Ran my 650/810 at the drags

Hey Gang. I finally got my 1977 Kz650 Custom up to the 1/8 mile drags yesterday. The strip is a temporary one in Elliott Lake Ontario at the local airport.

I had a blast and the old girl was certainly a head turner as I must've had a dozen (ahem...) older guys in their 40's come up and talk to me about their Kz memories.

On Friday's test and tune day there were probably about 200 cars from pro-stock style to one young guy who was running a rented Chrysler Sebring. By running 1/8 of a mile at a time, he probably won't exceed the free 100 miles on the rental:)

When I arrived at the track with my buddy who agreed to bring my bike up on his truck, the time trials were well underway. I just had enough time to unload the bike and hustle it to the staging area where I had a couple of minutes to warm it up before they waved me up.

This was my first time at an official drag race and I lined up against an old Kawasaki 500 triple with expansion chambers that was slammed about 3 inched off the ground. I staged and waited for him to also. I looked over and he had backed out just with a silent motor just as the starter fired my side of the christmas tree light.

Needless to say I wasn't expecting the starter to set me off and I launched at only about 1500 rpm with a snail-like reaction time of 124. My time was 8.91 and I went through the traps at 79.99 mph.

I had told my son and buddy that my goal was to run in the nines my first run, and in the eights in later runs. So I was fairly pleased, although the bike had a flat spot around 6-7000 rpm under wide open throttle. At the lower and higher rpm's this thing pulls like a locomotive but that flat area really slowed my time and speed.

(The night before I had checked the valves and the intake on #3 was a little too tight so I swapped in a new shim, re-checked the Dyna coils, ignition and plugs and put in some high octane premium gas.)

My 2nd run was in the same time range with my best trap speed of 82.95 and I did put away the 500 triple by 4 or 5 lengths. My last run I redlighted as I tried to launch around 4500 rpm and barely slipped the clutch a hair early - rookie mistake! My speed was around 87 mph up against a seriously-built early 90's Honda 833(?) that blew by me just before the finish line.

I am going to track down the cause of the flat spot and maybe make it up to a sport bike drag event they are having at the same airport next week. With a few more runs under my belt and the flat spot gone I'll be looking for low 8's or maybe even dipping a toe into the sevens.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada
1977 Kz 650 Custom. 810 Wiseco, 650 Head ported, 750 cams, valves, Gpz springs, WG Mikuni 28's, Velocity stacks, Dyna ignition/coils, Mac Pipe, 130 Rear Tire, 14 tooth sprocket.

Excellent! Keep us posted! How about some pictures?

Great story !
Sounds like a fun day and also sounds like you are very pleased with the way the bike has turned out.

reborn650 wrote:

Hey Gang. I finally got my 1977 Kz650 Custom up to the 1/8 mile drags yesterday. The strip is a temporary one in Elliott Lake Ontario at the local airport.

I had a blast and the old girl was certainly a head turner as I must've had a dozen (ahem...) older guys in their 40's come up and talk to me about their Kz memories.

On Friday's test and tune day there were probably about 200 cars from pro-stock style to one young guy who was running a rented Chrysler Sebring. By running 1/8 of a mile at a time, he probably won't exceed the free 100 miles on the rental:)

When I arrived at the track with my buddy who agreed to bring my bike up on his truck, the time trials were well underway. I just had enough time to unload the bike and hustle it to the staging area where I had a couple of minutes to warm it up before they waved me up.

This was my first time at an official drag race and I lined up against an old Kawasaki 500 triple with expansion chambers that was slammed about 3 inched off the ground. I staged and waited for him to also. I looked over and he had backed out just with a silent motor just as the starter fired my side of the christmas tree light.

Needless to say I wasn't expecting the starter to set me off and I launched at only about 1500 rpm with a snail-like reaction time of 124. My time was 8.91 and I went through the traps at 79.99 mph.

I had told my son and buddy that my goal was to run in the nines my first run, and in the eights in later runs. So I was fairly pleased, although the bike had a flat spot around 6-7000 rpm under wide open throttle. At the lower and higher rpm's this thing pulls like a locomotive but that flat area really slowed my time and speed.

(The night before I had checked the valves and the intake on #3 was a little too tight so I swapped in a new shim, re-checked the Dyna coils, ignition and plugs and put in some high octane premium gas.)

My 2nd run was in the same time range with my best trap speed of 82.95 and I did put away the 500 triple by 4 or 5 lengths. My last run I redlighted as I tried to launch around 4500 rpm and barely slipped the clutch a hair early - rookie mistake! My speed was around 87 mph up against a seriously-built early 90's Honda 833(?) that blew by me just before the finish line.

I am going to track down the cause of the flat spot and maybe make it up to a sport bike drag event they are having at the same airport next week. With a few more runs under my belt and the flat spot gone I'll be looking for low 8's or maybe even dipping a toe into the sevens.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada
1977 Kz 650 Custom. 810 Wiseco, 650 Head ported, 750 cams, valves, Gpz springs, WG Mikuni 28's, Velocity stacks, Dyna ignition/coils, Mac Pipe, 130 Rear Tire, 14 tooth sprocket.

beat by a seriously built honda!:S :blink: we cant have this,get the plate number from that honda and we'll find out where he lives !lets see how fast he is with a can of expanding foam in his exhuast and 2 flat tires!:evil: :woohoo: us kaw guys gotta stick together:P as long as you had a goodtime,theres always gonna be something just a little faster the only person ya really need to beat is yourself.goodluck,happy wrenching!

The whole day was a blast and the time slips were just a nice little bonus. I spent about half an hour talking to a fellow Kz racer who has his highly modified 1000 running 5.8 in the eighth mile.

My good buddy Rob Maki drove me up in his pickup. He has a Katana 600 (but didn't run the bike) and he said that of the dozen or so bikes, more spectators were watching my run than the other bikes. I had lots of questions and really good comments on the old Kz and aside from the bog it was running damned fine!

Next year we are going to bring up my 12 year old son's 1974 Kawasaki Kz 125 Enduro and let him run it. Getting my boy involved and and getting two thumbs up from him after I did a nice long burnout in the box made me feel pretty darned good. It never hurts to have your kids think that you are a pretty cool parent as they tend to listen and respect you a little more:)



Cheers-Colin Firth

Post edited by: reborn650, at: 2006/07/08 17:42

If your in the Elliott lake area the next closest 1/4mile track would likely be Luskville dragway in Quebec. I made a lot of passes there during test/tune sessions on saturdays.Thats how i got into drag racing.The track owner "Arnie" eventually came up and asked us to come to sundays events.I've since moved to Nova Scotia and dont run the drags as much anymore, it is always alot of fun especially when a crothrocket is sweating it in the other lane.The old kz's always attract more attention than anything else at the track.My old 1000J ran 7.1 at 101mph in the 1/8th at Luskville with a 130 rear tire.Lots of fun.

Way to go Colin - it sounds like you had a lot of fun - thanks for sharing the experience:)

Hey what was your 60 Ft times ? and tree times ??? add 4 secs for a good guess at a quarter mile time ?? Just a guess though Sounds like a good time by all ..

Nice one Colin. Good to hear she's all back together and your having a blast.
What colour bodywork you using? Pix!

Post edited by: rstnick, at: 2006/07/08 22:11

good to hear you're running 8's...my old 78 ran an 8.3 at 88.5 mph at the drag strip i go to...still working on my launch but should see mid 7's before to long...keep it up...