Cannonball Kwaker
CANNONBALL KWAKER
Rigged for speed, ready for action
Crashed, thrashed and thoroughly used after the Cannonball, my ZZR1400 (ZX-14 in Yank-speak) felt less like a super-tourer, more like a heavy superbike. And just like a 525-pound extension of my own body, it’s faced a very difficult year with both style and aplomb.
Before the Cannonball even started, the Kawasaki faced repairs-l dropped it on the shoulder of the autobahn on the way back from a prior Euro trip. The guys at the Kawasaki workshop tut-tutted, fixed it, gave me the bill and sent me home. It wasn’t as much as I’d have expected. The plastic lowers are unpainted and hence quite cheap. The big Kawasaki badges took the rest of the force and rubbing compound saved everything else.
The second crash, on the Cannonball, was sorta better, sorta worse. With 25 mph of speed, the bodywork got scuffed up as you’d expect. So it’ll be new panels or a paintjob. But that’s it.
No broken levers, no bent footrests. That’s twice the 14’s hit the deck and twice that I’ve picked it up and ridden away. I’m not sure whether that’s luck or the design, but the results are impressive.
DERESTRICTION: The most exciting part of the Project Cannonball bike. Gone are the black-box restrictions of the original motor, replaced by a ’Busa-beating spread of torque that hits from tickover and carries on all the way to the 170-hp (on a notoriously
stingy EEC-spec dyno) redline.
The standard bike carries two sets of EFI butterflies: those controlled by your right hand and a set controlled by the computer. The second set hardly moves
until nearly 6000 rpm, preventing high-sides and spoiling a lot of fun. If you remove them, the bike runs dangerously lean. Which is why we fitted a Power Commander and why the blokes at Xbikes, a London tuner shop, spent all day remapping it. Helped by a TiForce pipe, the results were impressive (see chart). Fuel range has suffered, but I just don’t care.
BARS: Bar-risers are simple plates that sandwich between the clip-ons and the top yoke. Made by Heli Modified {www.helibars.com), they convert the Kawasaki
into a far more comfortable distance machine. But they do move your head a little farther into the slipstream than I'd like. Which is why I've ordered a Zero Gravity screen with a bit more "flip."
TIRES: The standard-fit `Stone 01 4s are more than adequate for the fastest of road riding. But mileage when used "properly" is horrendous. Not a fault of the tire, as experimentation has proven. If you're trying to win the Cannonball, you're using a lot of horsepower to push a lot of weight. So the first rear did just 1000 miles. The second another 1200 or so. After that I tried a set of Metzeler's finest Racetecs, but with a high-profile 190/55 on the back to sit her up a bit higher. It worked: The Zee-Zee-Arrgh snuck under the 2-minute barrier at a Hoc kenheim track day. But there were consequences...
BRAKES: On standard rubber, the brakes were unfadeable. On stickier Racetecs, they died a horrible death. After one session on the Hockenheim GP circuit, with its consistent hard braking from 190 to 25 mph, the brakes felt a little spongy. When I tried to move the bike for the second session, the front wheel was locked solid. The discs had warped into massive soup plates so the edges were actually jammed into the calipers. A local Kwak dealer did me a warranty job there and then, but Kawasaki has since pointed out that the list of approved tires (er, Bridgestone BTO14, that's it) exists for a reason.
LASER JAMMING: With my, ahem, Laser Park Pro, revers ing and parking my big Ninja will never be a hassle again-yeah, that's right... Sadly, the annoying byproduct is that Her Majesty's Revenue Collectors are having problems using their speed guns on the ZX-1 4. Seems the wavelength that the two parking sensors use is unfortunately the same as 99 percent of laser speedguns. What a shame. When I was offered the opportunity to test the system (wwwlaserprotector.com) by a local policeman, he arrived smiling and left frowning. Not only had his gun failed to even see the ZX, it didn't even display a "jamming error." I'd love to tell you more, but it's such a good product I wouldn't want to be the one who ruined it for everybody.
RADAR DETECTION: Detection aerial is mounted vertically in the right fai~ng panel, control unit just behind it. These are then linked wirelessly to a huge novelty flasher unit, like those you get for bicycles. Mine is velcroed to the headstock. Bike-spec model (www speedcheetah.com) is waterproof and detects gatsos (radar cam eras) from nearly 1000 feet away. If it's facing you, that increases to nearly a mile. Same goes for handheld radar guns, the unit flashing up to a minute before I found the trap. Heh, heh, heh. . .-DaIe Lomas
