Kawasaki Kz1000

KAWASAKI KZ1000

CYCLE WORLD TEST

"The seasons they go round and round The painted ponies go up and down." -from "The Cycle Game"

The painted ponies we refer to here are motorcycles, and as Joni Mitchell implies in her ballad, nothing stays the same. One season your machine is the absolute last word in pavement scorchers,

next time around it’s just another big displacement street honker. Yesterday's rocket is like Saturday's hero; it grows up and goes on to a broader range of pursuits. It becomes a touring bike.

It becomes a touring bike in this application, anyway. When we first tested the Kawasaki KZ1000 (December, 1976), it was the successor to the legendary Z1 and. with quarter-mile numbers of 12.19 sec. at 107 mph, the hottest thing on the street. We’d never tested anything faster. That status lasted just as long as it took the Big Four to open their missile silos for this season’s barrage. Now all a 12-sec. quarter-mile time gets you in the superbike drag derby is a finisher’s pin; you're at least a half-second too slow to win.

A year ago the KZlOOO’s 83 bhp was enough to get you from point A to point B quicker than anyone else on two wheels. Now it’s 20 horses light in the mightybike numbers game, and seven bhp short of the top of its own line (the supersleek Zl-R).

But 83 bhp is still enough to haul you from Kennebunkport to San Diego at extra-legal velocities without straining a cam follower. We appreciated the KZlOOO’s sizzling performance the first time around, but we may have overlooked its versatility. The KZ1000 can be made to go quickly, yes. But with its broad powerband and plentiful torque, the rocket is also capable of playing pack horse. Just how well it can perform this service is what we intend to find out during the months ahead.

As noted in the introductory test of the Suzuki GS550 last month, we’re undertaking at least two long-term evaluations of pavement bikes this year. Putting a year’s worth of mileage on a bike is a much more meaningful test of a machine’s capabilities, in our estimation, than the handful of performance indicators we accumulate during the course of one of our regular tests. When you’ve lived with a bike for a year, you know its strengths, weaknesses, versatility and character. In the case of the KZ1000, we want to know how our bike will hold up through all those miles while carrying touring luggage, fairing and, as much as possible, two riders.

Since this is the first time we’ve set out to employ a long-term bike specifically as a tourer, the question of make and model stirred up considerable debate, as you might imagine. We examined the possibility of harnessing one of the many excellent 750cc machines on the market, inasmuch as the 750, once the displacement you looked at if you were interested in an all-out street stornier, has become a favorite with many tourers. (It’s another example of the Yesterday's Rocket phenomenon.) However, since we’ll be doing a comparison of several 750cc approaches to touring in a month or two, we discarded this displacement category for our longtermer.

Yesterday's Rocket Becomes Today ’s Super Tourer

Then we considered the big bike field. The Honda GL1000. one of our Top 10 last year, seemed a natural candidate considering the value it offers and its immense popularity. But the Gold Wing’s virtues as a tourer are hardly unknown, and we ultimately passed it over for this reason: Everyone knows the Gold Wing is an excellent touring bike. It seems to us we can pass along more useful information by doing our touring with another machine.

The question of availability also affected our considerations, and thus limited the candidacy of the new' Yamaha XS11. Besides being a breathtaking road wrinkler, this 1 lOOcc shafty has outstanding touring potential and seems likely to take a serious bite out of the Gold Wing market. However, the XS11, like any new' model, is still in the process of going through its initial round of road tests and isn’t available for long-term tests until later in the model year. In order to accumulate 12,000 miles (our tentative goal) and report our experiences before we get too far into our 1979 issues, we had to have our machine in house and cooking in January of 1978. By choosing an established model, we’ve met this criterion. At this writing the KZ1000 has already accumulated 1300 miles.

There’s one other reason for picking the KZ 1000 over some of the shaft-drive models. Shaft drive and low maintenance are directly related concepts in the minds of many serious touring riders. Chain drives still seem to be suspect for long hauls, the sort of thing that’s most likely to let you down when you’re cruising from Wichita to Calgary. We think this prejudice is antiquated; we think modern motorcycle drive chains, properly maintained and lubed, are just as serviceable as shaft-drive systems. The #630 chain on our Kawasaki looks tough enough to be used for oil drill rigs or San Francisco-Tierra Del Fuego runs with equal success. We’ll see.

We also want to examine one or more of the aftermarket oil-retaining chains, and a reasonably serious touring bike is an excellent test bed for these and other product evaluations. A good place to check out a new fairing, for example. And perhaps aftermarket shocks. A quartz-halogen headlamp seems indispensable, based on our experiences with our 1977 long-term Kawasaki KZ650; auxiliary lighting seems attractive as well. What’s a good bet in touring luggage? We’ll have a few suggestions when we pass along our choice. How about a cruise control? CB? Radar detector? We’re hoping to avoid having the bike become a two-wheeled sequel to the Joad family, but there are obviously a lot of tour-handy items you can attach to your scoot.

