Turbocharged Legend: Unpacking the Power of the Kawasaki Z750 Turbo

Kawasaki's Z750 Turbo is by now an iconic machine from the power and performance race of the 1980s. Conventional in many ways – being based on an enlarged version of the highly regarded Z650 engine - the forced induction 749cc machine included several clever ideas.

kawasaki z750 turbo

Most relevant of those was the positioning of the IHI turbo unit itself mounted as close as possible to the exhaust ports. Given that the force of the exiting gases effectively spans the blades of the compressor; this close mounting ensured fast throttle response and helped to eliminate so-called “turbo-lag”.

Cleverly, the air cleaner was positioned within the final drive cover making for a neat, compact engine design with fewer of the hoses and cables visible on the Turbocharged models sold by Yamaha, Honda, and suzuki.

Being the last machine of the four Japanese manufacturer’s models introduced, much was expected of the Turbo and it ably fulfilled its promise with performance akin to the GPz1100 it was on sale alongside. For the committed enthusiast there was even a way to release further urge with a drag racing setting for the fuelling and ignition timing, but this was never made public.

Distinctive thanks to its aluminum belly pan and meter combination of speedometer and rev counter near the top yoke with other gauges residing in a tank top pod, the Z750 Turbo boasted Uni-Track suspension and three-spoke wheels plus a “black chrome” exhaust system.

Blisteringly fast then - and still considered rapid now - a good condition Z750 Turbo is a real biker meet head turner and certainly worthy of its reputation. At CMSNL we are big-forced induction fans and hold a wide variety of OE parts on our shelves. Don't lag – fire up your laptop and let CMSNL boost your search function to accelerate your choices from an amazing variety of brand-new parts!