Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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JEREMY TOYE NINJA400R.COM KAWASAKI NINJA 400 RACER TEST P110 S o, you want to go racing, huh? This is probably the best way to do it, simply because you A) get a good base bike and B) have it assembled by a guy who really knows what he's doing. If you've ever gone racing before you'll know the ef- fort it takes to get a stock- standard street bike into race trim. It's hours and hours of work, especially when you start getting into electron- ics and actual tuning of the motorcycle. Toye's package does all that for you. "In this configuration, you could pretty much run it as long as the stock engine would last, because really all we've done is polish the edges and make the toler- ances proper, and it's all the stock Kawasaki parts," Toye says. "This could be given to a club guy that's just going to change his oil and change his air filter, and it would be happy with that." CLUTCH "The clutch is a little bit under evolving," says Toye. "The clutches on these things are very small and will only stand up to prob- ably, I'd say, 10 to 12 good launches and then they need to be replaced. We've been modifying our clutches to last a little bit longer and that's a labor side of things." GEARBOX "The transmission has been super-teched, says Toye. "Basically, it's a procedure that cleans up and hardens and micro-polishes the trans- mission to make it smoother, slicker and ultimately last lon- ger. The tranny was a ques- tion when these bikes first came out. We've seen that the tranny is holding together absolutely no problem. We did that just for our own infor- mation. We've also got Vortex sprockets on there. The 415- kit is a tiny little jewelry chain, which I wouldn't recommend for most track day guys, but for anybody needing some definite weight reduction and friction reduction, that's the way to go." ENGINE "We reshaped some of the ports in the cylinder head," Toye says. "The cam timing has been adjusted, and the compression level has been raised. This bike's (in the photo) head has been milled. The head on this thing has enough room to put an extra set of tools and your lunch in there! The Ninja 400 was obviously thought to be idled at a stoplight for a long time, and then have its neck rung at the track. So, they gave you plenty of room in there. "As for the rest of the bot- tom end, crank, rods, pistons, everything is stock. The gen- erating system is also stock. The exhaust is an Akrapovic full titanium system." AIRBOX "The airbox is definitely one of the biggest restrictions of this bike," Toye says. "We've modified the airbox, it's got different velocity stacks in it. This is our first go at trying to develop a ram air system for it, which is a big benefit. This thing needs air, it's the bike's biggest restriction." BUILDING YOUR EXPERT