Our KZ1000 appears to be a good one, which is thanks in considerable measure to Mr. Jack Murphy, who does some go-fast stuff for American Kawasaki and also oversees the company’s test fleet. Mr. Murphv handed the Kaw over to us with 800 prudent miles on the clock, sparing us the terrors of break-in. The bike arrived in good running order in all respects and is actually a hair faster than the one we tested the first time around.

The Kawasaki Thousands come in a couple permutations, A2 and D1, the latter belonging to the new Zl-R. However, they differ only in carburetor bore size (the Zl-R’s Mikunis are 28mm) and exhaust systems. Our bike’s A2 version rates seven bhp fewer than the Zl-R. but both Z 1000s we’ve tested have been a tad quicker than our sample of the Zl-R. We don't feel as positive about the Kayaba forks. They respond well enough to small irregularities in the road, thanks to a progressive spring rate that gets quite firm when the going gets heavy. And rebound damping seems to be about right. However, our bike has a slight wiggle in the front end at back road barnstorming speeds and although it doesn't come on abruptly it is far from being a harmonious presence when the scenery speeds up. We’re not certain whether the frame, which got some needed gusseting the last time around, contributes something to this. However, it’s only fair to note that this occurs under cornering forces that usually aren’t part of a tourer’s inventory of abuses. A bike with a fairing and luggage lashed to it doesn’t lend itself particularly well to peg-scraping.

Fuel consumption during our first 200 miles or so, which includes strip mileage, was an average 42.7 mpg.

Kawasaki hasn’t changed much on this bike since its introduction, but there are a few alterations embodied in this year’s offering. The swing arm now rides in needle bearings (an improvement that also went to the other larger Kawasakis this year), and the front disc brake caliper now rides at the rear of the fork leg. (Overall braking continues to be one of the bike’s strong points.) Turn signal lights have a constant illumination, flashing brigher during signaling, à la Honda, a nice safety touch to distinguish your headlamp from the one-eyed car look and increase general visibility. (Unlike Honda, Kawasaki still allows us to turn our own headlamps on and off.) The shape and capacity of the brake fluid reservoir have been changed, gaining slightly in capacity. Bodywork colors are Luminous Green and Luminous Red, to quote from the brochure. Our bike is red. with handsome gold striping on the tank. These bikes have always looked good, but we particularly like this year’s packaging.

The KZ1000 hasn’t needed much in the way of suspension attention from the company engineering staff’ as the bike rides and handles well right out of the crate. The stock Kayaba shocks are a trifle firm but otherwise very good. They'll give way to aftermarket shocks fairly soon, but not because they’re deficient as an all-purpose OEM street shock; we simply wish to install some shocks more specialized for the touring rider.

OEM tires on the KZIOOO are Japanese Dunlops (K87 rear, F6 front). They are proven items, offering plenty of stick and good wear. However, like the rear shocks they’ll give way to a substitute set giving us an opportunity to study another product.

Another system due for replacement is the stock exhaust, which, like most factoryinstalled exhaust systems today, is legislated into the role of strangler. We haven’t chosen between a 4-into-2 system, which seems more appropriate to a touring setup, and a performance-restoring 4-into-l setup, but an aftermarket exhaust will appear in due course.

Instrumentation and controls remain unchanged from previous KZlOOOs. The speedo indicates up to 160 mph, and the bike will use up most of that at its longlegged top speed (the factory rates this at I3l mph). Emergency flashers are still part of the package, a touch we’d like to see industry-wide, and there’s no beeper to go with the turn signal repeaters, w'hich suits us fine. The brake and clutch levers are angled a trifle too steeply away from the grips; we’ll probably substitute a Magurastyle set of levers. The grips themselves are fine.

We’ve already put our Kawasaki to work in its role as beast of burden. Before it had even done a mile in our care, it was hitched to a Cycle Kamp motorcycle trailer for a little sample of luxury bike camping for our touring issue last month. The bike handled its towing chores without fuss, and in most other ways behaved as we remembered it: positively. It continues to be a comfortable bike to ride for extended periods of time, and it continues to project a blithe spirit.

We look forward to our experiences of playing gypsy with this stimulating motorcycle. Yesterday’s Rocket may just turn out to be a better tourer than the tourers.

KAWASAKI KZ1000

$2899

FRONT FORKS

The big KZ’s fork is rather stiff—fine for straightening out corners at speed, but too harsh for touring. The 55 lb./in. springs are responsible, and should be swapped for a set of progressive coils with a softer initial rate.

REAR SHOCKS

The shocks on the KZ1000’s rear are fine. Proper spring and damping rates yield a good combination of comfort and control. The hard-core tourer or racer would benefit from some accessory units, but the majority of riders will find the stock shocks entirely acceptable.

Tests performed at Number 1 Products