1977 Kawasaki KZ1000 Specs and Restoration

For many years, Dino Ricci’s 1977 Kawasaki KZ1000 was tucked away first in the corner of a garage, then dismantled and stored high on a shelf. Make no mistake, though, the Kawasaki was an important piece of Dino’s past — he’s owned the bike since the early 1980s and was responsible for adding thousands of miles to the odometer.

Born and raised in northeast Ohio, Dino was blessed with 250 acres of land he could explore. And explore it he did, at the age of nine, aboard a Honda Mini Trail. “I remember being with my mom when she bought it for me, and the bike being lifted into the trunk of her car to bring it home,” he says. “I rode that Honda really hard, and it was bulletproof.”

By the time he was 12, Dino graduated to a Bridgestone 90 and tore up the gravel roads around his family’s property. While the Honda had been reliable, Dino often had to wrench on the Bridgestone to ensure it remained running. When he was 14, he worked long summer days on the family farm and in compensation, he says, “I talked my dad into buying me a BSA 441 Victor, and I rode that around for quite a few years before I traded it for a VW.”

More, then less

Motorcycles weren’t forgotten and his next bike was a custom 1956 Triumph T110 put together out of boxes, followed by a 1969 Harley-Davidson Sportster. Dino studied mechanical engineering and designed machine tools for a living, which allowed him to buy a couple more Harleys aboard which he and his wife would tour. In the early 1980s the family decided to move to California, and Dino sold almost everything, including the bikes and their house.

It didn’t escape Dino’s attention, however, that the buyer of their house rode a ’77 Kawasaki KZ1000. It had been purchased new, and Dino managed to negotiate transfer of the Kawasaki’s title as part of the house deal. The KZ1000 went with Dino to California where he rode it on the roads of the Sierra Nevada mountains. “Highway 49 [so-named as it follows the 1849 route of those seeking their fortune in gold] was a favorite road,” Dino says, and recalls his time out west on the KZ, “It handled so well, it was fast, and it was smooth.”

Two years later, the family was moving to Minnesota, and then to Wisconsin, where Dino eventually opened his own machine shop and continued to ride the KZ until his daughter was born in 1986. At that point, his priorities changed and he decided to park the bike.

“I put the Kawasaki in a corner of the garage, covered it and basically forgot about motorcycles until my daughter was finished high school in 2004,” Dino says.

That’s when he bought himself a Ducati ST4 and started riding again. And then his thoughts turned to the Kawasaki. Restoring it to its former glory was his goal, but he didn’t want to perform the task himself. Dino asked a mechanic at the local motorcycle dealership who restored mostly European machines if he might be interested in taking on the Kawasaki.

Nasty find

“I uncovered the KZ and discovered that it had become a mouse house,” Dino says, and continues, “But the mechanic said he’d do the restoration, and he came and picked up the bike.”

Two years went by. Then, Dino says, “I didn’t want to nag him, but eventually I called him to check on progress. He simply said he didn’t feel like working on it and told me he’d bring it back. Well, he brought it back all right, in a thousand pieces! He said, ‘I didn’t charge you for breaking it down,’ and I said I could have done that myself. I was bitter about it, and just stored it away and didn’t do anything else.”

When the family moved to South Carolina in 2006 the bits of Kawasaki came along in its boxes. Dino built a large shop on the property and the Kawasaki was stored high on a shelf, where “I’d get pissed off every time I looked at it,” he exclaims. Dino was angry but he wasn’t willing to give up on the 1977 KZ1000, which was the first year for the larger Kawasaki.

Tracing the history of the KZ1000, it’s essentially based on the Z-1 900, a machine first introduced for the 1973 model year. Kawasaki’s Z-1 900 featured a 903cc, double overhead cam, 4-cylinder engine designed by engineer Gyoichi “Ben” Inamura. At that time, the Z-1 was the most powerful machine produced by a Japanese manufacturer, putting out 82 horsepower at 8,500rpm. In 1976, the Z-1 became the KZ900, and that was really something of a transitional model as Kawasaki had been at work developing the liter-sized powerplant for the 1977 machine.

Getting bigger

To create the 1,015cc KZ1000 mill, Kawasaki bumped up the bore size from 66mm to 70mm. “While the displacement changes were being done, the factory also reduced mechanical clatter by thickening the castings for the camshaft covers and side plates,” wrote the editors of Cycle World magazine in the December 1976 issue.

They continue, “Some other changes followed automatically. Valves and camshaft timing are as before, which has had the effect of moving the power peak to a lower rpm. The combustion chambers are slightly enlarged and reshaped, so the 10-percent larger engine has a compression ratio only a touch higher at 8.7:1 than the 8.5:1 ratio of the smaller engine. In total result, then, the 1,015cc engine is rated at 83hp at 8,000 rpm and 58.6 lb.-ft. of torque at 6,500 rpm, while the smaller unit had a rated hp of 82 at 8,500 and claimed torque of 54.3 at 7,000 rpm.”

Another change was from a 4-into-4 exhaust system to a 4-into-2. Of note, Cycle World explained the change was an attempt to push more hot exhaust out the mufflers to dry out condensation. And that, according to restoration expert Brady Ingelse of Retrospeed in Belgium, Wisconsin, wasn’t as successful as Kawasaki might have hoped and we’ll hear more about that shortly.

