on the gas down to Yarnell then turn around and haed back to Wilhoit.

I put enough miles on my fresh motor to start running it to its redline, 10,500RPM on a good tach. I forgot how hard that motor pulls!!!!!! It will set you back in the seat all the way to near redline in 5th!!!! No wobbles at any speed even after hitting some big bumps at speed. With hockey pucks for tires, I really couldn't push it hard through any of the corners.

Got to do some real plug chops to see what my jetting really was like. I think I am real real close to being right on with the overall jetting. No little balls of aluminium on the porcelain on any of the plugs so the timing is real close too!!!! Have a look at the plugs. Looks pretty good to me.

#1 PLUG

#2 PLUG

Looking good. Watch out for animals.
Steve

That is a great road Dr to give it hell.
Yarnell back to Whiskey Row was a every weekend ride for me when I was working in AZ
Dave

Street Fighter LTD wrote: That is a great road Dr to give it hell.
Yarnell back to Whiskey Row was a every weekend ride for me when I was working in AZ
Dave

Yep!!! It gets nice and twisty just north of Wilhoit. I love it on the GSXR. The 30 year old tires on the Superbike just won't cut through there!!!! Wish I could swing for a set of Avons for the Superbike. There ain't much runoff room all the way through the twisty bits. I would be sick if I crashed the Superbike. I can't afford it either. It really sucks living on a budget. A tiny one at that.

hei Dr. missed all the last posts, but glad to hear that the beast is back to health
i know you are doing everything on a shoestring so instead of the mega expensive avon race tires, you might want to consider racing Heidenaus. Here in europe lots of people use them and i heard they are being imported to the states now.
switched now in my gpz550 from a racing AM20 to a racing HEIDENAU K44 RSW and couldnt be happier.

crashing on old tires is not smart