| Author | Message | ||
     Curve_carver |
I stopped in Roush Motorsports today to blow off some time. My G-friends boy and I walked the floor and of course he found himself a pretty cool fox shirt. As I was walking out the door with the shirt they were wheeling in a brand new zx10r. I asked the sales manager about the recall.His vendor stated that the cam profile was so radical the valvetrain guides were going bad. IDK if this was true but sounds like a credible reason. He also went on to say the distributors promised they would send him the original batches back. Today he recieved the first one back but it wasn't the same VIN. He has suspicion that they sent him a completely new unit and not one that was gone through "FIXED". He seemed irritated? I think in part because they wouldn't let his techs fix the bikes. He said they are 13,500 and 14,500 with an abs unit.OUCH!! I took a minute to observe the bike and looked over all the cool new upgrades.I can honestly say they did a pretty nice job on the bike. The tail wasnt so big and tall and the adj pegs were nice.But what really caught my eye was the new z1000. WOW, that bike was totally revamped. I think kawasaki will be a huge contender in the sales market after what I saw today.To bad the colors are still puke green.LOL | ||
| Squish |
I stopped by the local Honda-Ducati-KTM-Kawasaki dealer this afternoon. Sat on the KTM RC8-R. Very nice. Next I sat on the new ZX-10R - WOW, it is small and as light as out 1125Rs! I was surprised how small the ZX-10R felt compared to the RC8-R and the 1198SP Duc. | ||
| Jdugger |
Sit on an RSV-4. Feels even smaller than a 600. | ||
| Curve_carver |
Squish, I had the same reaction when I sat on the zx10r. It almost appeared the bike looked shorter? After I viewed the price of the zx10r at 13,500 I was happy with my almost payed off bike  | ||
| Hybridmomentspass |
Its pretty wild how much they are charging for the liter bikes these days from the big four. Heck, for the msrp of the 1125 when it came out, thats about what a 600 costs these days The thing Im really curious about, too, is the 10R: when they first came out they were saying 200hp, then they backed it down to 180something Where did twenty HP go??? | ||
| Curve_carver |
Heres some info on the recall. When Kawasaki suddenly mandated a “technical hold” on its new 2011 ZX-10R so that it could deal with a valve spring surge problem back in December of last year, the usual question arose as to whether the fix (consisting of a new intake camshaft, valve springs, and retainers) would affect performance. While Kawasaki officially stated that the fix would not affect engine power, skepticism often reigns in situations like this where a manufacturer has to employ an internal fix after the motorcycle has already been produced. Richard Stanboli over at Attack Performance has been handling much of Kawasaki Motor Corp USA’s AMA Pro roadracing efforts for the past few years, and he has been entrusted with building the 2011 ZX-10R superbike for the Sho-Air/Cycle World effort at Daytona to be ridden by Eric Bostrom. Stanboli had taken delivery of his new ZX-10Rs long before the technical hold was put into place and any bikes that had been delivered were recalled. Because the ZX-10R in Stanboli’s possession was involved in the recall, and due to the lack of time available to develop any race parts for them before the recent Daytona tire test, he was asked if he wanted to install the factory “countermeasure”, which consisted of a new intake camshaft, valve springs, and retainers. “They’re like, ‘OK, here’s three countermeasures, can you guys use them?’” recalls Stanboli. “I said we might be able to put it in. So we put one in the bike and away we went.” Upon further examination, he found that the countermeasures’ new camshaft had “a little nicer ramp on the backside. Actually made two more horsepower, the countermeasure. So that surprised me, because I figured they’d tone it down, but they didn’t tone it down. They just changed the ramp angle. A different retainer that kept the spring a little more stable. It was valve springs, retainers and camshaft. So pretty simple.” Stanboli—who isn’t prone to hyperbole—states that he didn’t do any tweaks to get that extra power. He basically didn’t have time, as the bikes had to leave for the long trip to Daytona in a couple of days. “Didn’t time the cams, didn’t do anything. Pulled the valve cover off, didn’t even pull the head off. Pushed down on the retainers, popped the keepers, pushed the new ones on, put the cams back in, checked the clearance. ‘Whoa, it’s good button it up.’” Even though Stanboli and crew had little time to get the Kawasaki fully prepped before the team's truck left for Daytona, the rain delay on the first day allowed them to finish preparations. And Bostrom found the ZX-10R to his liking, going fourth quickest in the Superbike class at the end of the test. | ||
| Squish |
"Sit on an RSV-4. Feels even smaller than a 600." I have sat on an RSV-4. It was small too. It would be interesting to compare the ZX-10R and RSV-4 side-by-side. | ||
| Freight_dog |
The RSV-4 appears small, it is the same weight and wheel base as an R-1, which is not small as superbikes go. |
