First ride first impressions

G'day, I went for my first ride on the '77KZ 1000 I won on eBay a few months back. For the last couple of weeks I have been polishing the side covers, forks and wheel hubs while I was waiting for an order to arrive from Redline in the USA which included new stainless spokes front and rear.
The first thing I noticed on starting that it needed choke even though the temperature was nearly 30C.It needs a relatively long warm up period where it pops and backfires thru a couple of carbs. Once warm it settles down to quite a normal idle maybe a little high at about 1500 rpm. I took it out for a run of about 20 klm and it seemed a little hesitant or feathery up to about 4500 - 5000 rpm then after that it was smooth as silk. I havn't figured out is it running funny on the jet needle and then coming good when it gets onto the main jet or is the bike just hitting the best part of the power band or a combination of both.
The bike is fitted with a 4 into 1 Vance and Hinse pipe and headers and it has pod filters. I think I will have to put a few more miles on it to let it settle into it's new conditions here in the Land Down Under. I am at an elevation of 415 meters which to me should be insignificant.
Can any one tell me which needle and which notch they have a similar bike with the same set-up as mine, regards Neil

Would suggest:
Assure valve clearances are within specs;
Dress, gap and clean points contacts;
Assure ignition timing is correct;
Lube both advancer pivots;
Install 4 brand new NGKB8ES spark plugs.

Install an after-market in-line fuel filter.
Run through a tankful of fuel with Seafoam or other carb cleaner added.
Adjust the carb pilot screws.

If internal carb work is thereafter needed (perhaps to clean the pilot circuits), would also assure jet needle clip is in the stock middle position.

Good Fortune!

I forgot to mention that the bike has one of those Dyna ignition setup with the coils and system that doesn't use points. I am fairly certain that the shim gap is correct. I am 62 years old and got my first bike when I was 15 (Arial red hunter 500) and the only time I never actually owned a bike was the year I spent in Vietnam with the Army. I don't want to say I know it all but this definitely feels like carbs to me. I am very willing to learn and the first thing I intend to do once it is registered for the road is to get some carb cleaner and take it for a good run. I have never seen that cleaner you all talk about "Seafoam" but there are plenty of others that should do the same job. Thanks for the tips, I am currently waiting the arrival of a service manual for the bike, regards Neil

3cav84a,
It sounds like maybe you need to fatten up your jetting. Some of the KZ1000 models were jetted pretty lean from the factory thus being cold-blooded. If you have the factory carbs and jetting with a header and pods, it will be too lean. I think at a minimum you need 20 pilots and 112.5 mains. A fatter pilot will usually help it warm up faster. Of course you need to confirm valve clearances, cam chain adjust, timing, and carb sync before going into the jetting.

G'day, so today I pulled the carbs apart and gave them a good clean inside, checked al the jets and they are all 17.5 pilots and 120 mains. I raised the needles in all of them 1 notch to richen them up a tad. Turned all air screws out 1 1/2 turns out and all seemed to start and run fine, will know when I take it out for a decent ride.
I will order some 20 pilots and some o rings for the air screw and see how they go, regards Neil

3cav84a wrote: G'day, so today I pulled the carbs apart and gave them a good clean inside, checked al the jets and they are all 17.5 pilots and 120 mains. I raised the needles in all of them 1 notch to richen them up a tad. Turned all air screws out 1 1/2 turns out and all seemed to start and run fine, will know when I take it out for a decent ride.
I will order some 20 pilots and some o rings for the air screw and see how they go, regards Neil

I would hold off on ordering pilots until you know you need them.

Went for a ride and put the bike thru it's paces, what a difference one needle position makes, the bike pulled hard all the way up to 6000 rpm. which is as high as I go. When I was setting the air screws on 2 of the carbs I noticed that when I screwed them fully in it didn't make much of a difference whereas the other two nearly stalled the bike. The air screws looked fairly ratty and the o rings looked flat so maybe a change of those might help the bottom end. Really happy with the results so far, regards Neil