2006 ZX-14 vs. Hayabusa Photo Gallery

2006 ZX-14 vs. Hayabusa

We thought the giant Coastal Redwoods near our Southern Oregon HQ made a fitting backdrop for the two largest sportbikes in the market as we rode the machines to the Pacific Coast down US199.

The first place the two heavyweights would slug it out was on the dyno. The Suzuki cranked 155.9 horsepower at 9,900 rpm, which in a normal world be a crippling body blow. The Kawasaki, however, took the shock and counter-punched with a decapitating headshot of its own, 169.1 hp at 9,500 rpm.

Delivering a second Round 1 wound, the ZX took the edge in torque figures, posting 103 lb-ft at 7,800 rpm compared to the Busa's peak of 94 lb-ft at 7,000 rpm.

Ding, Ding, Ding... And at the conclusion of Round 1, the challenger in blue is ahead of the champ due to pure power on the dyno.

Our street ride included a stretch along the Pacific Coast Highway, with plenty of twisty asphalt in between to throw the front-running ZX against its Suzuki rival.

The Busa's sportier riding position comes via a footpeg position which obliges a more agressive angle for the legs, as well as narrower bars which put pressure on the upper body.

The slimmer tank on the ZX makes it feel smaller when compared back-to-back. The lower footpeg placement also made the position of the rider's legs less cramped, although heat directed onto the thighs by the ZX's bodywork was a mixed blessing depending on the outside temperature.

A glance into the Hayabusa's mirrors shows part of the rider's elbows rather than an unobstructed view of the road behind. A disadvantage, since you must take special pains to keep an eye out for the law on these speed-limit-abusing mounts.

What better backdrop for our pair of big-bore sportbikes than this gigantic engine from the Railroad Park Resort in Northern California.

Once the road got a little gnarly the Hayabusa, to our surprise given its less aggressive geometry, rose to the top when we had to muscle the machines around the corners.

While perhaps not quite as nimble as its rival, the Ninja keeps a steady line through turns and is best utilized in what Ken describes as "point-and-shoot" style riding.

The Hayabusa's old-school 6-piston-caliper brakes don't offer the amount of feel as the radial-mount 4-piston units on the Ninja.

When the lights faded to dark, we were able to do a little bit of headlight testing. The Hayabusa had better low-beams, but the ZX's high-beams blew us away.

For our first ever zero-180 graph, the ZX reached the mark a half-second quicker at 18.90 seconds to the Busa's 19.42.

A quick look at our acceleration chart and you can see that the Hayabusa's dominating reign over drag racing could be at an end.

Passing through the Redwoods and on home, we couldn't decide which bike won head-to-head out on the street. Both bikes were admirable performers, with each one excelling over the other in specific areas, so we had to call this portion of our test a draw.

We had already seen what the Hayabusa could do to straight expanses of asphalt on the open road, but with its illustrious dragracing credentials we would be doing everyone a disservice if we didn't take the Busa out to the local dragstrip for a few runs.

This wasn't the first time Ken had tried his hand at dragracing the new Kawasaki. At the press intro for the much anticipated machine Hutch got pointers from none other than dragracing pro Ricky Gadson.

With the sun having already set on Friday Night Drags, it was time for the moment of truth. Ken, with his previous experience dragracing the ZX-14 decided to even things out by taking the Hayabusa and leaving dragracing first-timer BC on the giant Kwakker.

The name is Danger, Duke Danger. Sitting astride the machine on which he would get pegged for speeding later that very day, Duke rattled off some eyebrow-raising results during our performance testing.