The quickest Kawasaki ZX-12R

Thursday, October 16, 2008

With more than 600bhp at the rear wheel, this is one ZX-12R that reaches 322km/h over the quarter mile.

While it was supplanted by the ZZR1400 back in 2006, the erstwhile ZX-12R remains one of our favourite Kawasakis. And Tim Blakemore Racing’s Ninja ZX-12R just might be the quickest, hardest accelerating 12R ever.

Conceived and developed at the Tim Blakemore race shop in Bristol, in the UK, this ZX-12R makes more than 600 horsepower at the rear wheel. It accelerates from zero to 112km/h in less than a second and does the standing quarter-mile (400m) in 6.82 seconds, hitting a speed of 322km/h in that time. It was, according to TBR, the first UK-built drag bike to exceed 320km/h over the quarter-mile.

The basic engine is standard Kawasaki-issue 1200cc inline-four, with Carillo con rods and MTC Pistons. The transmission has been converted to a heavy-duty four-speed unit (from Weissman), and a Garrett GT35 turbo was bolted on to reach that 600bhp figure.

The bike, which runs on methanol (burning over four litres over the quarter-mile!), also gets a custom-built chrome-molybdenum chassis, designed by Webster Engineering for straight-line stability. The rear tyre is a 12-inch Goodyear Eagle, which lasts only 10-15 quarter-mile runs – that’s less than a minute of on-track usage! The bike is valued at over US$100,000.

Tim Blakemore Racing has now moved on to a Kawasaki ZZR1400, and we wonder what they’ll do with that 1400cc engine. We wouldn’t bet against 800bhp and six-second quarter-mile runs though…

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