How to dry block your kz900/1000.

Been asked how i dry blocked my z1000 motor so here's a basic guide with pic's.

Pic '1'.
The 6mm oil feed holes from the main gallery at the two back corner studs need plugging . This can be done with interference fit alloy bungs as kawasaki has done in the rest of the motor but i prefer to drill 6.8mm and tap m8 using loctited grub screws so that they can be removed if reverting back to the std setup.

Next.
The cylinder head has has four 6mm galleries that need the same treatment. These run diagonal from each of the four outer studs to the cams. Once this is done no oil can travel up or down the cylinder block and is therefore 'DRY'.

Now you need an alternate external oil feed to your cams.

Here is the one of the four bungs that need removing (one at each corner). These can be drilled out direct or carefully drilled up the middle and tapped m5 to accept a draw bar type extractor.

Once out i drill and tap m10 the head to accept a 10mm banjo bolt and also spot face the casting to provided a clean flat sealing surface.

And here is my finished oiling setup.

I made some billet oil cooler take offs and inserted an alloy splitter block on the return side so that the head gets cooled oil.
The hose is Earls dash 4 which has a 5mm bore with banjo's specified to take a 10mm bolt.
The banjo bolts have been made by myself using 10mm allen bolts and have been bored 5mm.
I've run this set up for 10 years now on a couple of my zeds with no problems at all.
Hope this thread is of some help ?

what is the advantage of doing this.
regards ben

zed1015 wrote:

And here is my finished oiling setup.

I made some billet oil cooler take offs and inserted an alloy splitter block on the return side so that the head gets cooled oil.
The hose is Earls dash 6 which has a 5mm bore with banjo's specified to take a 10mm bolt.
The banjo bolts have been made by myself using 10mm allen bolts and have been bored 5mm.
I've run this set up for 10 years now on a couple of my zeds with no problems at all.
Hope this thread is of some help ?

that sir,is beutifull work!

I am also a motorcycle dim-wit and don't understand the benefit of this...

eliminates oil being able to leak out of the base gasket or head surface.
zed1015 thanks for the write up,this should help several people out as this is a pretty popular mod people like to do but don't always know how.
did you notch the fins so the banjo clears them?

leon holmes

ben james wrote:

what is the advantage of doing this.
regards ben

Apart from looking really trick which is as good an excuse as any it is mainly used on big block engines where the crankcase mouth has to be bored out to accept the bigger cylinder liners. When this is done there is a big reduction in gasket area around the rear oil feed which results in base gasket oil leakage and a resultant loss of oil pressure to the cams. Dry blocking eliminates this problem which could turn your mega bucks motor to scrap.

wow, this is great. I am building a big block and was worried about this myself. Would you be interested in taking in heads to do the drilling adn tapping for the oil lines?

531blackbanshee wrote:

did you notch the fins so the banjo clears them?

leon holmes

Yes, I cut the away fins so the oil lines had a straight run and mainly just for cosmetic neatness but most people just loop the lines over from above or space the banjo's out away from the head.

jordan wrote:

wow, this is great. I am building a big block and was worried about this myself. Would you be interested in taking in heads to do the drilling adn tapping for the oil lines?

Unfortunately i'm in england so shipping costs could be a problem . I'm sure any good mechanic or local machine shop will be able to do it with ease.