Testarossa's 78 KZ1000 Fighter Build

testarossa wrote:

No Jake, I painted each piece individually. Quite a lot of work with all the masking. Masking really pisses me off. One of those case halves would take an hour to mask, and then once you paint it, the masked sections peel off in 45 seconds. It will be worth the effort in the end. I have a theory regarding motorcycles. No compromises. Any car that you buy is always a compromise. Unless you are a rich man, and can afford multiple vehicles. However, the motorcycle is very much an individual vehicle, so you better have the one that you really want. BTW I just saw a 78 Z1R like yours for sale on CL locally. 4500 with no pictures, wonder if anyone has called him?

Yeah, masking is a pain. I thought about painting mine with everything together, but decided that trying to hit all of those angles would be a bigger pain than masking.

Looking good, really good. It's nice to see the piles of parts start to disappear!

looking good testa!i always like the highlighted fins better than all black.keep up the good work.

leon

I was hoping that I would be able to improve my image quality this week. I just bought a new digital camera, but unfortunately my PC at the house is under attack. I have some pop-up virus that has reduced my computer to a TRS-80. I guess that my pics for the next two weeks will still be cell phone variety, and only uploaded from work. I won't have the time to deal with the PC until I'm back from vacation.

A 12 gauge will knock that virus clean out! At least, I have felt like shooting my computer at times, and it's faster than wiping the hard drive and rebuilding :laugh:

Yeah, Adam I wouldn't mind unleashing hell upon that computer with one of my 1911's or the good ole 12 gauge, but a new computer isn't in the budget for a little while. After the bike is done, it will be an all out push to get the new house. I just can't afford to go postal. Unfortunately, it hasn't really been that long since the last time I had to clean the slate. Thankfully, I have got all my important pictures and the few critical files in numerous locations, so this isn't such a tragedy.

Since I didn't have a computer at the house to distrace me last night, I managed to get the rest of the fins polished. I quickly stuck the cases all together with the semi-polished covers to get an idea of what the finished product will look like.







I still need to play around with the camera to get the best picture in my usual late night garage photos. Hopefully these are an improvement to the cell phone pics that I have been giving to this point.

Wow. That looks awesome!

good job testa!
i like how you spun the dohc off the covers.
lookin good man,

leon

Inspration !!! :woohoo: Cant wait to tear into my bike this winter thinkin new rings, valve job and 6 speed out of a 550 if mine looks half that good I would be happy !!

?? About that doch cover how did you clean that up so nice .I have a circle on my points cover and would love to sand it out but how did you keep it even and is that cover like paper thin now or still have enough beef not to crack at the slightest bump???

You guys are giving me too much credit. The stator cover and the points cover never had the DOHC. I do have a stator cover with the DOHC, but it's cracked. These are probably not correct for a 78, but they are what came with the bike. If you read back to the beginning of this thread, I think that I stated that the bike came from a guy who had three KZ's and one CB750 when I bought this bike. Although my bike is a 78 KZ1000A2, it had LTD bodywork and a LTD seat. It looks like the motor is the right one for the frame, but I just assume that the bike was purchased for parts. I'm guessing that he just made a frankenstein out of the parts that he didn't want. Now that I think of it, he had a really clean KZ900 that had Luminous green bodywork with a gold pinstripe. Maybe that was the bodywork from this bike. It looked just like porchev914's bodywork. I didn't realize it at the time, but that shouldn't be on a 900. His CB750 was cafe racer style, but had newer CBR wheels on it, so he wasn't afraid to mod a bike. Hmmmm...

Thanks man your bike does look great i hope to build mine into somethin just havent decided what lol

Man, I love a black motor.
Sweet!
-KR