Kawasaki
ZX-10R Special ‘Winter Edition’
Kawasaki revealed their
all-new ZX-10R superbike four weeks ago, but unveiled a superb-looking Winter
Edition, jointly developed with the Kawasaki Racing Team, at the Milan show.
The new edition gets the team’s svelte black and white testing livery,
including the KRT ‘Snowflake’ logo and Japanese kanji ‘fuyu’ character, which
means ‘Winter’. The special edition model also comes with a road-legal
Akrapovic silencer as standard.
While the new ZX-10R
may outwardly look pretty similar to the outgoing model, there’s a raft of
changes to the engine, chassis, suspension, fairing, electronics, brakes and
exhaust. The new 200 bhp is, the closest thing to a factory
superbike it has ever produced.
The engine gets an a
completely new cylinderhead and crank that has lost 20% of its mass, allowing
the engine to spin-up faster thanks to less inertia, leading to stronger
acceleration, faster deceleration and a reduction in gyroscopic effect that
will help with cornering.
The new cylinderhead
was designed with feedback from the WSB team and feature redesigned intake and
exit ports, larger diameter exhaust valves with all valves now made from
titanium, larger coolant passageways, and revised cam profiles for great valve
overlap. The pistons are shorter and lighter, and the airbox is now two litres
larger while the ramair intake has been moved further forward for greater
efficiency.
New titanium header
pipes are matched to those of the racing bike, and the larger silencer is now
titanium not stainless steel and is lighter too. The chassis changes aren’t as
extensive as the engine’s, but the head tube mounting is now 7.5 mm nearer the
rider and helps to place more weight over the front wheel for better stability
and turn in. It also gets the latest electronic control systems based around
the Bosch Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), which calculates its assistance
based on lean angle, pitch and yaw, plus acceleration and braking. It also
boasts Sport-Kawasaki TRaction Control (S-KTRC), Kawasaki Launch Control Mode
(KLCM), Kawasaki Intelligent anti-lock Brake System (KIBS), Kawasaki Quick
Shifter (KQS), Kawasaki Engine Brake Control (KEBC). The bike also has an
Öhlins electronic steering damper and a new power mode selection.
The new front
suspension sees the arrival of Showa’s Balance Free Front Fork and Balance Free
Rear Cushion (BFRC) shock, but no semi-active assistance. Braking comes from
Brembo’s top-of-the-range M50 cast aluminium and radially-mounted calipers and
330 mm twin discs.
While the new bike
doesn’t look radically different to the old, Kawasaki say they largely, and
deliberately left the aesthetics alone to concentrate on the bike’s performance, the proof of their endeavours will be in the riding.