Grateful to be on the forum.  I'm currently reviving a 1979 KZ1000A3A MKII. Previous owner seized a piston due to oil starvation. (More on that later)  Prior Kawasaki riding history:
My first motorcycle was a 1976 KZ400D3. 18 years old in the Marine Corps - purchased new in Arlington Texas. 2 days later rode to my duty station in Camp Pendleton, CA. Six months later, traded in for new KZ1000A1. That one got stolen - replaced by Insurance.  That one was totaled when I ran off a curve in San Diego County back country.  Insurance was not renewed for some reason....  Shop owner let me revive it (New frame required). From my experience, was hired part time as a parts sales man. When I got out of the Marines in 1979, I went to work as a full time Parts Manager at the shop. Later partnered with the Sales manager to buy salvage wrecks which we restored and sold.  He was the body/paint guy - I was the wrench.  Various motorcycles owned/raced/restored over the years include:
1976 KH400 triple - raced AFM
1980 KZ550A - raced AFM
1981 KZ750E - took cross country with my girlfriend (now wife of 39 years)
1983 GPZ550 - street ride & raced AFM (Last race April 1984 - too busy with new job) 
1986 ZG1000 Concours - rode for 80K miles+  Several long trips.  In 1986, I rode the Concours, wife rode the GPZ550 from Oceanside CA to World's Fair in Vancouver BC and returned.
1979 KZ1000B LTD - rebuild/sold
1982 Yamaha 650 Seca Turbo - rebuild/sold
1978 KZ650C (x2 - basket cases) Restored both - sold
Had 3 KZ1000P's that I rented to officers wanting to practice for Motor School. Since sold all three.
2003 BMW R1150RT - sold after 9 years
2014 BMW R1200RT - current primary ride
1971 Norton 750 Commando - Resto-mod. Originally picked up in 1989 as a basket case. Current 'tinker' attraction
1979 KZ1000A3A MKII  Present project, .  Picked up from PO in pieces.  Currently have the engine apart. Identified 2 issues for oil starvation:
1.  Apparently he kicked up a plastic bag while riding along the freeway in So Cal. When I took the countershaft sprocket off, there was a wad of plastic behind it that had forced the seal into the engine. It was dangling there with a huge gap for oil to mist out to the chain, case, rear wheel etc.
2. Split the cases. Previous mechanic(?) installed a too-long bolt in the right lower engine mounting position.  The bolt was apparently over-torqued and subsequently forced the oil -passage plug inward. The plug now covers 2/3rds of the oil access port for the Pump to Filter pathway.  Trying to come up with a workable solution (maybe drill out the plug then install a threaded plug? - May have to enlarge the engine mounting hole for access, then install a bushing to return to correct size). 

Enough for now!  Looking forward to sharing, learning and growing in the hobby.  

Bob F.
 

You might want to look into the colors of the Bosch EV1 injectors. My daily driver is a Ranger with one of those 2.3s.
Just installed some 24lb. following my secondmodified upper intake. Here is a list off the top of my head of what Ford used.
      lbs./color /application.
   12lb./ forgot the color/ / 300 6cyl (55 psi )
   14lb./ grey / 2.3 '89-'94 Ranger
   15lb./ red-maroon / 2.3-2.5 '95 and up Ranger
   19lb./ orange / V8 and V6
   24lb./ blue / 460
   35lb. / brown / 2.3 turbo (Thunderbird )


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This is the kind of thing I've found in a few places. Just that '83-'85 flow better but without explaining why and without including '82. This is just a post from another thread here:

"The turbo and N/A head's are the same other then the turbo head has a temp. senser. Turbo cam's are stock KZ650 cam's. 83-84 GPz head is the best 750 head flow wise."

I mentioned previously in this thread my recent bikes have been 175HP or so. First step for this KZ is to get it running but eventually I'll want to get more power out of it. Have some extra money to spend now so looking at collecting parts. Figure they'll just get harder to find as time goes by.
 

