Another KZ1100 Cafe/Streetfighter Build

Hi all, I was recently given a KZ1100 LTD that sat outside for somewhere between 12-15 years, and hadn't run in that long either. The owner heard I had been working on a 72 Honda CL350 and said I could have it if I came and got it. Even got a clean title with it .

Here's where it sat for all that time.


The carbs were completely seized, both the slides and the throttle plates and springs were stuck tight. I read to boil them in water to free the slides, which worked, and to boil them in lemon juice to clean everything else up. After about a week of working on them, they were all free, clean, and rebuilt. I Installed them on the bike, along with a temporary fuel tank and jumper cables to my car battery, and hit the starter.

It started up first try:
.

After letting it warm up and almost catching a rats nest on fire that was tucked up above the exhaust, I hooked up a compression tester. It read between 120 and 130 on all cylinders, pretty low.

At this point I left it there to ponder what to do with it, and to finish up the Honda.


Now that the Honda is done, I've decided to do a pretty intensive overhaul on the Kawasaki. I'm sure I will need some advice along the way, so I figured a proper build thread would be good way to get said advice.
It was originally a shaft drive bike, but I'm converting it to chain drive. I've also got 05-06 ZX6R Forks, Triple Clamps, and Wheels, and an 03-04 ZX6R swingarm. I've been working with Leon on getting a pivot shaft and bushings/spacers made, as well as getting the steering stem swapped out for the new triple and forks.

As I type this, the engine is completely torn down and a few parts have been soda blasted. Once the rest of the parts are clean the whole thing is getting painted satin black except the side covers. The frame has been de-tabbed, stripped, and painted satin black. You can see how much wider the shaft frame is on the drive side in this picture.



I think that's it for now!

Great deal!!
Now get those valve lash adjustments done asap.
Nothing wrong with the 120-130 PSI in the cylinders right now.
I'm betting those cylinder pressures will rise after a few hundred miles.

It's now pieces/parts.
Steve

Ya right now I have the engine completely torn down and have new piston rings on the way from Z1, as well as a flex hone to de-glaze the cylinders. This is the first engine I've ever worked on, so any tips would be very appreciated. I have a replacement case set from eBay because the stock top case half had one of the threaded holes where the ignition pickup housing screws into the case broken off. Just a cosmetic issue, but since I was splitting the cases for the chain conversion, I might as well swap the whole case.

are you replacing the top half of the engine case?

leon

Yes I read in the shop manual that the top and bottom halves, plus the crank bearing cap are machined as one set, so they all have to be replaced. I found a set on eBay for super cheap that I'm using, besides being dirty, they seem to be in good shape.

Tesserac_T wrote: ....This is the first engine I've ever worked on, so any tips would be very appreciated. ....

Not as much a tip as a piece of crucial info that is easily overlooked in the manual: the J engines (or for that matter any KZ engine that uses a multiplate/hy-vo cam chain) have a a sliding block in the valve cover. Once you get your top end assembled and your cam timing sorted it is imperative that you install the valve cover BEFORE installing the cam chain tensioner - at the very least you need to have the tensioner cap and cross wedge removed when installing the valve cover or you'll screw up the cam chain tension.

Really nice work on the Honda btw, beautiful.

OnkelB wrote: ...Once you get your top end assembled and your cam timing sorted it is imperative that you install the valve cover BEFORE installing the cam chain tensioner...

Wow, you're right, I just looked at the manual and it goes straight from cylinder head installation and cam timing to tensioner installation with no mention of the valve cover.

OnkelB wrote: Really nice work on the Honda btw, beautiful.

Thanks! it was my winter project, but ended up taking much longer. Now if I could only get it to run right... :S

Leon

Tesserac_T wrote: ....This is the first engine I've ever worked on, so any tips would be very appreciated....

Another very important piece of information I just remembered:

I don't know what manual you have, but both the Kawasaki FSM (Factory Service Manual) and the Clymer manual list the torque spec for the cam cap bolts as 12 ft.lbs/144 in.lbs/16 Nm - this is not correct as I found out the hard way. :pinch:

The correct spec is 9.4 ft.lbs/114 in.lbs/12 Nm and some suggest that 8 ft.lbs/96 in.lbs/10.8 Nm is safer and plenty tight, I tend to agree as that is what I ended up doing, haven't had any problems so far.

Note that for this job you should use a small 1/4" torque wrench that measures inch pounds (or low value Nm, mine is 5-30 Nm) - a ft.lbs or high value Nm wrench is too inaccurate and you risk stripping the threads.

You might want to read through this thread , some good advice there.

Thanks Leon! I received the bits for the swingarm today. I'm not sure what happened, but both bushings were roughly .15mm oversize on the OD, I was able to put them on a power drill and file off the excess to get a proper fit.

Here are some pics:

Bushings in place


Pivot shaft is a perfect fit


Swingarm Spacers (offset to center arm within the frame)


Swingarm installed, dead center in the frame!

OnkelB wrote:

Tesserac_T wrote: ....This is the first engine I've ever worked on, so any tips would be very appreciated....

Another very important piece of information I just remembered

Thanks! My manual did say 12 ft.lbs, disaster averted :lol:.
And I did buy a inch pound torque wrench just for the engine work on this project.

hmm i wonder if my metric to american math got lost in conversion :whistle: :pinch: .
sorry bout that,glad you could save em :silly: .
now they are hand fit to the chassis :laugh: .
all that pivot stuff looks really good installed.you did a good job of figuring all of that out :evil: .
can't wait to see the swingarm in there!!!

leon