Frame braces

Hi,
just bought a'74 Z1A and found additional frame braces welded in as shown in the picture.there is another brace in front of the headers and one at the rear half way down to the swing arm.the welds are looking almost stock but i have my doubt that they come from the factory.i have a'77 kz1000 with similar braces welded in.was there a reinforcement kit available at a time or???

rainer

I'm no Z-1 expert, but those look like they are added braces done by a previous owner in an effort to remove the flex from that frame. It's a fairly common mod to Z-1's and KZ's. There used to be reinforcement kits available that required you to finish fit the braces and weld them in place, but the kits are hard to come by these days. Most guys are just making their own braces these days. It's what I did for my KZ1000.

There were and still is a few people doing KZ frame brace kits for home fitment,Kosman etc but sure there was nothing available from kawasaki.
What you have is pretty much the tried and tested locations for bracing which was probably done by a previous owner or racer,
I have done more or less the same mods to all my ZEDS and it does make a noticable improvement to the handling.

A lot of the 73s would crack the frames from people doing wheelies, I had one like that. Just sold both my 73s to someone who wanted them a lot more then I did.

There is actually quite a few kits still available for the Z1's and other KZ models here in japan. Most newly rebuild Z's have them already welded in.

I noticed something recently. I was browsing through products on Z1 enterprises website and noticed from the color of the packaging that some of their products are from PMC, the japanese company that specializes in Z1 and KZ parts. That magazine offers these frame support kits, as well as a wealth of other parts that im sure most of you would die to have. I wonder if Z1 enterprises would take requests or special orders if they have access to these products???

Thanks for the answers.
i have no doubts that these kits are a improvement to the handling.but on the other hand;for a restauration to stock condition;maybe they decrease the value of the bike because it's not factory.