kz750e Resto-Mod

Great job so far!!

The carb float bowl drain screws are all pointing the same way, should they be opposite for access when on the bike?

Also: where can you buy the idle adjuster extension? I'm fed up of burning the back of my hand on the top of the crankcase!

Kermitthepilot- It is very inconvenient that all the drain screws face one way, But that is the way the cvk's came from the factory.
The zr550's and zx600's all had the remote idle adjustment knob. The zr750 carbs I bought did not have it, so I
transferred the one from my spare cvk30 set.

So I finally got to start the bike for the first time today.
There is good news and bad news:
Good news is that it started on the third crank. I did not expect it so start easily without some cranking and fiddling with the choke, but it started right up and idled perfectly. It runs fantastically, but.........

Bad news is that it started blowing grey smoke after about 10 minutes when I brought the idle up to 2000rpm's.
It would idle and no vapor is visible, but when ever I blip the throttle or rev it above 2000 it blows greyish white smoke. It does not smell like burning oil, but really pungent exhaust.
How Fackacked am I??
All four spark plugs have a hint of oil on them. (#1 is black with soot, which is another problem I have yet to investigate.)
I did pour about a table spoon of Marvel Mystery Oil in the bores after bolting the head on a week ago. I was trying to prevent wear from excessive cranking of the engine to verify the oil light would go off and while it sat before I could get the cams in.
Is it possible I am burning off the MMO or have all the oil control rings overlapped? (I was very careful of the oil control ring orientation, so how could I have possibly gotten so lucky as to have all four of them do that?)
I installed all new viton valve guide seal, so I have a hard time believing they are leaking.
I do not have enough engine break in experience to know what color and how much smoke is normal or terminal.
Any insight you guys can lend would be helpful!

I'd assume it's just the MMO and plan to put the bike on the road. Give it a good firm break in. Use the throttle liberally while driving in an "around town" driving pattern. Put some load on those rings and see what happens. By a few miles you will know one way or another.

Yep, it might not be as bad as you think. In my opinion, all the two valve partial hemi chambered Kawasaki engines have pretty bad exhaust stink. My K bike exhaust smell up the garage way worse than my 4 valve Hondas (or 5 valve Yamahas) ever did. I think it is just a part of life with them. The smoke you describe might have some oil in it, but if it is burning excessive oil, you would smell it soon enough. More likely excessively rich mixture....something these engines seem to need to run happy.

compression test wouldn't hurt.

leon

532blackbanshee- You read my mind. That is the first thing I did this morning.
All read right at 165, but #3 piston was 180. Which means it is higher because it is full of oil....and that is the one that had the oil scraper that kept wanting to overlap when I put my piston ring compressor on. So it is all coming back apart.

But I did take it for several spirited laps around the neighborhood to see how the rest of the bike felt.
And Holy Zeus's Pajamas is this thing is a strong. I never got to ride the bike when I got it as it was not even close to being road worthy, so I can't compare it to then, but compared to my zx550 powered zr550, this thing is simply terrifying. I must have the jetting kind of close as I could hammer it in third gear and it would take off and I had to hold on for dear life until I ran out of street.
And I can report that it does smoothly shift through all six gears, but I really could only use the first three in my neighborhood.

So....I plan to order a Wiseco 810 head gasket as I don't think it is safe to reuse the cruzinimage one now that is has been run in.
I suppose I need to re purchase all new oil o-rings for the head and a new base gasket. *sigh*
I will also probably order another set of piston rings from Japan to try and get a better oil scraper ring and it might be nice to have a spare set of rings just in case.
Is there another 69mm KZ900/1000 bore that used cast pistons that I could get rings from instead?

That sucks - does it smell like it is burning oil?

Talk to Z1 Ent. (now that they are answering calls again) about the NPR rings they sell. I know you can get standard bore, as I have, but I think if you ask, Kawasaki standard sizes of overbore rings are also available from NPR. Trouble is that they might not work with your pistons. Measure the cruzinimgae ones against your stock rings for thickness and width to find out if that is an option. You might also want to check if there is a Vesrah top end gasket set. I've had good results using Vesrah gaskets so far, and their head gasket might have a bore size big enough to work with your pistons. Unless there is damage, you might get away with re-installing the rings you have, too.

This surprises me. There must be a manufactured defect or design issue with the cruzinimage oil expanders or scrapers, then....

Good luck, hope it all gets sorted.

Well, I took of the exhaust and #3 exhaust port had a pool of oil sitting in it. So I removed the entire top end and was able to verify that the oil control ring had jumped. I will try tomorrow to remove the rings and inspect them and get pictures for documentation. I would also like to measure the 69mm piston rings and see how close in size they are to the stock ones and then look into the possibility of replacing them with ones from another manufacturer.

No eBay APP ID and/or Cert ID defined in Kunena configurationYou may have just got a dud set of rings for that piston, why not just contact cruzinimage and let him know, I'm aware of quite a few people using these kits in other bikes without trouble, so maybe you were just unlucky and got a dud set. Weisco 810's would possible fit too... Off topic, I was reading a couple of pages back about the Dorimi collection stuff, I've been aware of these kits for some time now, anyway, a friend of mine in the UK dropped me this link for a 750 Zephyr body kit, the price is great and lower than the other kits {same kits} listed in their ebay shop.... Kinda wish I'd bought a zephyr now...

Daftrusty wrote: Well, I took of the exhaust and #3 exhaust port had a pool of oil sitting in it. So I removed the entire top end and was able to verify that the oil control ring had jumped. I will try tomorrow to remove the rings and inspect them and get pictures for documentation. I would also like to measure the 69mm piston rings and see how close in size they are to the stock ones and then look into the possibility of replacing them with ones from another manufacturer.

Why can't you just reuse those rings? If the oil control expander overlapped can't you just bend the tangs up some or get a new expander alone and reuse everything else? Your compression was good so no worry there. The only issue was that one ring.

After removing the rings to get a closer look, it turns out not only did the expander ring jump, but part of the little tang had broken off.
Initially I had issues where the ends of the expander ring met where one end was not cut properly and it had sort of an "S" shape and it would not meet up flush with the other end. So I put a file in my vise an proceeded to very carefully file of the end flush. Apparently I was not gentle enough and must be the reason it broke off. So this situation was caused by the ring being defective and me not fixing it properly.
I gave up on the up on the idea of using a different manufacturer of rings as the Cruzinimage pistons use 1mm for the top ring and 1.5mm for the second and 2.5 for the oil scrapers. I could not find another aftermarket set of rings with that combination of ring sizes and in 69mm, so I just bit the bullet and ordered 5 sets Cruzinimage rings so I have enough to replace my current ring issue and have spares for a later date.

Broken ring



How its supposed to look




What the OEM one looks like




While I had everything apart I took the opportunity to fix an issue I had with the APE head studs I am using. When I went to install the head I found that the four studs between the 1&2 and 3&4 cylinders were about 5mm to short. I had to forgo the use of the washers to get enough threads to safely torque down the nuts. I found this strange because I used a thread chase and not a tap, to clean out the threads. I was aware that using a tap could lead to this issue of the studs screwing down to far into the case, so the studs must have be manufactured to short. So after an hour of measuring and scratching my head I came up with the solution of using two 5/16 ball bearings in the hole to prevent the stud from screwing down to far into the case. (Giving me 6mm more threads up top yet giving it enough threads in the case.)
With that sorted I now wait for my new parts to arrive.

Are you going to replace all the rings at this point or just that one hole? Seems excessive to replace rings that were working well, that one damaged ring excepted.