Obviously a ton of options for aftermarket cams, but I’m going to highlight only three specific cams.

• specifically for the z1 / kz900 / kz1000 motor.
• specifically for 1015cc or 1075cc piston kit builds.
• oem cams – .325″ lift intake – .300″ lift exhaust – 235˚ duration at .50″

OEM upgrade replacement cam

• Get a webcam 118.
• It has .365 lift and 246 degrees duration at .050″.
• There will be no noticeable crazy power band difference. It will just be a bit more power than stock across the rev range.
• This is a good cam if you have a bone stock motor, or only an upgraded piston kit.
• Don’t need to upgrade valvetrain, even though you prob should
• Don’t need to port head.

High rpm power cam

• Get a webcam 110.
• It has .395 lift and 256 degrees duration at .050″.
• According to the KZ cylinder head guys, you want to avoid cams with more than 250 degrees duration at .050″ for a daily rider street bike, unless you have a lot of compression in the motor … or a bigger CC motor (1075 or bigger). Or unless you want to be racing revving the shit out of it.
• For example, I have this cam in my weisco 1015cc build and the cam makes all its power from 6 – 10k rpm which is super fun but 1015cc is hair small to take full advantage of the cam at lower rpm. Plus revving the shit out of your motor is going to take a toll on it at some point. Normal riding 4-6k rpm feels fine, but no, I can not go WOT at 4k rpm, it bogs a bit.
• I’m convinced this type of cam with duration will make the most peak power, especially with a ported head and carbs.
• It really feels like a strong VTEC Honda. It keeps pulling and pulling.
• Should port head a little.

Torque cam

• Get a Megacycle 470-15.
• It has .410 lift and 242 duration at .050″.
• I would say this type of cam with less duration is best for a street bike that you want to have broad power across the middle rev range, but it’s def not going to have the gnarly high rpm power VTEC feel that the webcam 110 has.
• I don’t think this set up will make as much overall power as compared to a cam with a more duration.
• This cam is for hammering it 4 – 7k rpm street riding, light to light.
• Should port head a little.

Degreeing cams

• When 1/4 pistons are at TDC, from right side of engine, with advancer aligning to T mark, intake and exhaust cams should be pointing directly at each other perfectly. This is 110 lobe centers.
• Over time, cam chain stretches and both cams will slightly sit in a retarded position. (which visually, from right side, is; intake cam tilted up a little and exhaust cam tilted down a little)
• 110 lobe centers is stock and will give broad power.
• Advancing intake cam 1-2 degrees gives more low-end torque. (tilted down a hair)
• If you advance the intake 4 degrees and retard the exhaust 2 degrees, thats 106/108 centers.
• Changing the lobe centers will just shift the power around a little bit to be higher rpm, or spread evenly, or torquey. Each cam has recommended lobe center numbers but you can put them where you want.
• Prob stay between 105 and 109. Some tuners will even say stock oem cams are better at 108 than stock 110.
• Technically I didn’t degree my cams. With my adjustable cam gears I pointed them perfectly at each other then turned them both down a hair, what I considered a few degrees to be somewhere around 105-107.

Cam gotchas

• must clearance the head starting at around .380 – .390 lift depending on the casting of your head
• shim under bucket starts after .410 lift
• Prob don’t want over .405 lift for motors under 1100
• 256 degrees duration at .050″ is prob max duration unless you have a much bigger cc motor than 1100 with at least 10.25 compression
• Stick with stock base circle size
• Your set up all needs to match. Porting, carbs, compression. If you’re doing a high rpm power cam, make sure the head flows for it.
• Prob use red loctite on bolts that hold cam onto slotted cam gears. I did.
• 30 tooth cam gear rotates twice for every one rotation of the crank. So, if you advanced your intake cam 1 tooth that is 24 degrees! 720 % 30 = 24.

From George; “I wanted to wish you and the clan a happy New Year. I ran across this Z1 article (Big Bike September 1974) and though Ed might a copy of it. It’s a pretty basic stock bike fluff piece, but you know he LOVES his Z1.”

Thanks George! Anything else you find… send it over.

Denco was an old performance company. They list the mods they made to their z1.

Fuck the z1 and kz’s are the best. I did a Kelly loop on mine last night. Such a great bike. 6-10k rpm with my cams, vtec kicks in yo. Best feeling.

As I said before, my z1 is a 74, but whomever had it before me had a 75 tank/tail on it.

