[Yamasuki]

Kawasakis move to Forced Induction was not a whimsical one, this has been carefully choreographed for several years now. Kawasaki first began filing supercharging patents as far back as 2009.

Published on August 22, 2012 Patent Application EP20100823366 shows us the potential H2 Engine.

An engine supercharging device includes are a supercharger (38) for pressurizing air introduced in an engine (E), an air cleaner (36) for purifying an ambient air, a purified air supply passage (56) for supplying a purified air (CA) from the air cleaner (36) towards the supercharger (38), a supercharged air passage (62) for supplying the supercharged air (SA) from the supercharger (38) towards an air intake passage (60) of the engine (E), and a relief valve (68) for adjusting an air pressure within the supercharged air passage (62). The relief valve (68) has a discharge port portion (68b) which is accommodated within the air cleaner (36). The engine (E) has a plurality of engine cylinders, and a downstream portion of the supercharged air passage (62) is defined by an intake air chamber (54) for supplying the sucked air to respective air intake passages (60) of the plural engine cylinders.

 

[NinJAHfu]

I was just about to post about this, fortunately the patents I found are different from these as you'll see below. I wonder how many more patents are out there:

 

[Yamasuki]

Kawasaki has been filling patents pertaining to supercharging since 2009, If you go through the google database of patents you will see that they are all interconnected

 

[NinJAHfu]

Kawasaki has been filling patents pertaining to supercharging since 2009, If you go through the google database of patents you will see that they are all interconnected

Great resource, wasn't even aware Google had a specific look up for patents. Thanks for posting the patents you found from their.

 

[KNH2]

It's going to be interesting seeing what other setups from other bike makers are going to be like, i feel like kawi got in early on a new trend in the industry.

 

[Klotzo]

The whole motorbike industry has been on watch. But how many are willing to make the transition over to force inducted bikes?

 

[Yamasuki]

The whole motorbike industry has been on watch. But how many are willing to make the transition over to force inducted bikes?

There have always been constraints in the past, at one time all 4 Japanese manufacturers we're producing Turbocharged bikes (all subsequently blacklisted by insurance companies BTW) however there were serious pitfalls to turbocharged bikes. Power delivery was unstable at best, Turbo's (especially inthe 80's) we're peaky at best, now in a car that means very little, but a sudden jolt of torque while balancing on two wheels is particularly unwelcome.

Supers have not seen legitimate adoption because of packaging issues, which obviously Kawasaki seems to of found a way around...

 

[TwoCanSam]

i was speaking with my buddy about this thing last night he was interested in this one thinking that insurance cost will be low like a 600cc but you get more power similar to a 800-1000. it will be interesting to see how insurance companies catorgorize this bike. case studies from the last turbo bikes is not looking good. i have a feeling the annual premium will keep guys off.

from everything we know the charger will be gearbox driven so it should not be needing too much space or suffer from packing issues.

also kawi has waterskis that supercharged its not like this came from now where.

 

[Bazza]

i was speaking with my buddy about this thing last night he was interested in this one thinking that insurance cost will be low like a 600cc but you get more power similar to a 800-1000. it will be interesting to see how insurance companies catorgorize this bike. case studies from the last turbo bikes is not looking good. i have a feeling the annual premium will keep guys off.

from everything we know the charger will be gearbox driven so it should not be needing too much space or suffer from packing issues.

also kawi has waterskis that supercharged its not like this came from now where.

Good notes on insurance, from Wiki:

As of September 2014, forced induction has only been applied on a handful of production motorcycles, all from "big four" Japanese manufacturers in the early 1980s.[1][2][3]

Honda CX 500 Turbo / 650 Turbo
Yamaha XJ 650 Turbo
Suzuki XN 85 Turbo
Kawasaki Z 750 Turbo

The Honda, Kawasaki and Suzuki bikes were all listed on a State Farm insurance "blacklist" published by American Motorcyclist in 1989

But why the blacklist?

 

[kawi_fan]

I hope a lower insurance rate is one of the perks to owning this bike and that insurance companies don't find a way to charge us a higher rate