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Tuesday, 18 September 2001 |
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Page 2 of 4
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The aforementioned carb modifications? How about a bank of 36 mm Keihin carburetors on ultra short intakes, replete with Kawasaki's K-TRIC digital throttle position sensors. This particular set up gives you lots of go juice. In the right quantities, at the right time. We don't need no steenkin' fuel injection.
A trip to the Cycle Riders Dynojet Dyno saw 111.8 gee gee's and a tad over 80lbs of torque. The torque curve shows a nice flat line that doesn't fail to produce in excess of 70 lbs from 3300rpm through to 8300rpm. You did know that's 10lbs more than the Yamaha FZ didn't you?
I thought you did...
Hey! Pay attention at the back.
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| The ZRX's roll on performance was astounding, I absolutely loved the way you could stomp on this bike regardless of gear selection and at mostly any RPM to get up and going. Overtaking was point and shoot simplicity with absolutely devastating performance for such a large motorcycle, it's really surprising.
The gearbox has had a couple of modernizing modifications to aid shifting. It's nothing I had to think about whether riding fast or slow, so it must be working.
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An Anvil
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An Anvil Stopper
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We took the bike to our "secret" test track and got the chance to ride the bike angry. Once there, we obviously got to ride at higher speeds and providing you didn't give it any sudden inputs (of which it would ignore anyway) handling was acceptable. I was always wary of things getting out of shape though, and in a way only big green things know how.
Unfortunately there was a spoiler to this green party. The bike still has a nasty trait left over from last years 1100, namely its soggy-soft front forks. No matter how much preload or compression we dialed in, we just couldn't stop it collapsing under braking with occasional front wheel chatter. Maybe we were riding this bike a little harder than normal, but this is a Sir Edward Lawson replica isn't it? He must have been a brave one too, that Lawson chappy, 'cause I'm pretty sure this modern equivalent of his KZ1000R, handles better today than his factory shed ever did back in the dark old handling days of 82'
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