TOPIC:

when i start into a hard climb and holdin throttle,
open my oil light comes on. the guy at my bike shop says this was normal. He claims that he used to put in some form of trap door to keep oil from rushing back to fast. has anybody heard of this or is this one of those urban legends. still wrenchin

thats a dragracing trick to keep oil around sump when youre accelerating!sounds like you have a differant problem.what kind of bike do you have and how many miles are on it?

Its a 76 kz 1000 turned back to a kz 900 bored out to a 1015, kinda confusing? i havent yet fired her up but this was a problem with the old motor. yES I HAVE REPLACED THE OLD oil pump.

if youre going to do a lot of racing it wouldnt hurt if the pan is still off otherwise i wouldnt worry about it too much,if your light still flickers id check the sending unit. goodluck,happy wrenching!

The trap door is a little piece that MTC made (no longer makes). It essentially is a door that you bolt to your pan at the front of the cast in gates in the pan. Kaw cast in some gates so that oil wouldn't slosh to the back of the pan under hard acceleration. When this happens, no oil is available for pick up by the pump and the top end can starve. It is NORMAL for the red idiot light to come on when your oil pump is starving for oil. While normal, it is NOT GOOD. Although MTC doesn't make these things, you could easily make your own using sheet aluminum and a pop rivet. You then drill a hole in the cover and bolt it in and seal with liquid gasket or silicon. In the picture I placed at the bottom, the gate is shut as it would be under hard acceleration. Normally, oil will flow through the cast gates in the left to right direction as this pic is oriented and the gate would be open.

MTC still has them. Just ordered a couple oil pan gates for the Z1/KZs from MTC today, in fact. Part Number K-339. MTC can be reached at 1-800-827-9210.