Additionally, the KZ1000 switched from a drum rear brake to a disc to supplement the single disc front brake fitted to North American machines — European buyers got KZ1000s with twin front discs. A frame gusset was added to stiffen the steering head area, and the power was impressive. “The KZ1000 is the quickest production bike we’ve tested,” Cycle World enthused, “and it’s still King of the Superbikes.”

Two colors were available upon release in 1977, Diamond Wine Red and Diamond Sky Blue –Dino’s was finished in blue. Finally tired of looking at the boxes and being upset about the situation, Dino asked friends if they knew anyone capable of the restoration challenge. His Wisconsin-based financial advisor, who is a 2-stroke fanatic and has worked with Brady Ingelse and his team at Retrospeed in the past, got the pair connected.

“I called Brady and he said he could do it, but we’d have to wait a few months,” Dino recalls. When the time came to get the KZ from South Carolina to Wisconsin, “I put everything on a pallet and called Old Dominion Freight Line. They picked it up, hauled it up there, and got it in the shop.”

Tough, but not impossible

Brady picks up the thread. “It was 100 percent completely disassembled when we got it and if the boxes had just been filled with KZ parts it might have been OK, but previous human interaction meant other bits were in there that didn’t really lend themselves to this project,” he says. “For a restoration shop, it’s the worst way to get a bike, but it wasn’t insurmountable.”

He continues, “You can’t look at the parts and mentally inventory all of them, you’ll only fool yourself, especially with the Japanese. They use rubber to isolate everything, and the overall piece count is so much higher. The only thing you can do is start with the engine, restore and rebuild that, and then carry on piecing it together and getting the correct parts as you need them.”

While the crankcase was still bolted together, every other engine component was apart. At Retrospeed, the cases were split and all cast aluminum components — crankcase halves, cylinder and head, were tumbled in a medium that cleaned the surface and brought back the factory-cast appearance.

“It looks like someone put a brand new 1977 Kawasaki in a climate-controlled environment and stored it there for more than four decades,” Brady says of the restored aluminum surface finish. “This went above and beyond.” After that, the cylinders were bored oversize and the head was worked over to bring it back into service. Brady has high praise for the Kawasaki engine, which he says was “very well built” in the first place. A Dyna electronic ignition, new bearings, seals and gaskets were used in the reassembly process, but none of the engine work presented any large problems.

The appearance of the aluminum was just one of three items that Brady says makes Dino’s restoration rather unique. The second feature, and the devil really is in the detail here, is the attention paid to the brake rotors. “The rotors are riveted to the carrier, and you have to remove the rivets to refinish the carrier,” Brady explains. In the past, Retrospeed would split the components and then bolt them back together. “But they didn’t come from the factory that way,” Brady continues. “You can get stainless steel rivets to fit no problem, but there was some kind of device the Japanese used to set the rivets that has been difficult to replicate.”

Through a friend, Brady managed to find a large shop specializing in such complicated tasks. They took on the small job, and did it remarkably well, but told Brady they’d not do it again. It was just too fiddly and time consuming. “That little thing makes such a big difference to the accuracy of the restoration, and it’s really just details,” Brady explains.

The third big challenge on Dino’s restored KZ1000 is the exhaust system. Remember earlier when we alluded to the factory switching from a 4-into-4 to a 4-into-2 system to try and prevent rusting mufflers? Most systems simply rusted out, Brady says. “An original system for the ’77 Kawasaki KZ1000 was one of the most difficult I’ve ever had to source,” he explains. “Most of these stock systems were replaced with an aftermarket 4-into-1, but Dino’s had to be correct.”

After searching Kawasaki forums and spending weeks on eBay, Brady finally spotted a system listed by a seller in New York. “That’s a system I could work with,” Brady thought. “I was prepared to bid to win, but two days into the auction he pulled it down.” Brady tracked the seller down and asked why the auction had ended. Apparently, he didn’t like the berating he was getting from the community for his starting price.

“He just pulled it down and stuck it back in his closet,” Brady says. The reason it was for sale at all is he’d managed to source an NOS exhaust for his own KZ restoration. The one offered on eBay was surplus, and Brady managed to negotiate a price. Getting the set from New York to Wisconsin was the next issue, and neither party felt comfortable having it shipped. Brady sent one of his technicians who was recovering with a broken elbow on a road trip to New York to retrieve the exhaust. The result, Brady says, was worth all the effort. “There’s just nothing else available that comes close to the appearance of the stock set up,” he adds.

The rest of the rebuild was relatively easy, and after finally buttoning everything together, gasoline was added to the tank and the Kawasaki fired to life.

“You turn the gas on, turn the key on, and give it full choke,” Brady says of the starting ritual. “Pull in the clutch lever and hit the start button. It comes immediately to life and idles perfectly. Wean it off the choke, and it’ll idle all day long.”

Ensuring everything works as it should, Brady added about 30 miles to the finished KZ1000.
“It’s got a wonderful, tight ride with the rebuilt forks, new swingarm bushings and all new bearings,” Brady says. “The KZ1000 makes great power and pulls for ages.”

Now back with Dino, he says he’s very happy to have the Kawasaki all in one piece and in factory-fresh condition. But he doesn’t think he’ll swing a leg over the saddle and snick it into gear. “When I was younger, all I could think about was riding, and I rode in sun, rain and snow, but I’ve now hung up my helmet,” and he concludes, “The Kawasaki, for me, is all about the memories it holds.” MC