1981 KZ1000 front fork bushing kit?

This is a stock 1000K top yolk - the pushed forward one is for a non-Ltd without the leading axle forks. Yours look like "J" trees, increased "offset" and "leading axle" forks are both designed to reduce trail, having both could make the bike unstable at speed

 

Oof...  Well at least I know the trees are still stock so if I ever switched back to the stock forks I won't see any problems.  I don't think there's room to switch the trees to the straighter version, the forks already come pretty close to the tank when turned.

That's quite a bit of offset.   Back in 75 me and Larry would see who could turn the tightest with feet on the pegs. I would win most of the time.   He was a short guy and would have to tippytoe at stoplights. We loved how the bikes would handle in tight areas but on the road at high speeds at 93MPH that wobble would come on. You could kinda feel it before it happened so I'd get above it or stay below it if I could. He was the first to have his frame gusseted and put on good shocks. Not having much money I did it myself and Miller suggested I go with a 16" rim to take some of the weight off the front end. I never did up till now. First thing was the 98 KZP swing arm that is 1 1/2" longer and heavier than the Z1 arm I had. That made a big difference but I lost a little of my tight steering. When I installed the alloy wheels I got from Vic the bike became steady as a rock at a ton.   It still feels a little light in the front end up there even with the brace but the 16" rear rim did seem to make it more stable. I see some fork emulators in my future. 
www.racetech.com/page/title/Emulators
Going with a smaller front wheel seems the wrong direction unless the rear matches the front then there's that clearance issue. 
As I said "you change one thing it changes other things" sometimes not in a good way. 
Steve

Oh no problem, I'll just negate the offsets by turning the forks around backwards! 

Seriously though, what kind of problems would I be looking at?  Like I said, I haven't ever noticed any issues at highway speeds.  I know I've had the bike up well into the 80's range and it cruised along nice and smooth, and there were plenty of twists and turns.

What we're talking about is miniscule compared to the HD's and cruisers on the road today and they seem to take the turns okay. 
I was a Honda guy in the early 70's and wanted a CB 750 until Jim then Larry got their Z1's then I had to have one. I remember watching the big Honda's in my mirrors in tight turns thinking that thing turns like a log and is slow as hell.   That is until I met Miller and his 1000cc HondaDavidson. It was chopper style but that thing would MOVE. That raised the bar for me so I made my bike faster.   Now that I'm older it's not so much speed it's ride quality and stability that counts for me. The 1075 kit did give me a little more umph I was craving. 
It's all good. 
Steve
 

Shdwdrgn wrote:

Oh no problem, I'll just negate the offsets by turning the forks around backwards! 

Seriously though, what kind of problems would I be looking at?  Like I said, I haven't ever noticed any issues at highway speeds.  I know I've had the bike up well into the 80's range and it cruised along nice and smooth, and there were plenty of twists and turns.

With the current set up there is a "potential" for the front to get excited if you hit a bump mid turn etc at speed (a steering damper may be a worthwhile addition)

Wookie58 wrote:

Shdwdrgn wrote:

Oh no problem, I'll just negate the offsets by turning the forks around backwards! 

Seriously though, what kind of problems would I be looking at?  Like I said, I haven't ever noticed any issues at highway speeds.  I know I've had the bike up well into the 80's range and it cruised along nice and smooth, and there were plenty of twists and turns.

With the current set up there is a "potential" for the front to get excited if you hit a bump mid turn etc at speed (a steering damper may be a worthwhile addition)

Hitting a bump in a turn is enough to get any bike excited including me. 

 

Oh good, nothing to worry about then... Our roads here are perfectly smooth, and covered in sand. 

Once it's back together you could take the guess work out of it and put your numbers into the calculator on the below link 

RB Racing Rake and Trail Calculator (rbracing-rsr.com)

Some really nice bikes pictures on that page.  I really like the yellow one near the middle, not a crazy amount of rake but it still stands out.  I had considered converting my bike to the single seat style (I can't even remember what that's called now) while I was building it, but I thought it was best to get familiar with it first by rebuilding it back to stock.  Maybe some day I'll tear it all down again.

I'm not sure if I have all the numbers needed for that calculator.  I suppose I could figure out the trail based on the numbers from the original J, then adjust for the leading axle fork.  Is there any rake in the stock trees?  Where would I find this type of information at?

Shdwdrgn wrote:

I'm not sure if I have all the numbers needed for that calculator.  I suppose I could figure out the trail based on the numbers from the original J, then adjust for the leading axle fork.  Is there any rake in the stock trees?  Where would I find this type of information at?

Use the below as a guide and update with your numbers (the numbers I have put in as an example would give 3.54 inches of trail = 89.9mm of trail  which would be potentially nervous)

 

Well bummer, the seller didn't ship out my forks today.  Guess it will be next week before I can get back up and running again.  Looks like solid rain for the next week anyway, so I guess I won't be missing much.  It'll give me a chance to figure out how I want to set up bags on the bike for carrying my lunch to work.