One ugly lobe

[ribbert]

Trevor, from what you say and what Ian has found out, my unemotional advice would be to cut his losses and move on. Everything you say about them suggests they are a money pit and this would likely be the start of a slippery, expensive slope, the bikes are not that special.

If he likes Kwakas, the 1400's are great. Pouring money into this thing will just break his spirit (and his wallet)

Noel

[T Legg]

Ian and I thank everyone for their comments.Since we asked everyone's advice and are now going to ignore it,I feel we owe an explanation of our reasoning.                                                                                  Ian bought the bike two years ago for $2,500.00 and has ridden it for 8,000 miles mostly trouble free.Shortly after he bought it a lady backed into it while it was parked and bent the left handle bar,clutch handle,scuffed the left grip,put a small scratch on the tank and a couple on the lower fairing, a small ding on the muffler and horribly mangled the license plate.Needless to say his bike was totaled.Ian was worried they would offer him fifteen hundred bucks and take his bike for salvage.In the end they paid him $3,700.00 after he took the option to keep his bike.They never asked for his title so he still has a normal title for the bike.He bought a new four into one exhaust and muffler(because he didn't like the stock set up),a used handle bar,and a clutch handle all for about four hundred dollars.since then he has put new chain and sprockets sintered brake pads,new tires,heated hand grips and a lovely sheep skin seat pad and has just about broke even on the bike.It is not worth putting after market cams into the bike(the only ones available) so the option left is to ride it and check it.As people at the last RPM rally could see it accelerates like a bat out of hell and with all of the re-jetting and tuning we have done it is much snappier now.Many other owners on Ian's Kawasaki site have recently chimed in that the cams are not surface hardened and they have had this problem for years and tens of thousands of miles so Ian has decided to inspect it frequently and ride on.If my fj's cams looked like his I would change them because the value of my fj doesn't matter to me its the fun I get out of it.                                                                                                                   

[Troyskie]

Cool Travis, enough said, ride on. Try and convert him to an FJ. We're much more help in that department .

[CutterBill]

Trevor...
actually, I agree with your plan. Don't put any more money into the bike and run it until the engine just won't go anymore. Then scrap it and walk away. In the meantime, your buddy can have a lot of fun riding what is essentially a disposable bike.
Bill

[ryanschoebel]

Since we asked everyone's advice and are now going to ignore it                                                                                                                                                                                                 

I dont know much, but what people say is true, then yeah, keep an eye on it, and ride it like you stole it!

[FJ_Hooligan]

Can you remove the rocker arms on the affected lobes?  That would basically stop the wear.

Might be worth a test to see how much it affects performance.

[FJ Flyer]

An aside.....use ZDDP additive with rocker arm engines....it helps. I do a lot of work on SOHC CB750's and have used many performance cams....they need extra zinc.

I thought that wasn't a good idea with motorcycle wet clutches.

[T Legg]

It's been over a year and more than six thousand miles since Ian decided to put his valve cover back on and ride on.Today we checked the valve adjustment and camshaft condition. All the valves were still within specification . The cam lobes still look as ugly as before but not much change since we first noticed the damage. There is still no signs of matching wear on the cam followers. The bike still runs like a rocket ship. Ian and I swapped bikes the other day and I followed him into a pass. He was on my slow low compression fj and wasn't used to its lower top end hp so by the time he got by the cars our straight away was coming up to a turn rapidly .I had dropped back to make sure I would have room behind him to make it and the cars closed up the gap for me to get back over. I saw I could still make it and gave it full throttle up to about 9000 rpm and it shot up to 120 mph from 60 mph in what seemed about 500 ft. Its still the fastest bike I've ever ridden.

[TomJK]

Hi
I owned 4 ZZR1100 and 1 ZZR1200, that is what they are called in Europe, all had this kind of damage to the camshafts after only 15000 miles, they were very powerful, even with these cams in them.... I never understood how Kawasaki got away with that sort of quality, the ZX10R C1 (2004) I own has much better quality camshafts and runs very good after 65000 miles hard riding.....
Cheers, Tom.

[Ted Schefelbein]

Hard lesson. Sorry to hear of your trouble. I wish I had a simple, easy and cheap suggestion for you, but, I don't. I tend toward repair, in for a Penny, in for a pound, but, everyone's situation is different.
Let us know what you end up doing.

Ted

[Pat Conlon]

I wonder if the cam wear is a material issue or an oiling issue?

[Ted Schefelbein]

A fair question. Most guys don't skimp on quality oil for their bikes. And the damage seems to happen fairly early in the engines life cycle.

Could be either, or both. Sticking a mechanical oil pressure gauge on the engine would tell you much.

Ted

[T Legg]

It is a problem with the cam shafts I believe. The Kawasaki forums talk about this problem and echo what  Tomjk has said that the problem is widespread and occurred very early in these bikes. The cam followers show no unusual wear if it was an oiling problem I would expect damage to them as well. Many owners say they have ridden their bikes for thousand of miles after discovering the damage with no loss of performance. My son has changed the oil several times since we found the problem and hasn't found any metal shavings in it or stuck to his drain plug. There hasn't been noticeable progression of the problem in the last six thousand miles so we will check again in another five thousand.

[andyoutandabout]

That's the spirit.
Ride them far, do what you can to keep them happy.
I remember Ian saying he didn't have any problem keeping up with an Fj, so Kawasaki must of got something right.