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On The Record: Rickey Gadson- Project Kawasaki Ninja H2 Hybrid Drag Bike
He's talking about his H2 - NOT the H2R. He's racing 'Real Street' so it has to be a production bike. His 'hybrid' is carbon wings instead of mirrors and the H2R can.
I copy/pasted in case you just want the high points. I didn't see anywhere in the article anything about a cam swap, head gasket or adding a 10th clutch plate. I would think that if he'd done those things he'd have gotten higher numbers.
______________________
When I first drag-tested the H2, I really felt like an amateur. It was pissing me off. The bike was so powerful it intimidated me.
At this point, I’ve only been able to do bolt-on modifications and enough modifications to make this bike unique and one of a kind.
"It makes 292 horsepower to the rear wheel on pump gas. KHI is very smart. They are never going to run anything on the edge. When we checked the air-fuel ratio, it was 11.3 to 11.4. That’s how rich they had it. They had to make sure it’s safe enough for anybody who gets their hands on it to not blow it up. We knew from racing my turbo bike that we can lean it out quite a bit more than that. So we took the air-fuel ratio to about 12.2 and picked up 30 horsepower. With the leaner mixture and improved airflow, we went from 269 horsepower to 292. If you equate that to crankshaft horsepower, that would be around 320 horsepower."
To put this in perspective, my race bike is a turbocharged ZX-14R with close to 500 horsepower. My best-ever time to half-track on that bike is 5.13. The H2 does it in 5:31. That’s the only difference between the H2 and the bike I’ve developed and raced for the last several years? Of course, in the second half of the track, the 500 horsepower takes over. But the H2 still remains within a half-second of the national record.
People keep commenting about how heavy the H2 is. They’re appalled that it’s listed as 530 lb. I will say this: I never believed the bike was that heavy, so I pulled it onto a scale. In completely stock trim (no carbon, except where the mirrors and wings are), my bike weighed 475 lb. stock, with a gallon of gas. Then, at our December test with the extended swingarm and carbon rear wheel, the bike weighed only 460 lb. I weighed my ZX-14R school bike that same day, set up the same way and with a gallon of fuel. It weighed 530 lb. Sure, if you compare the H2 to a liter bike, it’s heavy. But it also has a steel frame, a supercharger, and what looks like the heaviest exhaust I’ve ever seen on a production bike.
He's talking about his H2 - NOT the H2R. He's racing 'Real Street' so it has to be a production bike. His 'hybrid' is carbon wings instead of mirrors and the H2R can.
I copy/pasted in case you just want the high points. I didn't see anywhere in the article anything about a cam swap, head gasket or adding a 10th clutch plate. I would think that if he'd done those things he'd have gotten higher numbers.
______________________
When I first drag-tested the H2, I really felt like an amateur. It was pissing me off. The bike was so powerful it intimidated me.
At this point, I’ve only been able to do bolt-on modifications and enough modifications to make this bike unique and one of a kind.
"It makes 292 horsepower to the rear wheel on pump gas. KHI is very smart. They are never going to run anything on the edge. When we checked the air-fuel ratio, it was 11.3 to 11.4. That’s how rich they had it. They had to make sure it’s safe enough for anybody who gets their hands on it to not blow it up. We knew from racing my turbo bike that we can lean it out quite a bit more than that. So we took the air-fuel ratio to about 12.2 and picked up 30 horsepower. With the leaner mixture and improved airflow, we went from 269 horsepower to 292. If you equate that to crankshaft horsepower, that would be around 320 horsepower."
To put this in perspective, my race bike is a turbocharged ZX-14R with close to 500 horsepower. My best-ever time to half-track on that bike is 5.13. The H2 does it in 5:31. That’s the only difference between the H2 and the bike I’ve developed and raced for the last several years? Of course, in the second half of the track, the 500 horsepower takes over. But the H2 still remains within a half-second of the national record.
People keep commenting about how heavy the H2 is. They’re appalled that it’s listed as 530 lb. I will say this: I never believed the bike was that heavy, so I pulled it onto a scale. In completely stock trim (no carbon, except where the mirrors and wings are), my bike weighed 475 lb. stock, with a gallon of gas. Then, at our December test with the extended swingarm and carbon rear wheel, the bike weighed only 460 lb. I weighed my ZX-14R school bike that same day, set up the same way and with a gallon of fuel. It weighed 530 lb. Sure, if you compare the H2 to a liter bike, it’s heavy. But it also has a steel frame, a supercharger, and what looks like the heaviest exhaust I’ve ever seen on a production bike.