They look pretty similar, however, some of the differences:

– 75 tank, top 2 stripes have black paint in between them and where the 2 stripes meet the seat, the stripes have a gap. Green paint tealish hue. 75 tail, decals curve up at end 

– 74 tank, no black between 2 stripes and the stripes touch where meets seat. Green paint is yellowish hue. 74 tail decals are straight

5 doors down from my house is an auto body shop called Liberty Collision. I stopped in and asked if they’d be into doing my paint. Owner Ben is a cool dude. He said normally prob not but being a neighbor he’s into it. 

They did a great job. Base paint / clear / apply z1parts decal kit. Charged me $450. He alluded that it was more work than they anticipated. I was more worried about decal placement than paint. They got it pretty damn close. Im happy. Also, matching paint color was tough. I wanted it close to stock but a shade darker. 

First pic is an original 74 I based my color off that I saw at mid Ohio.

At bottom you can see the body shop stuff and the million swatches I could choose from.

Anyway. Got the z1 back together. No more fuked up forks or cam caps. Added a steering stabilizer bar. Leaned out my jetting a hair. Cleaned up everything. Painted a bunch of shit.

Pics at very bottom show how fuked up it was when I pulled it out of the old guys garage. Junker.

Short list of overall everything I’ve done or had help doing:

• race-braced, cleaned up, painted frame
• detab swing arm
• mod, slim up center stand for 4-1 kerker
• steering stabilizer bar and tab
• Lockhart oil cooler
• laced new boranni style wheels, spokes. 18 front
• 630 to 520 JT chain conversion. Custom aluminum rear sprocket. 17/42 gearing
• slim seat
• headlight, fork ear update
• kerker exhaust with 2″ comp baffle
• keihin 29 CRS carbs, velocity stacks
• kaw H1 fork leg bottoms
• kaw kz750 shorty fender
• progressive suspension front & rear
• Dyna ignition
• Larry Cavanaugh street ported / clearanced head
• Kenny Harmon L1 cams. .400″
• weisco 1015, 10.25/1 pistons
• APE valvetrain
• APE clutch kit
• all new wiring for everything
• Ricks reg/rect

So, I heli-coiled the z1 cam caps fucked threads last night.
Went well. Engine is fixed. Really glad I didn’t have to take head off and take to Mar auto. I loosened and re-tightened all 16 bolts. All tightened down well. Hopefully no holes blow out again. Gotta love old shitty bikes and high-lift cams.

So, now I have about 8 or 9 of 16 holes heli-coiled.

My method of installing heli-coils is below: (all points open for debate)

• buy new pep boys thread repair kit – m6 / 1
• buy some blue loctite
• if not taking engine apart tape shit off real well
• drill out hole on super low speed with motor oil on drill bit
• use thread repair kit to re-tap hole to bigger size. Oil on tap
• while re-tapping hole, turn in 1 full turn. Then back out half turn every full turn
• while re-tapping hole, completely remove tap every 3 full turns to clean debris from tap inner catch area
• once hole is re-tapped and smooth, clean out any debris and oil
• put heli-coil in with a small drop of blue loctite on outer side of heli-coil
• make sure bolt goes into heli-coil smoothly
• I would not recommend using any loctite on the bolts that go in and out the cam-cap holes as they need to be serviceable, regardless of if any of the holes are heli’d or not.
• Larry Cavanaugh, the kz cylinder head guy, recommended keeping the threads on the bolts that go down into the cam caps holes oiled or greased. He said this to me in one of our emails when he ported my head and fixed a couple fucked holes.
• Specifically Larry said: Make sure you oil the cam tower dowel pins and the boss holes they go into in the caps when you install the cams. Oil the cam bolt threads too. Make sure the tapered end of the dowels point up toward the cap. The majority of stripped cam tower bolt holes result from the caps binding on those dowel pins
• Done. Go race people.

The first gen KZ motor has a weak spot. The caps which hold the camshafts down and in place, have shitty bolt holes. They’re m6 threaded holes in the soft aluminum head. The sequence for removing the cams and installing the cams almost guarantees you’ll potentially strip out a couple bolts. As you tighten the cam caps down, it’s essentially pushing a valve open, so you can’t always guarantee it’s going in smoothly. Combine that with the fact that the service manual has the wrong (overly tight) spec for how much to torque them down.

Everyone on kzrider says to go super light or hand tighten them only. It’s the number one fuk up on the KZ motors that everyone fuks ups. Especially if you have high lift cams, which I have, it extra aggrivates the risk.

Anyway, long story short: I heli coiled a couple holes about 4 years ago, and had Larry C fix a couple holes when he ported my cylinder head. (Shoulda had him do all 16 holes).

