We all know that there are at least three or four ZX 14's in the US that have been placed in the hands of trusted and established allies of Kawasaki to test and evaluate......probably with the goal of fine tuning marketing and promotional material as it is too late to make "hard" changes. I also am led to believe that these Kawasaki allies have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements to ensure that all information is released at the time of the March introduction and in a orderly, coherent manner. Gadson, Adams and Muzzy all have one. In parallel, German distributors are releasing Kawasaki provided brochures which provide some hard numbers on the power output of the highly anticipated bike................192 PS or 190 HP(SAE) at the crank. This does not include any claims about ram-air which I am sure will creep into varous marketing publications to further boost advertised power claims. If we work with the 190 HP, we can expect the bike to dyno test at the rear wheel right around 167 HP on pump gas and somewhere close to 174 SAE on MRX01. Add a good pipe and Power Commanander, and you could be in the neighborhood of 185 HP (SAE)..........and if you jack-up the reference standard to STD you are approaching 190 HP. Before the arguments start, I have received indepent corroboration that the 167 HP (SAE) is a solid number for an engine with few miles and no adjustments. What does this mean? In basic terms, I think the ZX-14 will wallop a stock Busa and run close to even with a stock bore Busa with compression, cams, headwork, pipe, PC and good tuning. With the pipe and PC and MRX01, a SWB ZX-14 should be expected to run in the very low 9's at speeds in the 151 to 154 MPH range.
