‘78 Kz1000 w/RC Turbo Kit

I’ve been keeping this bike out of the limelight as I’ve had a LOT going on in my garage. Time to fix that.

Little back story: I’ve wanted a turbo 900/1000 for years. I bought pieces/parts of turbo kits so I could assemble my own complete kit but sold off all of it when I needed funds. I saw this “kit” on KzRider but the ad was a bit confusing. I wasn’t able to tell if the seller was selling the kit or the bike with the turbo kit. I asked the seller and he was selling the kit for the asking price and would throw in the bike for an extra $500. The bike has a clean and clear title, mind you. I eventually called the seller, we talked a good while several times, and finally worked out a deal. Only issue…the bike was in NYC and I’m in the Mid-West. I had the bike picked up and payed for by a good friend in NYC in Oct 2025. He stored it until my shipper could pick it up in late November. Fast-forward to mid-February when it was finally delivered!

Fast-forward again until last week when I was able to finally get it onto my lift and give it a good once over.

I plan on documenting the rebuild on several forums via pictures as well as on YT with videos once I can get time to edit them appropriately.

On to the pics!







To be cont’d….

Later, Doug

Nice, don't see many that complete or nice anymore. I think the $500 extra for the complete titled bike was a good choice.

It has a Dyna2000, Accel coils, extended swingarm and some other little goodies on top of a Mikuni HSR42 carb and boost sensor to go with the RC kit.

Later, Doug

good buy. cool project

I pulled the tank and tail section off. The tail section on the bike was not the tail section in the sale pics. The seller wanted to keep the tail and tail light which didn’t matter to me. I did discover an interesting tail-light bracket once I took off the tail. The original turnsignal mounts were cut off and some 1/2-3/4” square tubing slid into place. None of it was welded on, just bolted, which made removing it fairly easy. I have already sourced the rear section from a scrap frame to attempt to repair/restore it back to original.




The seller had drained the oil but I plan on lowering the bike a couple inches and didn’t like the idea of the stock drain plug and oil filter cover hanging below the fins of the oil pan. Too easy to snag on a trailer ramp, speedbump etc. I pulled the oil filter and found the spring and washer were missing.



To be cont’d…

Later, Doug

After pulling the oil filter and looking into the filter cavity, I noticed a string of black silicon sealant hanging down. This prompted me to pull the oil pan for further inspection. It looks like the O-ring needed replaced but had sealant spread over it. There also were some non-metallic chunks in the bottom of the pan along with a single piece of metal which looks to be from a needle bearing cage.
Pulling the pan also let me visually inspect the crankshaft and transmission.






To be cont’d…

Later, Doug

I took off the camshaft/valve cover as I wanted to check the valve clearances. I was told it had adjustable cam sprockets, but alas, it does not. On a good note, the cams look good and all of the intake clearances were within tolerance along with one exhaust valve. The other three exhausts are out but the shims are in the middle of the range so should be easy to adjust them back in.



While I was removing all the engine covers, I went and pulled the stator cover. Then the magnet and starter clutch. The end of the crank isn’t great looking. It has quite a few grooves from the stator magnet spinning on the nose as it’s a tapered press fit.


I think I’ve decided to use the really nice Falicon-prepped welded crank I had set aside for my moth-balled dragbike project. Along with an FBG under-cut transmission, the engine internals should be strong enough to throw a decent amount of artificial atmosphere at them.

To be cont’d…

Later, Doug

Nice! I'm guessing an old New York City street racer. My Ninja 250 was tuned by one of the really fast guys in NYC back in those days. They raced for money.

Rider52 said:

I'm guessing an old New York City street racer.

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That’s what I gathered. It was run and ran hard through the 90’s. I think it’ll turn out nice in the end.

Later, Doug

Kept moving along with the inspection and clean-up process. I took and gave the oil pan a nice bath in the parts washer after scraping most of the gasket off. I took a larger magnet over the inside of the pan but no more metal pieces were found. It did seem like both sides of the gasket had black RTV sealant them though. I bought an oil pan gate so that will be added to the pan shortly.



The valve cover seems to be powder-coated and had two vents installed although one had a short piece of tubing that was plugged.




Lastly, I looked at the fork and noticed a vehicle inspection sticker from March 2013. That gives a rough idea of how long it’s been sitting.


To be cont’d…

Later, Dougo

I wonder if the second vent on the valve cover was intended for the oil return from the turbo?

That inspection sticker surprises me a bit. I grew up in Pennsylvania, just over the state line from New York State and both states had (and still have) rather draconian vehicle inspection laws requiring that a vehicle be virtually factory stock in order to pass inspection and, therefore, be eligible for registration and annual renewal. I'm very sure that bike w/ that turbo kit on it would have never passed the inspection in either state. Ustawas that even if you changed from clear to amber or vise versa turn signal bulbs they'd fail the inspection. My buddy back there always has two vehicles, one new and one older and he's constantly messing w/ the old one to get it to pass. And believe me, his "beater" is always far nicer than many of the rust bucket, clap trap, loud, and broken down hulks you see all the time here in Ohio because we don't have an inspection system. (I've heard that much of the Harley riders up there hold onto their stock pipes and put them back on for the inspection and then switch back again after getting fresh stickers.)

ex119x said:

I wonder if the second vent on the valve cover was intended for the oil return from the turbo?

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I don’t think so. The turbo drain is gravity fed down to the kickstarter cover. It’s almost like the vent was placed there but later found out that routing the line would have put it close to the turbo.

Later, Doug