It’s been exactly a year since my last engine rebuild. Bike rips and has been super solid. The other week while on a Thursday ride I instantly heard a super loud valve noise from left side of my motor.

I limped the bike home, and pulled the valve cover the next morning. Turns out, that out of no where, for no reason, 4 bolt holes on the exhaust cam stripped completely out. Fuk.

So, with Nates help, pulled motor out of frame and gonna heli coil them myself without taking the head apart. If I can’t fix myself without taking head off, I’ll break engine completely down and take it to Mar auto to have them fix the holes.

While the motor is out I’m gonna clean a bunch of shit up and paint my frame gold.

I’ll update once I try and fix the holes myself… See how it goes. When I put heli coils in 4 years ago, I didn’t loctite them in… but I’m thinking about using blue loctite on the heli-coil itself so it never moves in the fresh cut head threads. Thoughts anyone?

We know…
Kawasaki’s are the fast bikes of the 70s / 80s.
Eddie Lawson was the factory Kaw racer of the very early 80s.

– Kaw big 4-cyls started out with the z1 (73-75)
– z1 became a kz900 (76-77)
– kz900 became a kz1000 (77-83?)

In early 80s, kawasaki took the J motor kz1000 and gave it the green race colors and a kerker exhaust to make it look like what Eddie Lawson’s race bike kinda looked like. Kaw tried to increase sales with it, but it didn’t sell that great, so its pretty rare now. 750 were made total. Pic at the very top is the Eddie Lawson Replica (ELR) that you could buy from the dealer. They were 90hp. Same as normal kz1000.

Kaw also made a real race-ready version of the ELR, which was called the “S1”. Normal person couldn’t buy one. It was for certified racing teams only. It was almost identical to the bike the team made for racing in the 80s. They were like 150hp. Only 29 made ever. One sold on eBay a bunch of years ago for like $110K … fucking nuts.

Kaw ELR “S1”. Pic below.

Long story short, I picked up another bike below.
Its a 2003 Kaw zrx1200r, which as of right now, is the only modern version of what the KZ kinda used to be. It’s 122hp / 82tq.
I bought it in the colors which reference the Eddie Lawson Replica bike.
I dig it and got a good deal on it.

Vid about Kaw and Eddie Lawson. I love these old vids. This one is so good.

My modified 74 z1 below. Prob 100hp / 70tq now? Cool to see the similarities between the years.

There some really good info in this article about Eddie Lawson, how he was given an ELR from Kaw, and then some Jap dude offered to buy it for a $Million bucks. He turned the dude down. All his actual race bikes from circuit racing were crushed by team mechanic Muzzy. Some other good stuff… give it a read.

Adam helped out big time and welded the frame where it was cracked. Creating those extra frame braces and gussets was not easy so huge thanks.

We did all this and placed the bracing and gussets based on pics we’ve seen from AC Sanctuary, which is the company that makes all the sick-ass Z1’s over in Japan.

So hopefully the frame will be nice and strong now and not crack again.

It’s been a slow process working on this thing.
– frame is done
– new wheels all laced up and done
– cylinder head ready to go back on
– all I need to do now is put the rest of the shit back on. Easy street.

Below pic: Since I run a Kerker 4-1 exhaust, the left side is open, and the center stand used to stick out an extra foot and it looked retarded, so we cut it shorter and tucked it in nice and tight. Also created a stopper so the center stand doesn’t hit the chain.

That’s the z1…

The frame is cracked to the point where it’s sort of scary. Both my main downtubes are cracked. The left one is cracked all the way through. All the way around. Can’t believe I never noticed it. Adam randomly saw it!

This winter I’ve been doing some little engine stuff to the z1 making it faster and fixing a few things. While tinkering with it, that’s when the frame was noticed.

So I’m taking the entire thing apart down to the frame and Adam is going to help me repair the frame. Not only are we going to repair it, we’re going to strengthen it by doing some of the old school race frame mods in below pic.

Below pic shows the left downtube cracked through the gusset and completely cracked through the round tube.

Below pic shows the right down tube cracked completely through the gusset and about to start cracking the round tube. Hard to tell but it’s cracked.

Ok, enough about the frame for now.

Below pic shows a pair of vintage Kenny Harmon L1 cams I picked up. The Webcam 110 are the new version of these. Same specs. I’ve been told for a fast “streetable” bike you want cams around .400″ because above .410″ you have to go to shim-under bucket. And more duration = high rpm power, but the head / carbs have to be able to flow the power up top. So everything has to match.

