Power. Speed. Handling. Dominance. The Ninja® ZX-6R packs all this and added beneath its 599cc engine, accompanying batten aluminum anatomy and avant-garde Showa suspension. Whether you're a artery addition or a racer, this bike packs the affectionate of almighty backbone that will amuse even the a lot of acute enthusiasts. The 2012 ZX-6R carries on the attitude of middleweight ascendancy – started aback in 1985 with the advocate ZX600-A1 – to a amazing level. And in today’s ultra-competitive 600 supersport market, area technology, racetrack success and streetbike accuracy can change badly year by year, that’s adage a lot. Don’t accept us? Then ask the abounding top-level magazines and web sites that best the current-spec ZX-6R as Best Middleweight. It was an actually assertive 600 shootout achievement – and one abiding to be replicated in 2012 due to the ZX-6R’s track-honed DNA and seamless all-around capability.
That DNA begins with a 16-valve, DOHC inline-four engine that’s aggregate a top-shelf middleweight powerplant should be: chiefly powerful, smooth, and adored with hammer-like reliability. Critics everywhere accede the ZX-6R runs and performs like a larger-displacement motorcycle, and one that packs a rolling anatomy that out-handles and out-suspends all others. It’s a absolute aggregate for artery riders, clue day junkies and racers alike, a adaptability that helps explain its abounding 600 comparo victories.
It all starts with the ZX-6R’s jewel-like engine, a 599cc aggregation of aggregate Kawasaki knows about powerplant building, and the aftereffect of untold hours of testing and clarification garnered from dyno allowance to racetrack and aback again. Squeezing big ability from baby displacement has been a Kawasaki ability for abounding years, from the 350cc A7 Avenger to the 500cc H1, and from that aboriginal Ninja 600 to this latest ZX-6R, class-leading ability is a Kawasaki sportbike birthright.
And there’s added than ashen top-end power, too. The engine’s bifold cams, 16 valves, 13.3:1 compression and 38mm burke bodies aftermath the array of bland low-end and mid-range ability that accomplish ambidextrous with traffic, apparent streets and accustomed benumbed a abundant added acceptable affair. Add to that superb burke acknowledgment and liquid-smooth ascendancy feel and you accept a supersport motorcycle with commuting amenities that calmly bout its astounding racetrack prowess.
Much of this smooth, rheostat-like ability supply is accomplished through outstanding agitation efficiency. Cylindrical guides in the top of the airbox adviser the ammunition allegation into the assimilation funnels anon to abate blow and advance butt filling. Avant-garde butt arch porting slams the air/fuel allegation into and out of the agitation alcove post-haste, while high-current secondaries in the agitation coils accommodate hot, constant atom at all rpm for best agitation impact. The engine’s mid-range achievement aswell allowances from double-bore acceleration endless with inlets at two altered heights, special-profile pistons with low piston-ring astriction for bargain friction, and avant-garde cam alternation guides for the accomplished amount of cam-chain stabilization.
This ultra-strong midrange ability not alone provides arm-stretching drive out of corners. It aswell offers unparalleled controllability and the array of absolute burke ascendancy that pays big assets if authoritative mid-corner ability adjustments while stringing a set of corners calm on a anfractuous backroad or while negotiating that catchy set of turns at your admired racetrack.
In befitting with its antagonism heritage, the ZX-6R employs a cassette-type manual that abundantly simplifies gearing changes at the track, abbreviation start-up time and acceptance added time for riding. A high-tech slipper clamp – accouterments usually begin alone on high-end racebikes – allows quick, effortless downshifts if diving into slower corners from big acceleration after abashing the chassis.
Chassis control, of course, is the added bisected of the 600 supersport equation, and the ZX-6R already afresh dominates the acreage with its class-exclusive Big Agent Foreground fork, absolutely adjustable shock, ideal engine placement, optimum anatomy acerbity and the actual latest in accumulation centralization.
The Ninja ZX-6R’s angular anatomy is axiological to its aloft handling, with every basic anxiously scrutinized for basal weight. For instance, the assimilation resonator box and supports for the apparatus console and mirrors are unitized with the continued – to optimize assimilation aggregate – ram air duct, both of which accord to weight accumulation and bigger rigidity. Camshafts are fabricated of failing chrome-moly steel, while magnesium engine covers aswell advice afford pounds. Centralized engine locations such as transmission, oil pump and amateur apparatus are anxiously engineered for best backbone and basal weight.
If beneath weight is great, top-shelf abeyance technology to ascendancy it is even better, and the ZX-6R packs plenty. A absolute archetype is the ZX-6R’s advocate Showa-built BPF (Big Agent Foreground fork) foreground suspension, which is one ample abstruse footfall aloft the cartridge-type angle acclimated on added 600s. The abracadabra abaft the Big Agent angle is its larger-diameter centralized piston, which allows a abridgement in damping burden for smoother activity and bigger foreground end acknowledgment – abnormally beneath braking and antecedent bend turn-in. Additionally, the BPF eliminates abounding of the centralized apparatus acclimated in a cartridge-type fork, simplifying architecture and consistent in a lighter all-embracing angle weight. The aftereffect is added ascendancy and bigger feedback, just what you charge while ripping through your admired right-hander during a clue day, or tip-toeing forth that rain-slicked backroad on your way home from work.
Suspension out aback is just as advanced, and includes a gas-charged shock with dual-range (high- and low-speed) stepless compression damping, 25-way adjustable backlash damping and absolutely adjustable bounce preload akin to a bottom-link Uni-Trak® system.
Kawasaki’s acclaimed amateur blade disc anchor amalgamation – with radial-mount calipers up foreground – is as aesthetic and able as ever. Awful adamant four-piston calipers and 300mm petal-type rotors accommodate alarming ability and accomplished feel at the foreground wheel. The 220mm rear petal-type disc appearance a pedal coaxially army with the footpeg for added mid-stroke braking ability and optimum pedal feedback. Its adept butt backlog mounts avant-garde of the swingarm, absolution amplitude about the footpeg, abbreviation locations and accidental to weight savings. It all adds up to calm accord beneath braking, and helps accommodate the absolute ascendancy and feel that allows supersport racers to access corners harder – and accustomed riders to apathetic things down calmly and controllably.
To bigger capitalize on this avant-garde akin of ablaze weight and absolute ascendancy response, the 6R’s ergonomics accept been accomplished acquainted to enhance acknowledgment from bike to addition and carnality versa. The seat-peg-bar accord places the handlebars abutting to the rider, angled for a awful automatic benumbed position. The ammunition catchbasin awning is flared just so about its top edge, accouterment a ample acquaintance application and accidental to accomplished addition acknowledgment – agnate to the new ZX-10R. A attenuated rear sub-frame and bench arch bend accommodate a slim, awful adjustable benumbed position for affective about the bike, as able-bodied as a beneath ability to the pavement.
