TOPIC:

As I said, 13 pistons and KZ650 are almost the same, only the top ring is different between the two. Then, KZ750 two valve engines, same as 650 pistons, only 4mm larger, and the sleeves should take that bore easily. Now, for the KZ750 two valve, there are 4mm O/S big bore kits, which would bore a 13 8mm's. The stock sleeves won't take that bore as they are, they get too thin in wall thickness and strength. So, a set of three siamesed sleeves, cast as one piece, with the correct water seals, would be the way to go, mod the barrel casting, do the sleeves, drop them in, finish hone, instant 8mm bore job, and, the C/R can be adjusted per the dome design for the piston. Now, this would be for a stock stroke crankshaft design, stroker would need different compression height, or, shorter rods.

If you know your MotoGP history, first, there were 1000 cc V5's, then inline 4's from another in Japan (800 and 1000 cc's), then, Ducati (holding my nose while I wrote that), then, back to the inline 4 people (1000 cc). Riders are one new kid, one old guy legend.

Welcome ! Been noticing some famous names being bounced around recently which proves it's a small world. Good memories for those involved !

Dion wrote: Kawaboy
i have done submerged arc welding in Aus, i equated it to being similar to flux core if you have done that, you can run a much higher amp setting with submerged arc giving a bigger weld thats does flow out more so than fluxcore great on big stuff we where welding 50mm plate,on mining crusher hoppers means less runs.
a feeder unit lays the dry powder along the nozzle leaving the arc completely submerged during lay and cooling we used a buggy on tracks, for the uninitiated this is not a hold in your hand gun setup.
my thoughts would be possibly it would cause distortion to a crank(thoughts only as have not tried)
i was in the welding game England,Europe,Aus some 30 years off shore / minning sites/and specialist fabrication shops and did alloy tig welding on 500cc gp bikes for kenny roberts,
codded in alloy s/steel Duoplate Steel mig/tig/arc/fluxcore.
fantastic industry to be in really fascinating all the different procedures, i believe its a industry you cant get bored with or ever know everything about its just so huge
can i ask what welding you like the most
Dion

There's so many posts on this topic that I missed this one.

Most of the wwelding in the nuke plant was tig root stick fill and cap. Mostly carbon steel and stainless steel. The pipework on the generator cooling was copper so I also carried a copper tig ticket. it was a bit of a pig to weld. All of the pipework in the Vacuum Storage Building was 4043 Aluminum so another TIG ticket for aluminum. And probably the hardest ticket I carried was MIG pipe. Most people think MIG welding is the easiest to weld but it truely is not. To do xray quality welding with MIG is really tough. You HAVE to keep the wire burning into the base material and not riding on the puddle otherwise the heat is just keeping the puddle hot and not melting the base material fusing the weld.
My favorite welding is thin gauge sheetmetal with pulse tig. I own a Thermal Arc 186 AC DC pulse machine and I really like it when I can pull off a full penetration butt weld on 18 gauge sheet metal. I took a ZRX1100 rad fan and cut the shroud and married it up to a KZ1300 fan shroud and butt welded. That gave me a 6 blade rad fan that pushes 30% more air than the KZ1300 rad fan. Really turned out nice.

I ran a welding shop in the Nuclear Plant which loaded 386 spent fuel bundles into an 82 ton flask which was 7Ft. wide X 12 Ft. long and 12 Ft. high. The lid on the flask weighed 12 tonnes. The container was loaded underwater, then raised and drained of the water, then vacuum dried, then the lid was welded to the base with a semi automatic pulse MIG welding machine and controlled from a remote control room. The welders watched the weld through cameras and manipulated the controls to weld in 10 passes which ate up 82 pounds of ER70SD2 filler wire with a .064" diameter running in at 450 Amp average. The welding machine was 1.2 Million dollars. I had a storage facility outside of my office which held 580 containers of spent fuel. All that fuel was every bundle of fuel burned up in the first 25 years of operating 8 running reactors. We handled the most toxic material on the face of the earth and you could literally eat off of the floors in the welding shop. They were that clean.

