Ricky Gadson on the H2 Project

9361 Views 17 Replies 13 Participants Last post by selenap, Jun 17, 2016

Nessuno

Discussion Starter · Dec 12, 2014

He speaks candidly with CycleWorld about the H2 project, his role in development and his own plans for the bike. Fantastic insights and backstory provide some of the missing color. Oh and those of you who've been here for a bit will recognize a familiar name down in the comment section. >

On The Record: Rickey Gadson- Project Kawasaki Ninja H2 Hybrid Drag Bike

Look:

On Sunday they brought me back to test the H2R, which is the first time I saw that exhaust and those wings. I had never, ever, experienced a feeling like that. When I first got on the throttle, the front wheel came up instantly. This was not drag racing; this was just rolling on the throttle. These were pre-production bikes with no electronics. No traction control. No wheelie control. Just raw power.

Those wings on the H2R? I can absolutely tell you they work. After 100 mph you can feel the difference. The H2 floats its front wheel, even if fourth gear. The front wheel is light. In fourth gear on the H2R, the front wheel was heavy. It felt firmly planted on the ground, which told me the wings worked. The bike was super steady at high speed.

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.

For that test, I brought along my 2015 ZX-14R, set up the same exact way, with stock wheelbase and lowered, that’s it. Everything else was factory. Did the same thing to the H2. The ZX-14R ran a 9.16 at 149 mph. The H2, with H2R pipes and ECU tuning very similar to the H2R’s, went 9.16 at 160. That’s 11 mph better!

Most people will say that’s not enough difference given the extra cost of the bike. But let’s not forget this fact: With the 14, I can lock the throttle in first gear. On the H2, I can’t lock the throttle until fourth gear. If you were to do a side by side run, the ZX-14 would pull away from the H2 until the eighth mile, but in the second half of the run the H2 would catch the ZX-14R by the finish line.

Of course, nothing on this bike fits any other bike that Kawasaki has. Not the electronics. Not the wheels. Nothing is the same. It was like a total ground-up restoration. It made for some headaches, honestly.

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.

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.

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