1980 KZ1300 - Hen's Teeth Do Exist

[mnrob]

Have you thought about adding a turbo?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kawasaki-Other- ... otorcycles

[Lucien Harpress]

I would..... probably kill myself. :D

I HAVE toyed with the idea of getting a Valkyrie with a blower, though.....

(I'd probably kill myself on that one, too)

[wingrider]

I would..... probably kill myself. :D

I HAVE toyed with the idea of getting a Valkyrie with a blower, though.....

(I'd probably kill myself on that one, too)

I am greatly resisting the temptation to install one on my Interstate...need to remember, this one doesn't have to go fast.

[Lucien Harpress]

Wonders never cease....

Good thing I'm going to the coils. Turns out, the PO swapped out the coils, then put the low-voltage wires in the wrong spots! Plus to minus, minus to plus, etc. I'm surprised it actually ran.

On top of that, the way he attempted to "waterproof" the connections was marvelous as well. Coil 1? Nothing. Dry fit. Coil 2? Slather that liquid rubber insulator crap over everything. Coil 3? Coat all the low-voltage connections in.... COPPERCOAT? What?

(Not sure if actually coppercoat, but looks dang close to what I'd expect coppercoat to be)

Just... shaking my head at this point.

[Lucien Harpress]

Finally got all new coils in, and went ahead and replaced all the spark plugs while I was at it. Sure enough, about half of them had the electrode all chewed up from the backwards coil wiring.

It took a few minutes of cranking (and some starter fluid) to get the motor running long enough to fill the bowls, but when it did? Hoo boy. It's like night and day. Oh sure, there's a few pops and gurgles here and there, and even after it's warmed up she doesn't settle back down to a nice idle right away (will probably get around to a carb sync here sooner than later), BUT it warms up 10x quicker than it did before, throttle response is a WHOLE lot better than I expected, and overall, it's a lot closer to road-worthy then I could've hoped.

I still need the parts back from the powdercoater, I'd like to pick up a colortune to get the idle mixture settings right on (of course the threads are different from my Goldwings, so I can't use the colortune I have. I may be able to get an adapter for it, though), and there's still the pesky matter of insurance and registration, but it's a huge step in the right direction.

[Barney T Weasel]

http://www.nulon.com.au/files/images/ae ... -small.jpg

we have this wonderful product out here that'll start anything with a spark...

[Lucien Harpress]

Got a photo from my powdercoater today.

[calif wingnut]

$2,000 takes it home.

[calif wingnut]

More pic's.

[Lucien Harpress]

Biggest thing I see is the missing air box covers, but apart from that? Looks pretty good for the money if it runs. It's got the 160mph speedo, which is a plus. Not a bad deal, if you want a 1300.

[Barney T Weasel]

Will send the seat pix shortly...

[Lucien Harpress]

I'll just leave this here. Too tired to say much, except that nothing is wired yet, and I'm going to have to start shopping for another headlight bucket. When I tried to get all the wires inside it with the headlight, a couple of my earlier repairs cracked wide back open. Thankfully it shares a buckets (with minor, unseeable differences) with the Kawasaki GPZ1100 (among others- not sure exactly), and those can be had for a dime a dozen.

It's probably not gonna happen anytime soon, though. I'm completely broke this week, and next week I'm headed up to the U.P. of Michigan for vacation. Still, I may get as much wired as I can tomorrow. It's be nice to get all this eye candy to work.

[terry_208]

It looks a lot different than the last time I saw it. Looks very nice!

[Lucien Harpress]

It's getting there. The top fork guides aren't stock (I used a pair from a 37mm fork motorcycle- the rings are split, with the gaps hid in the back. I may have a line on a stock set, depending on how much the guy is asking for them), and I'm really not excited about the whole assembly (it's not as "tight" as I would like it, but it will work), but it's heads above what was there before.

I managed to get the headlight wired up and some of the front running lights (the "always on" function of the front blinkers), but I need some bullet connectors for the blinkers and grounds. It'll have to wait until next week, because this week is going to be a race between my bank account and payday...

[Lucien Harpress]

I also managed to take a look at my cracked bucket- the irony is, all my repairs held. Unfortunately, there was enough flex to crack the outside, so it looks like crap.

It's okay, though. There's an identical GPZ bucket on Ebay that, while not perfect, has a lot less damage than the one I have. I can turn around and sell mine as a KZ1300 bucket and get some pretty big money off it (I hope).

Shhhhhhh.....