For reference:

• oem cams – .325″ lift intake – .300″ lift exhaust – 235˚ duration at .50″
• webcam 118 – .365″ lift both – 246˚ duration at .50″.
• KH L1 / webcam 110 – .400″ lift both – 256˚ duration at .50″

I had the cylinder head ported by the well known KZ engine guy – Larry Cavanaugh. He ported it to match my set up. Head should be able to take better advantage of the wiseco 1015 / L1 cams / CR29 smoothbore carbs.

Below pics show the porting Larry did.

Not only did Larry port the head but he also fixed my broken cooling fin, and fixed a broken bolt stuck in one of the cam cap holes. He also clearanced the tapped bores so the high lift cams fit. All seen in below pic.

Below pic shows some more goodies like ape clutch kit, ape cam gears, better master cylinder. Lots of little stuff.

Also lacing up 2 new rims.

So, if anyone knows anything about fixing frames, or if you’ve had experience with anything similar, feel free to chime in… thnx.

For a crappy old 70’s bike… man they can make some power.

Pics are from here:
http://elcorramotors.blogspot.com

Still looks funny no matter how you say it.

A couple Honda and Suzuki in there.

Pics are shitty low res. whatever.

Pretty cool to see how they set certain things up. I recently added a lockhart oil cooler to my z1 and set it up in the normal spot above the headers and ran the lines over the engine and under the fuel tank.

Take note of how some of the race bike oil coolers are. Wayyyy in front or all the way in the back. Wild. And some are frickin huge.

Some really cool seats too.

Yea we drank too much in Milwaukee trying to make the post from yesterday…

Milwaukee is wayyyy cooler than Green Bay. Green Bay can suck a dick.

So… We did stuff.

Hangover pending… we’ll update tomorrow.

So we met a 21yr old dude named Blake from this little town here called Christmas. Super nice dude.

He camped with us the other night. He’s a local here at pictured rocks.

He showed us some badass shit.

He said he used to swim distance competitively… And would swim from island to island here which is like 5 miles and can hold his breath for 3 mins.

He told us a story about him ice fishing and he fell through the ice and the current in Lake Superior was so strong he couldn’t pop out the hole he fell through… So he had to swim under the ice to the next hole he could find and popped out there and he thought he was gonna die. So f-ing nuts.

He showed us a spot called “paradise” which is rock jumping spots off of the shoreline. We probably swam 3/4 of a mile in Lake Superior. It was gnarly. The sandstone rips you apart like a electric sander if you hit it wrong. It caught me a couple times.

Also ate fresh blueberries.

Then he took us to one of his fishing holes and we fished for 3 hours.

I dunno about you… But I do not have patience for fishing. It was cool this one time as a novelty thing but overall… It’s not for me.

– we made our way to pictured rocks which is a national park which borders the south end of Lake Superior.

– crazy 300 ft tall cliffs that go down into the lake

– water is insane crystal clear

– hung out and took a mid day nap at a corner store

– got pasties for dinner

– a “pasty” is similar to a meat pot pie that is enclosed on all sides… It’s okay. It’s their big thing up here I guess

– we camped at some random spot on the lake. Met a dude named Blake who is a local and he’s showing us some rad shit tomorrow

– woke up on the beach and a maintenance guy called the cops on us but cops never came

– headed north back over the 5 mile mackinaw bridge towards pictured rocks national lakeshore in the upper peninsula of Michigan.

– mackinaw city is a horrible tourist trap. Never go there

– we were served lunch by a dead lady who charged us to plug our phones into the outlet to charge them. Lame

– lazy day of riding

– met a church pastor with a sweet 82 Goldwing

– we swam in Lake Superior. Cold as shit

– napped on beach

– we met some cool girls from Detroit. We camped with them

– got boozed up on the beach till 2am

‘Where the men are men and so are the women’. – guy at the lunch spot stop.

We tried to get up and out of Leno’s place before he got up and pulled another wild card on us. It was a 3 mile dirt road back to a real road.

We crossed the border and rode a boring straight highway to Mackinac. We ripped 3 wide on the highway doing a 100mph for miles without seeing other cars. Crossed over the 5 mike long bridge which is mainly metal grate… Sketchy feeling but pretty rad.

In Macinaw Ed asked a guy where all the babes in bikinis are and he laughed and told us that they’re all corn fed women here.

So we found a beach drank our whiskey and then setup camp and went swimming. We had a good laugh about the previous night and were happy to sleep easy tonight.