ZRX PAPERS
Torrance, California, October 11, 2002 -- Stock exhaust systems are looking better all the time on things like GSX-R1000s and R1s and 954s -- which now leave the factory with titanium pipes. (I hear titanium got cheap after the Russians quit building submarines out of it, but don't know if that's true. Anybody?)
In keeping with the bike's 80's theme and bargain price, though, Kawasaki equips its ZRX1200 with an exhaust that must weigh 30 pounds. I almost can't pick it up. Doesn't matter, though, because undoing the bottom radiator mounts, eight nuts where the head pipes meet the head, one behind the right footpeg area, and one at the passenger peg -- lets it clatter to the floor and then you can just drag it off into a dark corner. Naked bikes are cool.
The knowledgeable, helpful and lovely Doug Meyer at Muzzys Bend, Oregon works
Contrary to popular belief, you can run just the pipe without doing anything to the jetting (Doug said we might have a flat spot or two but we don't) without melting down the engine from leanness. Our ZRX runs fine with just the pipe, and even picked up quite a bit of top-end -- leading us to believe the 80-db stocker was pretty restrictive up there.
Join us next week as we toy with needles, fool with jets, possibly dick with float heights, and try to contact a human one more time at the K&N air filter company.
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