Topic: Maui Z1 1973

[Stev-o]

Does anyone have a photo of what a Kawasaki fastener looks like?

Most of the bolts on my Z1B dont have a marking but my shifter bolt does...

[754]

 I sure hope ypu xan find out which dealer sold it..
 The local dealer here said quite a few of them and tge triples got written off in accidents.. 
 That bike may have been riding  the streets  here.
 I remember one epic street race here..  from back then..
 A CB 750 with Webers and low gearing vs a Z1 ...rootbeer one I think... that was fun to watch..

[MauiK3]

I will try to find out.
Here are the two tanks I have. The bashed one is allegedly original. The other a repop. I see some differences such as the wall thickness of the fuel petcock port, the method of attachment of the tab at the back. The little pin on the gas cap is different too.
The paint job on the repop is pretty sloppy.
If there is a date it’s buried under paint unless I am missing it.
I’m going to reach out to the classic car guys here and see if I can find a body guy that needs a challenge.
I’ll look at the side covers and tail to see if they look original or not.

[Terry in Australia]

Hey Steve can you measure the distance across the gap at the front of both tanks where the tank goes over the top rail? My OEM Z1 tank looks a lot like your bashed in tank, so I'm gonna go out and see if the gap at the front is the same? Apparently the early tanks badge holes were 122mm apart, and the later ones were 140mm apart, so a lot of the repop tanks have two sets of badge holes. you should be able to measure the distance between the badge holes without removing the badges if you want to check?

[754]

Dont you guys want to know what happened to the Zed 1 vs "CB 750 race .?

[Terry in Australia]

Dont you guys want to know what happened to the Zed 1 vs "CB 750 race .?

Nah, you're just gonna say that the CB750 whooped the Z1 Frank, I think I've read that story before..........

[754]

Well the Kawi was probably very surprised.. by 50 mph he might have been gaining..
Dont know if I mentioned it before.. it was a  736 too..
 I learned a bit from that guy.. and also bought all his stuff he took off  the bike when he sold it.... this is where i learned about low gearing... cheapest thing you can do to your bike.
 Also he bought those carbs off the shelf, not ready jetted.... that us why i have the big assortment of brass..
 Small light guy,... bike surprised many unsuspecting riders..

[seanbarney41]

Dont you guys want to know what happened to the Zed 1 vs "CB 750 race .?

Nah, you're just gonna say that the CB750 whooped the Z1 Frank, I think I've read that story before..........

yeah, cool story bro

Don't get me wrong, you know I love cb750's or I would not be here.  I have ridden both and there is no way any stock cb can hang with a Z1 unless the Z1 rider can't ride.  If you have ridden a Z1, you will understand the mind warping acceleration.  It is just scary mental how fast a machine from 72-75 was.

[754]

I rode(and owned) a 75 Z for awhile. It was a chopper...felt real quick. 
 .regarding the CB... i never worried about what I raced against. A lot of guys cant get their bikes off the line quick enough. I always come out in the top 2..
 Like I said modded bike , light guy.... jetted the Webers from scratch.. drag bars, 17 tooth sprocket, 54 on the rear.. i bought all that off  him.. it works..  we were street racing often.
 When i started racing at our local strip , i had a good mentor and learned fast.. i learned to get good holeshots. I built my bike for 1/8 mile.. it did well , not so good in the 1/4..

 Fairly stock motors with the right mods, can sometimes be quite quick .. , not all just a few.
 I knew a guy in LA that raced a Z1 at Lions dragstrip, he was going quicker than magazine test times,  i think motor was basicaly stock inside..

[Terry in Australia]

Dont you guys want to know what happened to the Zed 1 vs "CB 750 race .?

Nah, you're just gonna say that the CB750 whooped the Z1 Frank, I think I've read that story before..........

yeah, cool story bro

Don't get me wrong, you know I love cb750's or I would not be here.  I have ridden both and there is no way any stock cb can hang with a Z1 unless the Z1 rider can't ride.  If you have ridden a Z1, you will understand the mind warping acceleration.  It is just scary mental how fast a machine from 72-75 was.

Yep, there's a reason Honda pretty much pulled out of motorcycle racing in the mid 70's, Honda was sick of having their arses handed to them. Whereas you can get 80 or 90 reliable BHP out of a CB750 with lots of expensive mods, a Z1/KZ900/1000 can easily make 140 BHP without even replacing the stock rods.

We all love our CB750's, but we know their limitations. I started riding CB750's when you could buy one new (I did) and back then a CB750 rider wouldn't know what the front of a Z1 looked like, because they only ever saw the back of them, from a distance...... I rode a turbo charged Z1 in 1978 and I have never been so frightened, but in a good way

[754]

I will ask you a simple question.. how much have you dragraced against a clock ?
 The bull#$%* stops with the clock, EVERYONE can see the results.
 We did not have the 60 foot timers back  then.. but it is easy to tell if you were quick of the line or not.
 I will say this... if you dont have hundreds of runs against others and the clocks.. how do you know if you are even close to getting a good holeshot .
 Dont get me wrong.. I love Z1s   and I would like to own one..

[seanbarney41]

But that is the thing Frank, anything you do to a cb, can be done to a Z as well, with that much more of a devastating (to the competition) effect.  I hear ya on the cb sprocket sizes though.

[754]

I am fully aware of what can be done to Z1 and KZ motors.  It was probably a stock Z1, I dont know..
 The bike doesnt win the race.l the bike and rider combo wins the race...
 In a drag race,its a combination of ET plus reaction time (RT).
 The race starts when the green light comes on... the ET starts  when the wheel breaks out if the beam.  So reaction time can win the racel Quicker vehicles can lise to slower ones .. it happens.

