Testarossa's 78 KZ1000 Fighter Build

oooooooooh, I'm so excited for you Josh! I wish I was just as far along, but at the same time, I keep inventing new things to do along the way.... I seem to get in the way of my own progress :laugh: But you're past all that an in the home stretch Keep it commin'!

Nice work, but just a quick heads up on cam installation. Every manual I've seen starts exhaust cam first- with the arrow mark on the exhaust cam sprocket aligned with the top of the camchain tunnel casting and crank at TDC 1/4. Then count back 28 pins to arrow mark on intake sprocket for correct cam installation.

Now I've also seen people put both cams in at once...

Thanks Jack. You're right. I mostly just stuck that cam in there to hold the chain up. At that point last night I was too tired to continue, so I gave up and stuck the first cam in that I grabbed. I plan on properly installing everything by the book and degreeing the cams this evening.

Ok here's a picture of my old cam bearings vs my new cam bearings.



It seems that I remember recently another member broke a cam bearing cap when he was attempting to install it. I now realize just how this could happen easily. On both cams there is a pair of machined faces that serve as thrust bearings for the camshaft. These faces are located in between the lobes for cylinders 1 and 2 on both cams. It is critical that you center these faces in the cam bearing cap before you attempt to torque the cap down. It is very easy to get the cap on either side, and when you start to tighten it, the force will break the cap in two pieces. Just a heads up for those building a KZ motor for the first time.

Now on to the good stuff. I finished assembling my engine today. I will have to get back in there when my new shims arrive. I had three exhaust valves that are minimum clearance. The bucket spins, but I cannot get even a 0.0015" feeler in there. The rest of my valves were in tolerance 0.003" and one was 0.004". Here's the un-molested picture of the head/cams/timing chain.



The beginnings of my Dyna 2000 going in.



I am glad to finally get this thing all closed up. This patient was on the operating table a little too long. I don't like leaving motors open for very long around my kids. They have a knack for sabotaging such things.

Here are a few pics of the finished product.









I look forward to starting it for the first time. I cannot perform a proper compression test yet, but it passes the thumb over the spark plug hole test with flying colors.

Now that my motor is back together, I can finish my welding and start to refinish all of my small parts and the frame. I had a member ask me to make a set of headlight ears for his upside down fork after seeing mine. Since I will paint his parts with mine, I decided to get started making them today. I didn't really go into too much detail on how I made the other headlight ears so I took a few pictures this evening.

For starters I made a cardboard template and traced it onto a piece of 16 ga. steel. After cutting out two pieces of steel with my angle grinder, I clamped the two pieces together and filed them to the finished size. That way they are both exactly the same dimensions.



You can see where I pre-bent the two flat ends that make up the ear where the light mounts.

When I bent my mounts, I just use the fork leg as a form to bend the large radius. I had to find something else because his fork legs were slightly smaller diameter. I searched the garage and found a can of insect repellent that was the right diameter. Then the mount gets bent around the can.



As you can see in this picture, I drew two circles to represent the fork leg spacing. Then I just centered my headlight bucket on the two holes to get the spacing of the tabs correct.



Here's the two ears with the bucket when checking for correct spacing.



Here's a side shot of the mount.



Hopefully tomorrow I can drill all the holes and weld in the mounting hardware.

Do you have a brake, or are those vise bends? I don't see any vise bike marks unless you sanded them off.

No Adam, I have access to a brake at work, but those bends are done in my vice. I just made some wooden pads out of 1/4" birch plywood scraps. I slip them in there for things like this. If I had bent these on the brake, then the corners would have been much more sharp.

Dandy lookin stuff. Nice to see it's coming together.

nice lob on the ears.
did u use a 1 or a 2 piece head gasket ?

2 piece gasket. Is one better than the other?

BTW I did get the holes drilled in the ears last night, but I didn't have the hardware that I thought I previously purchased. I should have the fab finished this evening, and then on to blast and paint.

Finished headlight ears for USD forks.





I picked up some 6mm socket head cap screws, nuts, washers, and lock washers on the way home today. Welded the nuts to the inside tab of the ears and ground down the welds. Now all that is left is to sandblast and paint.