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Well Kawboy is right the engineer in me says " OEM is best" but the mechanic in me looks at the factory tensioner and replies "No way!"

I have had a roller lock style tensioner fail on my 650 while riding and I'm lucky no serious damage was done. That type of tensioner is a bad design, and the double wedge type was only marginally better. When they go bad, it's without warning and instantaneous.

The zx-11 tensioner has very robust ratcheting mechanism that fits the block of the 1300. It's spring is stronger and a member on this site compared the stock spring to a shortened spring over thousands of miles and that was enough to convince me to try it.

I run several steel Liska timing chain rollers in my 650 in place of rubber guide wheels. They are very good quality, but here is where the engineer in me is going to speak up.

Kawasaki used plastic for that part for the same reason they used a plastic gears on the waterpump drive and the oil pump, to reduce noise. The stock guide wheel should last a very long time as long as the chain its not too loose, too tight, or to gets overheated. I put the oem guide in my engine and I'm not worried about it.

As far as your tensioner setting the number of clicks is irrelevant. Measure your chain and see if it's within the service limit. If its stretched you will have to replace it. Kawboy has a thread detailing the replacement of the chain using new chain and a master link so you don't have to split the cases to do the job.

Now was far oil consumption is concerned I agree to hold off on an overhaul. Valve seals are a common problem on Kawasaki 2 valve engines. If your compression is good, and it runs strong then a rebuild may not be necessary.

I had no choice on my 1300, my compression was low, the engine burned lots of oil, smoked badly, etc. Usually by the time the rings are gone, head is due for a vale job. That was my case as well, in fact I had to replace all the valves with new ones.

My point is, once you start a rebuild on the 1300 you may just open up a giant can of worms. Be prepared.

Hope this helps.

I looked at the tensioner issue from the other end, the standard spring is the correct weight to put the correct amount of pressure
on the cam chain. i tapped a thread in the end and put in a back stop bolt and lock nut to stop it from failing.a simple fix.

Ian

I'm with you kwak1261. That is the safest soloution.
It would be interesting to measure the force needed to compress the ZX spring compared to the KZ spring, over a given length.

Counting the clicks when installing a ZX11 cam chain tensioner is done to measure the wear on the plastic cam chain idler gear. With a new gear installed, the tensioner will extend only 1 or 2 clicks. 10 clicks is the service limit for gear wear. If it goes beyond 10 clicks, the idler gear needs to be replaced.