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1979 Kawasaki KZ400 - 4-Page Vintage Motorcycle Road Test Article
Original, vintage magazine articlePage Size: Approx. 8\" x 11\" (21 cm x 28 cm) each pageCondition: Good
Five years ago.when Kawasaki intro-duced the KZ400. theHonda 350 was thehottest selling motor-cycle in America. Itshows. Kawasaki paidHonda the ultimatecompliment. TheKZ400 was designedas a bigger and better CB350.Since that time Honda has developed itsown bigger and belter 350. a trio of 400scalled Hawks. The other Japanese motor-cycle manufacturers have also come outwith their own 400cc Twins. High schoolparking lots are filled with them. So areshowrooms.Kawasaki was the first Japanese manu-facturer to produce a 400cc street bike, asize all the companies have now settled on.That makes the KZ400 the oldest design.It\'s a conventional design in 1978: Singleoverhead cam parallel Twin with chaindriven counterbalancers.Both 64mm pistons move up and downtogether because of the 360-degree crank.That spaces firing intervals evenly apartbut also causes vibration. And that’s whythe counterbalancers. Two small counter-balancers. both running opposite the di-rection of the crank, are placed down nearthe crank, one in front and one behind.The chain which turns the counterbalanc-ers is driven from the center of the crank,off\'a sprocket immediately adjacent to thecam chain drive sprocket. There is a chainguide on the balancer chain but no adjust-ment for tension. The cam chain, however,has a tensioner, adjustable from the frontof the engine.For 1978 the KZ400 engine has beenchanged slightly. It’s nice to report that allthe changes are improvements. The origi-nal 400 Kawasaki was prone to leak oilboth from the head gasket and the rockerarm covers. To eliminate the head gasketleak, an external oil fine now replaces theinternal oil passage. The oil line connectsto the block at the oil pressure light senderand runs up to the head, which has beenchanged in several important ways.No longer are valves adjusted by movingthe rocker shafts. Now the rocker armshave conventional threaded adjusters onthe valve end and screw-in caps for accessto the adjusters. The caps and external oilline look just like what Triumphs have hadfor forty years. They work. loo. No leaks orweepage was noticed during the test.Other changes were made to (he trans-mission where a sixth gear was added.Instead of gearing the bike either higher orlower, the additional gear is used to makeeach step smaller. As a result, the newgearbox is a closer ratio unit, particularlyin the higher gears where it\'s needed most.A number of cosmetic changes havebeen made to the Kawasaki: new shapeValve adjustment is simple with new rockerarms under new rocker arm cover...12668-7901-08
