Big Block KZ heat

I know that when I had my 1385 kz several years ago, it ran fairly hot. with doing another one, I was wondering if it would make much difference with wrapping the header if it would make a significant difference with the heat from the header to the cylinder. there wasn't much talk about the wrap on the pipes when I had the other bike. please chime in. trying to get some new ideas on this bike that would be improvements from what I had before. thanks.

I heard the wrap will help with reflective heat from the pipe some 50 deg.

The wrap will also hold moisture to the pipe and cause rust.

I don't think header wrap will help with the heat from a 1385. Look into a big oil cooler, spot on jetting and Redline full synthetic oil.

crap. I never thought about moisture issues. I had the pipe on the other bike done by HPC. I thought the wrap would help. its cheaper to replace a pipe every so many years instead of pistons and other victims of heat.

On the cool down after a ride there are condensation issues with the wrap.

Also if wrap gets wet it will hold the moisture to the pipe just long enough to cause rust.

I guess on the big blocks, you just need to keep them in the wind and never sit with bike at idle for a long time.

I have a friend with a 1327 that smoked his valve seals sitting at a stop light............ :blink:

I have a brand new Derale oil cooler. The synthetic oil would help too. maybe the 1327 wont create as much heat as the 1385. The 1385 was a 11.1 to 1 compression. the 1327 is gonna stay around 10.5 to 1. im using a 83-84 gpz1100 head. it's gonna breathe!!!!!!!!!

The lower compression will reduce alot of heat. Iam around 9 to 1 compression. The hottest i saw my bike was around 430 degrees. That was running a 12 row tru cool cooler. Now i am going to be running a 13 row earls oil cooler. Iam running a ported j model head on a kz bottom end. Like 4thekz1000 said the key is to keep the wind moving and minimal idling time. I know my hottest times would be at lights on hot days. i purchased the cheap but effective trail tech cylinder head temperature guage. It just goes under your spark plug. Also i run shell rotella T oil.

No matter what you do a big block on the street is going to create heat that being said ceramic coating heater helps pull some heat away, proper jetting a must, the largest oil cooler you can run, proper ignition timing a must [ intial & advance. ] synthetic oil helps I prefer Amsoil with that being said prolonged idling etc is going to create heat with the big block not having air flow through the center is the biggest issue.

that's right, the center is open on stock cylinders. I may look for a bigger cooler than the little Derale cooler I have.

Are you going to be running a aftermarket big block? or a stock modified block? Earls makes a really nice 13 row curved cooler for motorcycles.

Its a Wiseco big block with sleeves I got from MTC. im gonna look at that cooler. thanks

I installed the Earls 13 row cooler on mine. I don't have any numbers to share with it and without. Old Man Rock does have numbers on cooler effect. If I rem correctly......it helped quite abit.

You might want to PM him for stats.