[PeWe]

The old Kawasakis could get really raw power with same efforts making a CB750 to get 80whp with 836cc, stock rods but getting 30-40whp more.

A friend back in the early 80's had a Z1000-77 with RC pistons in stock sleeves (not much extra bore then), RC cams without modified shim holders which indicate moderate lift. Probably ported head, maybe stock valves. Dellorto carbs, welded crank and modified oil pan with a trap door for oil during accelerations.
It ran really well, perfect for street. Must have had closer to 120whp.
A CB750 need a lot to enter 100whp while the old Z1-900/1000 needed not very much to get much more power.


Here a Dyno run in the shop in my town.
Z1 900 140whp/134Nm.
Most likely stock rods since no rods mentioned in the comment.
It was bored very much, closer to 1400cc if I remember correctly.
Dynoman has 1394 and 1428 JE pistons

I saw the bike in shop when they tuned the engine. Same guy ported my heads.
It would be fun to own one!

[MauiK3]

Ahhh, the which bike is better conversation!! Honda has always been pretty conservative and it cost them. They've always been able to bubble up to the top when they decide to. Bikes like the CB750, CBX, Blackbird are good examples.
I just like the idea of having two iconic bikes to tool around on. I'm just going to enjoy it for awhile and then maybe I'll sell it, I don't have much room. We have lots of tourists here, lots. When we are out on the K3 the older ones often divert their gaze and follow us down South Kihei Road, the local tourist promenade along the beach where the restaurants and surfboard rentals are. Sometimes when we park somewhere a younger guy will come up and talk about how his father or grandfather had one!! Yep, getting old here.
When I was young and dumb and full of ... I would street race Sportsters. They didn't win very often and they were puzzled. I had my K0 then.

[754]

One streetbike that stuck out was a guy with a KZ 750.. he was a good racer., and made the bike work well.
  A lot of bikes are not set up properly  and owners dont know how to race them... not the fault of the bike.
 A budfy that raced and rode street, surpised z lot of folks with his  Sohc and his Sporty.
We rode our bikes to Sturgis, raced at the drags , then rode back home...

[754]

 This bike can be the Maui Kawi...
 And when its finished .. the Maui Wowee Kawi .....
 If I run across my buddy with the 70  Kawi 500, I will ask when the local dealer got the first Z1 in town.. he was over there often.  Being a  late 72 build.. i am thinking a month or more  before landing in dealers showroom.
 I found my Kawi caliper the allen bolts have good plating, have not seen fork bracket with bolts butvthink i have it.
Not sure if hardware is identical .

[PeWe]

The best bike in this thread is an early Kawasaki Z1-900! Soon as good as when delivered from Japan back in the days almost 50 years ago!

I understand people that have several. Absolutely stock and almost stock modified with 4-1 and some additional hp.....

The Z1-900 tank, seat, side covers and rear end is among the most beautiful bike design ever made!
Shorter US rear fender an improvement.

I'll look forward to follow this build.
Double dream,  live in Hawaii and on top of that a really nice bike or 3
Living and riding the dreams!!

And Old Farts International commenting the progress in real time.

[MauiK3]

Terry asked for a measurement at the tank where it drops over the frame. We’ll, there is quite a difference between the two tanks I have!!
I wonder why.
The parallax makes it look like the scale wasn’t lined up at zero but it was.
63mm
58mm

[MauiK3]

I moved my polishing stuff so I could take advantage of dust collection and l ave the other table open for small coating work at the window.
My space is crowded.

[MauiK3]

754
The PO thinks it came from the dealer in Kelwona.
I have not ridden near as many different bikes as most have here but two that really stand out to me are the early CBX my neighbor had and a race prepped 750 Kawasaki triple. The CBX was like a turbine bike and just fooled you until you looked at the speedo and you’re going 100 mph. The 750 Kawasaki was like a sledge hammer, brutal and unforgiving but fun.

My 75 Wing was another bike that lulled you to sleep as it rocketed along. They could keep up with a Z1 but no one thought they could. The personality seemed docile.

[ekpent]

Terry asked for a measurement at the tank where it drops over the frame. We’ll, there is quite a difference between the two tanks I have!!
I wonder why.
The parallax makes it look like the scale wasn’t lined up at zero but it was.
63mm
58mm

Jeff mentioned earlier that the very early tanks are different from the later right in that neck area. Lots of little niggles and changes like the Honda sandcast as they were going through their short lived evolution.

[754]

Well that is cool that it may be from here . I WONDER IF owner lived here and it was on the streets here. If it was I likely saw it.

[Terry in Australia]

Terry asked for a measurement at the tank where it drops over the frame. We’ll, there is quite a difference between the two tanks I have!!
I wonder why.
The parallax makes it look like the scale wasn’t lined up at zero but it was.
63mm
58mm

Hey thanks Steve, that's really interesting, I wandered out to where I'm storing my Z1000 with an OEM Z1 tank fitted, to measure the gap but decided it was too hard to remove the tank to measure the gap, so I measured the distance between the badge mounting screws and mine was 140mm from centre to centre, out of interest can you measure yours and let me know? Reason I ask is that my tank looks to be a very tight fit around the steering head (about one fingers width gap either side) but of course the Z1000 frame might be wider there than the Z1?

[MauiK3]

I’ll get a measurement.
I’ve been reading Marsdens book and it appears the UK spec Z1’s had plain rear shocks with no reflector and a chrome filler piece on the forks where the reflector goes on US models. Since this came from BC I think I’ll mimic the UK style so I can put Hagons on the back and still have it look right. The original shocks were not very good and I imagine the $95 repops are worse.
There is also a difference in the handlebar controls on the UK version.
Oh, I found a NOS front fender, $$$ but I want to move toward stock, not away. :-))
My carb parts have cleared customs in the US, maybe I’ll get them soon.