Listen to the Ninja H2

Is that a supercharger we hear?

KAWASAKI has released a second video of the Ninja H2, this time teasing us with a sound clip of the bike.

The sound clip reveals a couple of interesting things: it’s a four-cylinder four-stroke engine, so it’s very unlikely to be any sort of rebirth of the old two-stroke three-cylinder H2.

Secondly, the ‘howling and chirping’ in the video are indications that the machine will use the supercharged engine the firm revealed at last year’s Tokyo Motor Show.

That prototype motor appeared to be based on some of the same castings as the ZX-6R unit, but with the addition of a supercharger to boost power. The new ‘H2’ reference could be a suggestion that the final engine will actually be around 750cc. With forced induction, the resulting motor would probably be powerful enough to destroy 1000cc normally-aspirated bikes in performance terms, while potentially being smaller and lighter.

The next teaser video will be released on the Ninja H2 site this Friday.