Blast from the Past

See where my love for Red Kawasaki's began!
Brand new AR50A1
Pic was taken 19 December 1981, having just collected it from the dealership. I was 15 years old!

Wow, a baby GPZ! Funny seeing shorts and barefoot on a motorcycle, I remember doing the same damn thing. It sure seems like stupid behavior 50 years later.

Mike

This is the same bike I was riding in the first picture of the thread with the 73 tank. Now it has a 1978 KZ1000 take off tank from the local dealership, KZ1000 cylinder with stock pistons and a ATP Turbo Kit that I traded my Kerker for + $300. The best I did at Kearney Dragway was 11.00 sec. E.T. @ 130MPH with a street tire and 5 lbs. of boost (IIRC). It had some pretty serious Turbo Lag, but was sure impressive how it pulled in 3rd gear as hard or harder than 1st. I so wanted to twist that bolt on the manual wastegate for a couple more lbs. of boost to get into the tens, but I chickened out! The guy I sold it to had no qualms about more boost, and when I helped him rebuild the motor after he crashed the bike I discovered the ring lands had been destroyed.

Mike

krazee1 wrote: This is the same bike I was riding in the first picture of the thread

How did you get the shocks to mount behind the rear axle? That looks funky. And why?

DOHC wrote:

krazee1 wrote: This is the same bike I was riding in the first picture of the thread

How did you get the shocks to mount behind the rear axle? That looks funky. And why?[/quot

There were shock relocation blocks available at the time, I don't remember the brand. They moved the lower shock mount back 5" or so increasing the shock angle and lowering the back end of the bike. It helped vertically challenged riders, such as myself to be able to flatfoot, and we thought it looked cool. The shocks are of course less effective at that angle, but with a 130lb. ass in the seat it didn't matter.

blue58, Did you do the Red to Black swap on your 78 1000? That's where my red tank came from, pretty strange someone went from Red to Black in Nebraska, the home of The Huskers/Big Red! (they were good back then).

Mike

I got my bike used with 10-12 thousand miles on her in 81, it was stock black and built in Lincoln but everyone was painting their bikes black so I went with Fire mist bronze, a Cabby color from the 70's, a few years ago I was lucky enough to find a stock tank and tail in original black so I went back.

Jerome AZ 2016

krazee1 wrote:

DOHC wrote:

krazee1 wrote: This is the same bike I was riding in the first picture of the thread

How did you get the shocks to mount behind the rear axle? That looks funky. And why?[/quot

There were shock relocation blocks available at the time, I don't remember the brand. They moved the lower shock mount back 5" or so increasing the shock angle and lowering the back end of the bike. It helped vertically challenged riders, such as myself to be able to flatfoot, and we thought it looked cool. The shocks are of course less effective at that angle, but with a 130lb. ass in the seat it didn't matter.

have a set on my kh 400 .Heres a pc

Here is my bike showing the lowering blocks and extended brake caliper bar sold as a kit back in the day.
I still currently run the caliper chrome extended bar .
BlueJay
I love the burning mud bog pickup truck picture
I used to do that shit all the time
Here is my 79 GMC 4x4. I jazzed it up like I did all my toys back before kids and marriage consumed all my fun money.
I will look for the custom painted winged dragon pictures that I added after this picture

That mud bog was at the Plymouth Rock camp ground up by Road America, sadly a girl and her boy friend were ran over during a Can-Am weekend and she was killed.
They filled it in with boulders after that.

Party on Wayne! Excellent on the party pictures! Beer Involved! Love It! Been There and did it all!
Back then. We would always cut off the shock mount! Flush to swingarm. Then drill a 3/8" hole below, and use a good hardened bolt to lower the shocks. I wish I had a better picture of one?