1978 KZ1000 A, Mild Mods

By the way...I had a hiccup along the way with the "rebuilt" smoothbores I bought on eBay. After rebuilding them myself, they are finally running well. In addition to lots of mismatched parts, I found two slide brackets that were loose. The slides had a lot of vertical play and I don't think they were closing properly. I was having an very tough time synchronizing the carbs and getting them to idle. I soldered the brackets and everything appears to be great....fingers crossed.



Notice the screws they had used during the "rebuild"!

Oh SHT. The solder will work but sheet metal screws? PO's SUCK
Steve

swest wrote: Oh SHT. The solder will work but sheet metal screws? PO's SUCK
Steve

Yeah, found all kinds of goodies in there. Practically nothing matched. Different size orings on the drain plugs, different size springs, random screws throughout etc...

Where did you get them?
Steve

I can't remember the seller's name...I'll have to look it up.

He needs to be spanked unless he likes it. :whistle:
Steve

Looks beautiful ....nice job

79MKII wrote: This is how it sits now. The exhaust is temporary. The Kerker racing pipe will be going back on....just wanted to test fire the engine and warm it up to change the oil. The Kerker blocks oil filter access and I didn't want to blue the pipes if the carb settings were way off.

I keep changing my mind on colors for my 82 specter project, but the old black and gold just looks so nice! I dare say this project is close to perfect and I hope to build something similar in the future!

Thanks for the compliments. I've always liked the black / gold scheme on the '78's. They offered green and red too that year, but black seems like the most rare. I painted over a lot of stock paint over the years...now I wouldn't dream of it unless it's trashed.

I'm having a hard time making up my mind on the engine. The stock black engines on the Z1-R and the MKII have polished fins on the head. I polished them on my MKII rebuild and liked it a lot better than plain black. The covers are black on this engine though, so I'm not sure if I'll like it.....

Here is my MKII engine after painting and polishing:

Looks real nice. Should have kept that pipe :laugh:

79mk2
You have a pic of the kerker race pipe?