'80 KZ440 LTD with pods - Am I doomed?

Per kawasaki.com, part no. 11010-5042 FILTER-ASSY-AIR is fitted to the following 10 models:

Model (10):
KZ440-A1 (LTD) (1980)
KZ440-A2 (LTD) (1981)
KZ440-A3 (LTD) (1982)
KZ440-A4 (LTD) (1983)
KZ440-D1 (LTD Belt) (1980)
KZ440-D2 (LTD Belt) (1981)
KZ440-D3 (LTD Belt) (1981)
KZ440-D4 (LTD Belt) (1982)
KZ440-D5 (LTD Belt) (1983)
KZ440-G1 (1982)

There are also other parts related to the air box.

If needed, info on kawasaki.com includes parts diagrams, part numbers, models sharing same part, availability, etc.

Here's a link for help with navigating the site and finding information.
kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&...w&catid=13&id=376734

Good Fortune!

According to what I've read, it's a whole different animal, unless I'm mistaken.




As seen here

Appears to be the same diagram as shown on kawasaki.com.

Good Fortune!

It's too bad they didn't dimentionalize it. Looks like a good He/Vac sheetmetal man could fashion it out of alum without much trouble. At least enough to be functional.

The_Raven wrote: According to what I've read, it's a whole different animal, unless I'm mistaken.

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I don't understand; what's a whole different animal? Do you still have a question about the airbox? Have you read the responses to your question or looked at Kawasaki.com? Me confused. Ed

The_Raven wrote: OK, so here's the deal...

...we synched the carbs, made sure all the boots and pods were on tight, adjusted the mixture screws to 1 3/4 turns from seated to compensate for the pod filters. When the engine is cold, the idle is great, the throttle response is fine. No choke required to start, engine has good power.

But when the engine gets hot, the idle starts to creep up to around 3K or more, if you fiddle with the idle adjustment, it's OK, then starts to creep up again. Could this be caused by a lean condition that gets worse as the bike gets hotter?

To be honest it doesn't sound lean. Starting a cold engine with no air box, no choke and stock lean jetting, has to be rich IMHO. Especially the "throttle response is fine" part, it should die as soon as you twist it when cold and no-choke.

When hot it should be too rich and you said the rpm's creep up which all bikes will increase in rpm with the choke (fuel enriching) still on once the engine starts getting warm but will usually have no decent throttle response once you transition into the main. An air leak can cause rpm's to rise too once the engine is warm enough to tolerate the lean fuel mixture.

The unknown is if the PO changed jetting too when the air box was pitched so if there is a big primary jet in there then that could explain the no need for choke to start. There are a lot of issues with CV's and pods so if you want to go the easy route then I'd find a stock box.

There is a couple on eBay right now that might work and you can put a notice on the site called "FindMyPart.com" with the exact part you need a breaker yard will get back to you.

Sorry, I thought you had referenced the airbox with the oval air cleaner that was used on the KZ440"B" model.

The boxes on eBay aren't the right one. I've posted on findmypart, and I've called all the salvage yards in eastern Mass and southern NH, nobody's got one.

I was thinking of getting dual-layer pod filters for the additional flow restriction, and re-jetting the carbs. This may do the trick to some extent. If it does, I'll probably sell the bike, try to make back as much of what I've put in as I can, and put the money into my KZ1000.

If not, I'll just park the 440 until I can get an airbox, and start work on the 1000.

What a royal pain in the ass...

:woohoo: Eu-freakin-reka!

I found an airbox locally after an interplanetary search... craiglook.com is the best thing since internal combustion!

I had gotten a bunch of dead ends, BSers and flat out "nuh-uh"s since I started looking, I had one freaking vulture quote me $295 for the box. That's about half of what I paid for the entire bike!

I found a guy in Rhode Island who had one, turns out he works just down the road from me just outside Boston, so a quick lunch ride and a couple of 20s, and I am dancin'! All that's missing is the foam element, I can cobble that together easily enough.

I'll let ya all know how it works out.

The air cleaner element, part #11013-1027, is still an active Kawasaki part so any dealer can get it for you. Ronayers list them for only $4.95. (plug in the part number at link) Ed

www.ronayers.com/Search/N/687

That's sweet... I had chased the filter down to a Champion part (Y313) that appears to be available only in Europe, so this is ten times easier. Thanks a lot!

It's such a pain that the same model name has such major variations from the A-LTD to B-Standard. I ran across a lot of this "so WHICH KZ1000 is it for really?" junk ordering parts for my '82 KZ1000J2.

Welp... :huh:

We installed the airbox and air cleaner, pulled the carbs, removed the washers that the PO had put on the needle that comes down off the piston, adjusted the float level, checked the diaphragms, sprayed the carb passages with cleaner (the carbs were very clean to begin with, but just to be certain...), reassembled and reinstalled the carbs and adjusted the mixture screws to the factory setting of 2 3/4 turns.

We then fired up, it needed a little choke when cold, as you would expect, but settled into a somewhat stable idle. After it had warmed up, we synched and adjusted the carbs. It's still not right...

The idle was creeping up as the engine got warmer, so we sprayed around with starter fluid with a straw. The carb boots to the cylinder head tested OK, but we found some leakage where the airbox boot met the right carb, so we replaced the springs with worm clamps, retested and found no leaks. We then re-adjusted and re-synced the carbs, the idle was improved but still not smooth, almost like a miss.

We checked the timing, found it to be off by several degrees, so we adjusted it statically, tested the mechanical advance (looked good), and used a timing light to test dynamically, it looked perfect.

So what we're left with is the following:

Idle is unstable, tends to drift up as the engine gets hot.
Some pop and sputter under load and on overrun
Throttle response is good except for bogging at full throttle.
PO says he didn't rejet the carbs
All adjustable settings (points, timing, carbs) are set according to factory service manual
Factory airbox and air cleaner are installed
No detectable air leaks
Problem happens whether stock fuel tank or fuel bottle is connected
Both cylinders are firing
Compression test was ~155PSI on both cylinders
Waiting till engine is cool to check plugs
Haven't checked valve clearance yet

There's got to be something I'm overlooking. I see these bikes made into customs all the time, here we are going through hell to get the bike back to stock, and it's still fighting us.

Any ideas before I feed this thing into a shredder?

What rpm is the idle set at? Ed