TOPIC:

katit wrote:

gd4now wrote: The frame number you posted would indicate the bike is a B2A built in the US. To the best of my knowledge it was offered in ebony. I have attached a table I created in the past with frame and engine numbers I could find. Not saying it is 100% correct but what I could find and make sense of .

According to your table yes, it does look like B2A.
How did you figure out it's "ebony"? Any pictures of this color scheme?
Another question, is there any difference between units built in US and Japan?

The Japanese bikes came with Dunlop tires.

The U.S. bikes came with Goodyear hockey pucks for tires!!!!!

TexasKZ wrote: The frame numbers at Cycle Chaos that are preceded by (L) are the Lincoln, Nebraska numbers.

I believe the US made frame numbers all start with "5xxxxx" for the 76-80 bikes. This is shown in the table gd4now posted. For many of the models, they made the same model and style in Japan and Lincoln.

Dr. Gamma wrote: As of January 1st, 1978 by federal law motorcycle headlights had to be on at all times, and stricter emissions standards.

Is that right? How is it that the 1978 Z1R still has the headlight switch? I always thought the switch was deleted for the '79 models. My highest number Z1R is dated 12/77 and it's in the low 8000. They made 17,000 '78 Z1Rs so production must have carried over into '78. It seems like that would have required a KZ1000D1A?

It is possible that the headlight requirement was actually mandated at a later day in 1978, but they were making a running change to the 650B and 1000A for some other reason and decided to incorporate the switch change at that time?

This page does say January 1st, 1978. Interesting.

law.justia.com/codes/california/2007/veh/25650-25651.html

DOHC wrote:

TexasKZ wrote: The frame numbers at Cycle Chaos that are preceded by (L) are the Lincoln, Nebraska numbers.

I believe the US made frame numbers all start with "5xxxxx" for the 76-80 bikes. This is shown in the table gd4now posted. For many of the models, they made the same model and style in Japan and Lincoln.

17,000 Z1r's produced!!!!! WOW!!!!!! We got our first Z1r in late August of '77. They were allocated units. Each dealer only got 1 to 3 of them that whole year. We traded our dirtbikes to dealers in the boondocks for their Z1r's just to get more than the 3 we got from KMC.

Never saw a Z1r that was not made before January 1st of '78. Our dealer rep told us they made all of them before then so they could have the richer carb settings.

Sales just died on the Z1r halfway through '78. Once people found out they were not as fast as Kawasaki advertised them to be. That is why the guy behind the Z1r-TC turbo bike used Z1r's. He got them at a super Deal Deal price.

If they made 17, 000 Z1r's, they must have sold most of them somewhere besides the United States!!!!

Dr. Gamma wrote: As of January 1st, 1978 by federal law motorcycle headlights had to be on at all times, and stricter emissions standards.

Is that right? How is it that the 1978 Z1R still has the headlight switch? I always thought the switch was deleted for the '79 models. My highest number Z1R is dated 12/77 and it's in the low 8000. They made 17,000 '78 Z1Rs so production must have carried over into '78. It seems like that would have required a KZ1000D1A?

It is possible that the headlight requirement was actually mandated at a later day in 1978, but they were making a running change to the 650B and 1000A for some other reason and decided to incorporate the switch change at that time?

All the info the other guys have posted is correct. 1978 was when they were going through a lot of emissions changes. The B2A was late 78, B2 early. Like mentioned, they changed the carbs from 24mm to 22mm, and eliminated the headlight on/off option. The carbs on the B2 were air jet adjustment, the B2A was pilot jet with the plastic restrictors that kept adjustment limited to about 1/2 turn. Both only came in the blue or orange color. Black was also a rumor, but I never saw a black one to this day.. I still have both a B2 and B2A and can't say the B2A ever ran in any way worse or took longer to warm up. It runs just the same.

So is it B2 or B2A? 3/78 manufacturing . Pictures of switches attached

Dr. Gamma wrote:
Never saw a Z1r that was not made before January 1st of '78. Our dealer rep told us they made all of them before then so they could have the richer carb settings.

If they made 17, 000 Z1r's, they must have sold most of them somewhere besides the United States!!!!

Doc, I think you just answered a question that I've been trying to figure out for many years. All the sources say they made 17,392 1978 Z1Rs. In Tony Sculpher's book on the Z1R he says they were made in one run, and estimates the production dates to be July or August '77 to April '78.

Here is an admission that should probably make me question how I spend my time. I have been collecting Z1R frame numbers for bikes sold on Ebay for over 10 years. But wait! What I found was that there are basically zero bikes in the US with a frame number above 9000. My frame 8432, dated 12/77, would seem to be one of the last bikes imported.

I too was skeptical of the 17k production figure. That seemed like a big number. It's been 26 years since I first rode a Z1R, and I've never seen one in person that I don't own (or you could say that I've bought every one I've ever seen). At some point I read about the German Tank Problem (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_tank_problem). So I started collecting serial numbers. I never did run the math, but I did notice that the frame numbers on Ebay (in the US) stop dead at 9000.

But I think you have solved the mystery. The answer I've been looking for is that Kawasaki was aware of the regulation changes and pushed initial production to the US market to make the January 1, 1978 deadline, and then was not able to import any more since the bike was non-compliant after that. That perfectly explains the hard cutoff in frame numbers. That and the fact that they were not selling well, so Kawasaki had no interest in making a KZ1000D1A.

That's so cool. This site is awesome.

katit wrote: So is it B2 or B2A? 3/78 manufacturing . Pictures of switches attached

The lack of an on-off switch, and the manufacturing date suggest a B2A.