TOPIC:

See Norton Wankers all the time.

Wait, what?

The bike looks stunning!

Paul

Thanks!

I pulled the tank to address the oil leak. It was actually at the tach drive. Pulled it apart, cut a new gasket for it, snugged everything up, and its back together leak free now.

I also took the fuel cap apart. The passage through the cap was clear, but the little hole in the part that holds the latch was plugged. Cleared that out, and it no longer builds pressure in the tank.

Think were in good shape for riding season.

PropaV8r, thanks for the great write-up about your trip to that bike show. Your 1300 looks fabulous, and must have been an awesome presence for those folk who had never seen one before.
Could you say a few words to describe your riding impressions of this bike, and how it compares to what you have owned previously, please? In particular, the sound, acceleration, ride, handling, brakes. Also, you mentioned the very rich mixture at a certain rev range. - could that be corrected, and would it improve the torque characteristics?
Thank you.

I'd be thrilled with those A/F numbers. You're not going to get better than that unless you switch to open loop fuel injection. ( an O² monitored system. )
The other aspect not mentioned here would be " the temperature and barometric pressure when this dyno run was taken?" That would have an effect on the recorded results.
13.1 @ WOT and 8K rpm- a tad on the lean side and would suggest going up 1 jet on the mains only if you plan on racing and spending a lot of time in this condition. Then to counteract the larger jet, drop the throttle body needles down 1 or 2 notches. 1 up on the main would fatten up the mixture at WOT, target being in the 10-12 range. Dropping the needles down would help sort out the midrange. But if this is to be a street machine, I wouldn't touch it WOT in the 2-5K in fourth is an unusual condition that only happens when running up on a dyno. If you were running a 1/4 mile drag, this condition would happen in 1^st gear and only for a split second. Once past the 5K rpm, you'd be shifting gears and keeping the revs above 5K.

Bottom line- She's running really nice and I wouldn't touch it. Had you not run it up on the dyno with a tailpipe sniffer, you wouldn't know any of this information and I'm guessing it's running like a charm and you're thrilled with how well it's running.

biltonjim wrote: PropaV8r, thanks for the great write-up about your trip to that bike show. Your 1300 looks fabulous, and must have been an awesome presence for those folk who had never seen one before.
Could you say a few words to describe your riding impressions of this bike, and how it compares to what you have owned previously, please? In particular, the sound, acceleration, ride, handling, brakes. Also, you mentioned the very rich mixture at a certain rev range. - could that be corrected, and would it improve the torque characteristics?
Thank you.

Settle in and get comfy...

Short version? I'm in love with this machine.

Long version: This is my favorite machine I've ever ridden (my CBX is currently not roadworthy, so we'll see if that changes ) I'm blown away by how turbine-smooth it is , and how powerful it is at any point in the rev range. You just crack the throttle and it pulls away like a Shinkansen. There aren't many straight roads where I live, and I was a bit trepidatious about how this hunk of bike would handle the curves. My fears were completely misplaced. While you are certainly aware of the size of the machine, it doesn't hinder enjoyment at all.

I've really only spent time on two other machines that would be considered in a similar class to this one, my '78 Goldwing and my '85 BMW K100RS. Both of those bikes are powered by 4-cylinder, 1000cc engines. The Goldwing is a boxer, the K100 was an inline four. Neither of those bikes hold a candle to the power that the KZ1300 produces. The GL is a very capable machine in it's own right, and I'm much more comfortable throwing it into hairpin turns (but I also have 30k more miles in the saddle of that bike than the KZ) than I am the KZ1300, but it's just different. The K100 was a bike that I just never really clicked with. It was a fine machine in it's own regard, but for some reason I never felt really at home on it. Unfortunately, and inattentive driver took that bike from me a bit prematurely. I really feel like the K100 was a vastly overrated machine. The fan club following of those bikes is rabid, and some owners will drone on and on endlessly about how they're the best bikes ever built. Let me tell you, they aren't. They're horribly vibration prone, the transmission and driveshaft splines will strip out of you look at them wrong, parts are HORRENDOUSLY expensive, they're overcomplicated and overengineered for the sake of being overcomplicated and overingineered, and to top it all off, they don't even handle super well and they make very average power! I mean it wasn't a bad bike, just not as good as many people will lead you to believe.

Now back to the KZ...I was frankly surprised by the braking performance. I put a bit more effort into bleeding the system, and even with old rubber lines, braking performance is better than expected. My forks have a little bit of stiction, but not bad. I suspect they'll smooth out after a few thousand miles once the new fork seals bed in a bit.

The sound is just phenomenal. I just wish it was a liiiiiitle louder! It's got that great 6-cylinder howl, but it is extremely quiet. I guess that's a good thing for a stock bike, but I'd very much like to get a little more racket out of it. Maybe not a full exhaust worth of racket, but I may retrofit some other mufflers and wrap up the stockers for safekeeping.We'll see.

All in all, I feel very comfortable on the bike. The seating position is good, there's room to move around on the seat, and I'm perfectly cable of going 150 mile stints at a time without discomfort.

I'm extremely happy with how this bike has come together.

Kawboy wrote: I'd be thrilled with those A/F numbers. You're not going to get better than that unless you switch to open loop fuel injection. ( an O² monitored system. )
The other aspect not mentioned here would be " the temperature and barometric pressure when this dyno run was taken?" That would have an effect on the recorded results.
13.1 @ WOT and 8K rpm- a tad on the lean side and would suggest going up 1 jet on the mains only if you plan on racing and spending a lot of time in this condition. Then to counteract the larger jet, drop the throttle body needles down 1 or 2 notches. 1 up on the main would fatten up the mixture at WOT, target being in the 10-12 range. Dropping the needles down would help sort out the midrange. But if this is to be a street machine, I wouldn't touch it WOT in the 2-5K in fourth is an unusual condition that only happens when running up on a dyno. If you were running a 1/4 mile drag, this condition would happen in 1^st gear and only for a split second. Once past the 5K rpm, you'd be shifting gears and keeping the revs above 5K.

Bottom line- She's running really nice and I wouldn't touch it. Had you not run it up on the dyno with a tailpipe sniffer, you wouldn't know any of this information and I'm guessing it's running like a charm and you're thrilled with how well it's running.

I agree completely. It's also worth noting that I discovered after pulling the bike off the dyno that the choke was about 1/4 on during all the runs. I guess it might've just gotten bumped while putting it up on the dyno or something, so that might account for some of the richness.

But your comment about if I hadn't run it on a dyno with a wideband, I wouldn't know it was rich is EXACTLY correct. I'm more interested in having a good-running bike than I am about achieving the perfect textbook AFR trace. If it runs smooth, has good power, and returns respectable fuel economy, why would I worry about fixing something that's not a problem? Sort of like obsessing about hitting the perfect, per-the-manual idle speed. If the book says idle speed is 800, but my bike idles better at 950, I'm just going to let it idle at 950 where it's happy instead of chasing the dragon of idle speed endlessly.