Kawaboy
can i ask what got you into the welding indsutry?
i grew up in a small coastal town, ended up doing a trade(now defunct) in NZ as an Automotive engineer, now its all segmented into minor car trades.
anyways as part of the curriculum i had to learn arc and gas welding(oxy acetylene).
the company was sold half way through my 5yr course to some panel beaters. the shop ran as Garage in the day and panel beaters at night,over the years i would hang around at night and learnt mig welding.
i later moved to England where i ended up stainless mig then trained and coded into ASME 9 6G stainless for work on the Chunnel as it was called Tig root fill and cap,i actually prefer complete Tig on pipe work rather than Tig Root then Flux core fill and cap, once you get the habbit of walking the cup.My later years in the mining running fluxcore was the hardest really heavey spools and feeder units carrying them around up and down 3/6 meter jobs with all your gear, kept me fit ill give it that.
i had originaly gone to England to take up a offer by Mick Grant and Durex Suzuki to race jamie whittams gsxr600, that all fell to bits when the British ACU would not allow my international race licence to translate into a British National license (lot of politics in those days trying to protect British riders and the rides)Dunlop asked me to go and work for them as a technician in the 500 gp
i later moved to Australia where i got a job for a bike hire/repair shop who specialized in alloy Tig so i hung around at night (again) and learnt that.
Kenny Roberts gave me a job in 500GP as 2nd mechanic Transport operator for Randy Mamola and doing Tig welding/fabrication for the marlboro/budweiser bikes, that was very challenging due to the cost of the parts If you fo pared!!
after that i moved to Perth and a boat yard was after a alloy mig welder,! i figured my old man was a boat builder so i knew about boats i had mig steel experiance and tig alloy surley i could work that out, so told the guy i needed a bit of practice to set the machine up.
after a hr he came out and said good enough. 2yrs later Ocean fast marine put me into a alloy mig training course 1/2/3/4G for xray welding on their 70meter Cats.
i then spent some 5/6 yeras in the alloy High speed ferry industry ending up at Austal ships building the 100 meter Cats as a Hull xray seem welder, 42degrees celcius laying on your back overalls leather welding jacket hood/mask helmet ! oh yeah 12 hr days i used to burn a role of wire a day.
i then went back to Europe working for Red BullYamaha, i built all their workshop benches wheel racks operated transporter and general dogsbody (Simon Crafer and Regis laconi where the riders)
i finished my Gp years with TSR Honda based in Milton keynes England
I went Back to perth and a person i knew needed help for his bussiness doing mig steel and flux core, mainly stuff for a Dutch offshore survey company Fugro Marine, slowly i did more and more work with him and in the offshore industry so did all the relevant 4G tickets in Fluxcore 20mm plate and low Hydrogen ARC. great working environment as we did mining offshore ship mobilizations changing welding materials codes environments constantly
worked for a crowed Orontide international welding Bizaloy and Duoplate in the mines and cement furnace works.
i expect Canada does not have the weather extreme in summer as Perth 42 in perth some of the mines i was in would hit 45 in the shade 48 outside, try that with all the gear on Yeah ha, probably why my heads a bit slower these days! Fried a few brain cells
but surley never got near a Nuc power plant, one could only imagine the work inductions and safety procedures for that!
have seen a few older Stainless welders sadly that never used breathing gear, Chromium stuffed them
never come across copper tig welding so you have just enlightened me to another tig welding material, tig is by far my favorite, especially alloy and some of the exotics, titanium
Dion

My story isn't as interesting as yours. I finished high school and jumped right into a auto mechanic apprenticeship. Got my mechanics licence by age 21. Was working in a Chrysler Dealership when witnessing a tune up mechanic get into a verbal disagreement with the shop foreman over a recent tuneup, then the mechanic dropped to the floor. Massive heart attack at age 66. Dead. I looked at him laying on the floor and swore that wouldn't be me.
I went for an interview at the Head office for Ontario Hydro and was offered a job at the Pickering Nuclear Power Plant as a "Mechanical Maintainer" I didn't have a clue what the job was but the benefits and pension plan was all I was focused on. 9 months of training and getting paid $8.25/hour to train when as a fully qualified mechanic I was making $8.00 an hour (back in 1980). My career path had me trained as a Fitter working on turbines, compressors, water pumps etc. Much like a typical millwright. Then Boss at the time neded more welders on the crew so he threw me head on into welding. Never looked back. Loved it. 5 years later, started moving up the ladder. First foreman then First Line Manager and then finishing off as Section Manager in the Nuclear Waste Facility.30 years later I retired. Boring !!

The real story here is how 2 guys who were fully integrated into the international racing scene ended up with KZ 1300s ?? How is it that these 2 guys (Dion and USAKZ1300) ran with the Big Dogs and are now monkeying around with the mighty KZ1300's. That befuddles me. My dream as a young man was to get my hands on a TZ750 and make it street legal. 4 cylinders, and all that smoke. I could do some real damage. 45 years later and I'm conversing with 2 guys that played in the game I only dreamed of and they're messing around with a KZ just like me and I got to ask "How did that happen?"

I have more than one TZ, all sizes and vintages. When the TZ750's came out, I assisted converting one to street use for the late Zack Reynolds, R. G. Reynolds Tobacco President. I am a collector of both interesting motorcycles, and American muscle cars. I have worked for Carroll Shelby, Zora Arkus-Duntov, Holley Carbs, and advised even more. I have 349 motorcycles and 124 cars, will one day retire and put them all into a museum I will build.

Hey, a guy's gotta have hobbies, if not, we go crazy.