tuck the holes on the back of piston have to do with the porting.
i have done some more to the bike, but it is not finished. been busy at work this week, not much time, also bad weather slowed me down.
some progress
mounted footpegs, used oem hardware
exhaust mounted
as mentioned i am using a honda rear wheel, but didn't have one built laying around. i had all the parts, so laced a wheel up last night. once mounted built the rear brake, bled, etc. if anyone cares, i can elaborate on what it takes to mount a honda rear wheel.
used a 88 up rear pedal. little bit longer than oem 86-87. used honda master/ caliper/ line, 240mm rotor
trimmed off the oem honda caliper guard brackets, left the oem kawi bracket. looks pretty normal i think.
on the front brake issue, i found that the bolt spacing on 89 forks are same as 04 up honda. problem is the caliper is located in a different spot on fork tube than honda. so honda bracket will bolt up, but not work. since i am using a 260mm front rotor i tried a 04 up 260mm rotor bracket for honda, was worse. here is what the oem 240mm honda bracket looks like where it needs to be
you can see the lower mount needs to be fixed. i made a tab to mount it up. it will work perfect.
i was getting anxious, so i mounted the fuel tank, and installed a carb.. using a pwk off a late 90s cr250 or kx250. bike fired almost right up, everything sounded fine. no clatter from powervalves or anything. after a minute or so of running i noticed the rear of head was leaking water. i bought a athena gasket kit, but regardless the gasket was leaking to the outside. i let it run a little more, shut off, re tourqed head, started back up and seems fine. we'll see i guess. i really didn't like how the head mounted. it doesn't seem to center up well. i remember i just squared everything up. would be a good thing in future to pin it or dowel or something.
i put on the right sidepanel and stuck the seat on.
i have a tall foam mounted on a reproduction cover. the radiator shroud is just hanging there, looks pretty tweaked. junk maier stuff.
didn't plan on using yellow carb vent lines, all i had a laying around.
looking at the pic it brings back some good memories, been a while since i had an old kawasaki around.
on my steering issue, i ended up taking a hair of material of each side of upper clamp, then welded up stop on either side on frame. i lost about 2-3 degrees sweep each way. the upper clamp is solid where i removed a little, shouldn't affect a thing.
am little bummed about the head. hopefully re tourqing it did the trick. think i will need to end up removing though. would prefer all metal gasket. cometic makes a gasket kit for top end, maybe theres' is like a late model. i tried my compression release also, didn't seem to do anything much . need to put a guage on it. was really wanted to race a kx tomorrow, but one more week isn't going to matter.