anyone swung a leg over a new 450. curious how they're comparing to the hondas or suzukis. feedback i'm getting from the boys at the motor shops is they're not getting the same kind of power out of kawi with pipe/intake/ignition mods that they are out of suzuki or hondas. love the bike on paper, but does it do everything else well enough?

 

We had on come into school when we had a dealer training class, and the bike is dope the guys who rode it said it had pwoer in every gear and then we took her down to dyno and ran in up with the Lt-z 450 and it whipped it like a school boy in my veiw its one of sickest bikes out

 

Better suspension and frame is rigid from everywhere offering good feedback. Slick to have reverse and e-start in a racer also. Power is tremendious, and explosive. Kawasaki said in an interview" we wouldn't have built it if we wanted tomatch everyone else!"

 

It's a great quad. However, the fuel injected models are all starving for air. I've ridden them all, really set up. To really get it to crank requires a new airbox setup. The difference will be like riding a stock quad, and then jumping on a jetted one. The next step would be a throttle body.
Quad Tech estimated several thousand dollars in their preliminary overhaul to pull out all of the corks.
Overall, very fast with just a full Yoshi setup. A monster with a few fairly expensive mods.

 

The Kawasaki 450 is a great quad when it comes to handling and jumps. The stock suspension is better than the honda and comparable to the zuke. If your comparing stock quads the kawi is close on power with the rest but can not compare dollar for dollar hp after being modded. A Honda can make 50hp with a good pipe, proper jetting and a good cam. I havent been impressed with the Kawi's at the drag races. I have a Honda with the mods I mentioned above and I have never been threated at all from a kfx at the drags. A friend has one and he has dumped thousands in it trying to beat me. He has a dasa pipe,efi controller,piston, cams, and he has ported and shaved his head. Still I smoke him with aonly a cam and pipe on the honda. I love kawasaki but I love to win too so I will race my honda for now.If you think the Kawi is a powerhouse, you never rode a Honda.

 

Curious as to what kind of cam you've got. I'm looking to buy a Honda 450 because I can get any aftermarket mod part for about half price. I am also a Kawi stud. But I just don't they're keeping up. I'm a veteran snowmobile racer, and from what I've seen, The KTM motors may be on the way to the top. I've never liked Honda, but like you, I like being up near the front.