Ever since the original 903cc Z-1 of 1972, Kawasaki's four-stroke sport machines have been big and muscular, fast but not necessarily nimble, and often surprisingly comfortable. The latest ZX-6R fits that category exactly.
It's built around a 636cc motor derived by both boring and stroking the familiar 599cc mill to 68 x 43.8mm, fed by a quartet of 38mm throttle bodies and kicking out a claimed 85.8kW at a relatively conservative 12 500rpm.
Judging by the extraordinary results of IOL's top-end runs, I tend to believe those figures.
KHI's first fuel-injected middleweight has a surprisingly user-friendly power delivery; with a delicate hand on the twist-grip it can be made to trickle through the traffic at about 2400rpm in the lower gears, just above walking pace, and will accelerate gently from four onwards.
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Just knowing that much wailing, frenetic kick in the ass is there on tap, is enough. There's no real jump in the power band but the pace picks up very smartly over 7000rpm, with an instantaneous rush available for authoritative overtaking. Above 10 000, however, the rev-counter should be marked, as on old maps: "Here be dragons".
Most of the time, just knowing how much wailing, frenetic kick in the ass is there on tap, is enough. I only used it briefly once or twice, through the gears, on the street – you need a lot of elbow room for that kind of take-off.
Full-bodied though it is, the power tails off quite quickly beyond peak revs and there's no purpose in pushing the motor to the bloodline at 14 500rpm, although it didn't seem to mind. There's some not unexpected jerkiness in the power delivery, particularly at low revs, as is common to nearly all fuel-injected motors, but not enough to upset the chassis; once again, an educated throttle hand is required for smooth progress in the urban jungle.
Kawasaki clutches are justly famed for their smooth performance and ability to absorb abuse; the company has always embraced the American culture of progressing a quarter of a mile at a time and builds its transmissions to cope with all the heavy-duty blast-offs you can hand out.
Just knowing that much wailing, frenetic kick in the ass is there on tap, is enough.
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