New after market sprockets 25 each - tmank089@yahoo

530 - Emgo KZ650 - 41 tooth

630 - KZ1000  - 37 tooth C1 C2 police and some 80s KZ650 - appears to have been installed at some point, but never run - new with shelf wear - sticker / staining

630 - GPZ 750 Turbo & KZ1000 - 46 tooth - new with shelf wear - sticker / staining

Back to the frame mods...

There is no bottom front engine mount bolt on the early Z1 motor so you need to weld in a front lower cross tube to gain back some rigidity. The KZ650 frame is pretty rigid stock, if you look at a GPZ750 Turbo frame it is very similar (maybe the tubing has a bigger wall?) The Turbo made about 110HP stock so I am not too worried about any flexing.





You can see how the oil pan will sit low in the frame.

I also checked the chain line, I swapped the sprocket to 530 so it would match the 650 rear sprocket. No issues with chain line.



I made sure the sprocket cover and the shifter shaft cleared the frame





Ground down both center lower motor mount lugs as they are not going to be used, but I did not cut them off.





This is how close the lugs need to be.





I think in the end I used 2 of those .040" aluminum shims on both sides so I have .080" to the frame at those spots with the motor mount bolts tightened.

Here are the motor mount and weld plates (not finished here) The thick lug is for the lower rear and there is a 1/8" plate to convert the B drum brake frame to a C disk brake frame.



For the upper rear bolt on mount plates I increased the thickness to 3/8" 1018 steel.









1/4" thick weld plate.



3/16" thick bolt on plate.



3/16" thick weld tab.

riturbo wrote:

Looks great .  Great price .  

 

Thanks! Im super impressed with the work the painter did and yeah, the price was great. It was actually 650 and comes to about 705 with tax included.

DanMadBoy wrote:

riturbo wrote:

SWest wrote:

Still no pic of the Bike?


something like this ?






 

 

THAT IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! Is that a 1978? Wow. that color is amazing. Love the wheels too.

That's the one. Can't hide the Lester mags. I'll bet the purse goes though. 

Steve
 

riturbo wrote:

SWest wrote:

Still no pic of the Bike?


something like this ?





 

 

THAT IS ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS! Is that a 1978? Wow. that color is amazing. Love the wheels too.

As I said I do not have the knowledge to tell you how, but like turbo gave a link here is one that Lou did provide  s3.amazonaws.com/gpzweb/RegRec/GPZvRegExciteField.html

The rubber mounted KZ750 and GPZ750 motors require a spacer at every motor mounting point on the engine cases (8 places) The sprocket will line up perfectly (have a 82 Spectre motor in my 78 KZ650) No frame mods necessary even for hopped up versions. You will need a electronic tach as the later engines do not use cable drives.

The earlier KZ900/1000 motors are harder to fit than the later J/GPZ1100 motors, the later motors seem to be swapped more (just finished a KZ650 frame for a 78 KZ1000 motor)
The frame needs all 3 front motor mounts removed and replaced. Not sure if the frame needs extra bracing but it could not hurt, KZ650 has a nice stiff frame. If you set the motor cases right on the bottom frame rails you can take the cam cover off to adjust shims. Mine ended up having 3mm of clearance to the frame rails but I did grind off some material on the center motor mount castings to gain a bit of space, those center mounts are not used (I think this was the factor that caused cam cover clearance issues in previous swaps)

I am putting a 1197cc street kit in my motor with VM33 smooth bores, big valve KZ head and .418" cams. Not intending to flog it so hopefully the KZ650 frame will be rigid enough for 110-120 HP. They used the KZ650 frame as a test mule for the GPZ750 Turbo engine when they were developing it (110 HP)

Its much easier to go for the GPZ750 swap, with a big bore kit/cams/carbs/pipe you could be making about 90-95 HP and about 40lbs lighter than a 900/1000 swap that has only 15 HP more. The only reason I did one was because I wanted the extra big crank torque the larger engines possess.