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

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They list a bunch of bikes that it will fit but no 1000's , looks the same though, fingers crossed.

They list that release to be the very same part number, 13231-020. So it should fit no problem!!!

Just make sure you repack it with some good hi-temp grease after you get all the old grease, and grit that has accumulated in that release out of it!!!

So you say that it has ball bearings that I don't want to deal with, what is the best way to clean it? soak it in gas?

I cleaned mine in the past with Safety Kleen. Any solvent like gas would do. Then spray some carb cleaner through it to make sure there is no more grit inside of it. Just check it when you get your release and see if you can feel any grit inside of the release. If not just repack it. The hardest thing is to get grease all the way through the whole release. I have used that spray grease to get all the way into the release.

I never had the patience to take one of those releases apart. I found it easier to just replace it with a new one. But that was back in the day when you could still buy them from Kawasaki, and I had extra money to spend!!!

Dr. Gamma wrote: This photo is for bluej58. This is the clutch release you are looking for!!! It is a bolt on part for your bike. This is the best clutch release that Kawasaki ever put in their 900/1000's!!!!

Is that the one that came on 1982 and later 1000s?

TexasKZ wrote:

Dr. Gamma wrote: This photo is for bluej58. This is the clutch release you are looking for!!! It is a bolt on part for your bike. This is the best clutch release that Kawasaki ever put in their 900/1000's!!!!

Is that the one that came on 1982 and later 1000s?

NO!!!! That '82 and up clutch release is the very worst clutch release Kawasaki ever put on their bikes!!! That is the clutch release that is adjusted backwards of every other Kawasaki clutch release!!! When I got my '82 KZ1000S1, the very first thing Mr. Muzzy told me to throw away was that '82 clutch release, and go back to the early style release!!!

[quote/]NO!!!! That '82 and up clutch release is the very worst clutch release Kawasaki ever put on their bikes!!! That is the clutch release that is adjusted backwards of every other Kawasaki clutch release!!! When I got my '82 KZ1000S1, the very first thing Mr. Muzzy told me to throw away was that '82 clutch release, and go back to the early style release!!![/quote]

Sir, so, what other tidbits of wisdom did Lord Muzzy bestow upon you that mire mortals like me could use and pass along?

Here is question on the MKII, I've seen many photos of the day, and everybody used the wide flatter superbike style bars. Why didn't anybody use the clubman style bars? I used these on my GPZ550 & KZ550, and found I could really get my knee down easier and had a lot more control. No problems with direction change either. Just curious. Also did you ever think of using magnetos? Also, the cam profile you have on the bike, did it require relieving the piston crowns?

Also you state that the S1 was slower than your MKII, what do you think made it slower?

Thanks,
JS

I got to ask Mr. Muzzy questions about the S1 for about 40 minutes or so. The factory S1's were a lot different than the S1's that Kawasaki sold to the normal folks. The standard S1 came with cams marked as "47" and "48" He asked what number cams that were in my S1. When I told him #47 and #48. He looked a bit puzzled, and said they were running #52 and #53 numbered cams!!!! He did tell me that he was running the early style KZ1000 outer clutch basket with the needle bearing instead of the bushing style that came in the J model motors. The S1 front forks were plain junk and needed LOTS of work and different parts to make them right. Again, some of the parts were specially supplied by Kawasaki race shop in Japan. Which I could not get or buy.

Everybody ran a pretty wide handlebars on their Superbikes. From the big boys down to the privateers ran like the K&N Superbike bars. Spencer used to bend his bars sometimes during a race!!!! You wanted all the leverage you could get in case your bike went into a high speed wobble. Even when Kawasaki ran the GPz750's in '83, they mounted handlebars to the bikes instead of the clip on style bars the bikes came with.

I used either Yoshimura 1015cc slipper pistons or Moriwaki 1105cc pistons and never had a piston to valve clearance problem unless I missed a few gears!!!! Then I would tag an exhaust valve or two.

The stock S1 only made like 110~115 horsepower out of the box. And that was after you dialed the carbs in. Plus the swing arm pivot bolt had like .060 ths play between the frame and the pivot bolt stock. And like I said, the front forks were a joke, they had like .004~006 clearance between the inner and outer legs. It wobbled like an old H2 triple when I first put it on a race track. I did a roll on from 2nd gear between my home made Superbike and the fancy S1. Even giving the S1 the jump my home made Superbike would run it down by the end of 3rd gear!!!! I was expecting a lot more from the S1 than what I got from it.

Since its too cold outside here to do anything outside. I been playing around in my work area.

Here are the plugs from my GSXR750 when I was trying to get my flat slide Mikuni's dialed in from last year. The CR Keihin carbs are a lot easier to dial in than the flat slide Mikuni carbs. That damn accelerator pump really screws up your plug readings!!! I ended up running with the pump shut off till I got the pilot circuit pretty close. Then I hooked the pump back up. That accelerator pump needs to be backed off big time, and get it to squirt at the right time!!!

Plugs on the left side is where I started with the jetting. You can see the plug color get lighter as the plugs move to the right. Its best to start out with a new set of plugs when you make a jetting change. It is real hard to read a plug that has already been run with different jetting. Each set of plugs here has just under 100 miles on them. The very last set of plugs on the right has over 250 miles on them. That was the set I ran after I got the jetting almost right on. Running air filters on the flat slide mikuni's made it a lot harder to get the jetting real close.

Is there a dyno nearby that you could use to get your AFRs across the rev/throttle range? I've started using one down the road from me and I'll never tune carbs the "analog" way again.

I am very old school!!!! I dial my carbs in the same way Smokey did it!!!!

It has worked for me for over 40 years now.

You've got a 30 year head start on me then...
I only bring up a dyno because it can be the science to plug readings "art". Combining the two should give a really good picture of your fueling and save a lot of trial and error