95Racer Development

Well after some delays, the bottom end of the newest spec engine is ready to go together. The cylinder head is getting some additional work done including further porting work and dual valve springs fitted. It should be ready in another week or so.

In the mean time, I’ll be busy assemblying the bottom with the improved parts.

Improved Crank:
The balancer shaft gear has been removed and the crank lightened again and balanced to a new balance factor to move the vibrations to a more appropriate part of the rev range. As you can see from in the picture below, it’s a far cry from the stock part. It also weighs about 1.5 kg less!

This picture shows the shortened end of the crank with a slot cut into it for the external starter drive. Removal of the internal starter gears allowed us to shorten the crank and move the flywheel mass closer to the centre. As you can read further down, the flywheel is a fair bit lighter as well, as is the racing generator is now incorporates.

Reworked Stock Conrods:
The standard rods have so far proved strong enough. Plus we couldn’t find any lighter ones (although maybe stronger) on the aftermarket. Of course, there are always titanium rods. We concentrated on perfectly balancing them and strengthening the neck area with polishing and shot peening afterwards. It’s amazing how much hand work is just in rods alone.

We also found out that while originally Kawasaki had two types of rods available, J and K rods, they now have obsoleted the J rods. It turns out the the K rods are slightly thicker in the neck and small end area. It seems that the K rods were chosen maybe for slightly greater strength. They weigh roughly 8 grams more than the J rods. We now only use K rods.