Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R ABS - Long-Term Wrap-Up

Our lime-green ABS-equipped ZX-10R, a 2011 model, has performed superbly on the street and quite admirably on the track, thanks in part to a few affordable modifications.

We handed our bike over to Ken Hill, an instructor at the now-defunct Yamaha Champions Riding School as well as a private riding coach and part of faster­safer.com. Hill racked up thousands of trackday miles and applied a handful of mods that he felt offered solid performance gains while remaining within our self-imposed $1,500 spending cap.

A Lee’s Cycle Service’s stock ECU flash ($450; leescycle.com) with a revised map based on that of Kawasaki’s race kit ECU unlocked the engine’s hidden potential. This alone substantially boosted the engine’s output above 11,500 rpm and raised the stock 13,600-rpm rev limit to 14,100. Hill also installed a Muzzys Catless Slip-on exhaust with street-core packing ($489.95; muzzys.com) offer­ing an 8-pound weight savings. The ECU/pipe combination produced 174.2 peak horsepower with as much as a 25-hp gain achieved across much of the upper 2,500 rpm of the rev range.

Hill enlisted Mike Canfield at MC Technologies to assist with the chassis. An AMA crew chief and suspension expert, Canfield felt the shock spring was too soft overall, particularly so in the initial part of suspension travel. He also found the stock damping’s shim stack setup to be too light, causing the valving to open early. Since our target budget didn’t allow for a Race Tech Gold Valve kit, Canfield worked with Race Tech’s Paul Thede to come up with a new valve stack for both compression and rebound that was much more aggressive; Canfield also cleaned up a few internal pieces and used Race Tech US-0 high-quality suspension fluid when putting it all back together. All told, the shock makeover, including a firmer spring, was kept at a very reasonable $375 since we R&R’d the shock ourselves.