Kawasaki ZXR750

 I have a ZXR750 H1

Totally agree with your comment about the motor. This is a bike that you have to learn to live with. The engine is pretty uninspiring at low revs, but once you get the speed going everything changes. The front end of this bike is really planted and gives confidence to really pick the line into the corners last minute and accelerate through and out of them.

For a 21 year old bike as mine is, it equals the handling of the later ZX6R I had [ 2001 J2] and sounds much better. Due to the flat sided carbs, you find that the best way to ride is smoothly rolling on and off of the throttle. This leads to an involving riding style, which I have found to be more interesting and rewarding than many newer bikes.

I found mine on ebay for £500 and have rebuilt the brakes, forks, and rebalanced the carbs etc. On a budget, you can have yourself a great handling sportsbike with plenty of character. My bike owes me £800 and makes me smile every time I ride it.

Posted: 23/08/2010 at 18:15

Having owned 3 ZXR's a 1990 H2, an 1989 H1, and now currently I have a stunning red/silver/black version H2.

 What I like about the bike first and foremost is the size, it's a bike that feels it has some prescence, plenty of room for moving around. In a time when bikes are getting lighter & smaller...I'd rather enjoy my H2 when doing some miles.

In my opinion the ZXR sounds great with the original/standard exhaust, it's quite rorty note.

I'll be hanging onto mine, as the years pass there are fewer & fewer of these great bikes, particularly in original, uncrashed condition. 

Posted: 21/11/2010 at 09:33

Posted: 21/11/2010 at 21:30

Posted: 19/12/2010 at 15:21

Posted: 23/04/2011 at 13:21

I think it was the Suffix Ks that had the flat carbs..

See:

 http://homepage.ntlworld.com/webzxr/zxr750r/History/History.html

I've also  heard that they don't make road riding as awkward as

the myth holds.. but do take some time to set up correctly.  

Posted: 11/03/2012 at 17:07

The CR carbs, or flatsides, dont  make the K and M models impossible to drive, but be clear they do bog down if you give the bike a handfull at low rpm, if you did the same with cv carbs you would get drive, with the CR carbs, you flood the engine with fuel.

 As you open the throttle , large quantities of fuel are pumped directly into large jets that spray directly into the mouth of the carb, rather like a fuel injector, and the rate they pump at is determined by the rate the throttle opens, so if you yank open the throttle say, as you might when overtaking, on the zxr, if your in the 3000-4000 rpm range, the engine bogs down as there is to much fuel.

 The effect is rather like a cold engine, when engines are cold, even with the choke on they initially wont take any meaningful throttle openings without stalling, the zxr behaves like this when large throttle openings are made at low rpm, this can be avoided by gently opening the throttle.

But having said this, when you reach high rpm the response from the carbs is millimeter perfect, you open 1mm you get the same from the motor, you open it wide at high rpm, the motor then does the same and picks up speed very quicky almost mirroring the throttle movment.

So I dont think there is any great difficulty driving one of these machines at low speed rpm, there is also the tall first gear which adds to the mix, a bit of clutch slip and attention to throttle opening at low speeds is all that is required.

 However there is a diffrence between well set up carbs and poorly set up carbs, the carbs need to be adjusted so they slide lifting mechanisim lifts the slides all pefectly together, one of the carbs it a base setting and not to be adjusted, the remaing three are to be adjusted to suit, this isnt a difficult thing to do and any half decent mech should be able to carry this out, once done thr bike will run nicely, but if the mechanisim is badly adjusted the bike is not good to drive at all, it makes a big diffrence, and indeed the carbs need to be checked, if not adjusted every service, to keep things sweet.

But really the suspension was much more of an issue for me than the carbs, as it was very hard and didnt work well at all until into three figure speeds.

Still I rate the J and K models as one the best looking bikes ever

Cheers

Posted: 08/10/2012 at 09:44