The operative word when discussing Kawasaki's all-new ZX-14 is "big." The ZX-14 is a big-displacement bike that makes big power and is capable of generating big speed, and Kawasaki is hoping that its newest Ninja will take a big bite out of the Suzuki Hayabusa's backside on the sales floor. Of course, Kawasaki wanted to make a big impression on sportbike enthusiasts when it released this new bike to the public. To stack the odds in their favor, the company took the unconventional measure of delivering preproduction samples to a select few performance tuners and customizers so the modified ZX-14s would hit the scene at the same time the production bikes turned up at dealerships to get buyers amped up about the tuning potential of the ZX-14.
On the speed side, ZX-14s were shipped out to drag racing legends Rob Muzzy, Coby Adams and Rickey Gadson (see the following stories for more on these bikes). Demonstrating the performance potential of this bike was a priority, but to their credit, Kawasaki also realized the importance of showing how well the ZX-14 responded to customizing--the custom crowd has latched on to the `Busa like no other model, and the thousands of blinged-out examples rolling down the road do much to drive the success of that particular Suzuki. So, in addition to the straight-liners, Kawasaki also delivered a pair of preproduction ZX-14s to noted custom shop Roaring Toyz and let shop owner Robert Fisher and his crew trick out two bikes for the ZX-14's consumer debut at Daytona Bike Week.
Roaring Toyz, based in Sarasota, Florida ("Retirement Town, USA," Fisher says), was a natural choice for Kawasaki. Established in 2000 and turning out some of the hottest bikes in the southland since day one, Roaring Toyz knows as well as anyone how to build up smooth customs that really wow the crowd. In addition, with an ever-expanding Roaring Toyz house-brand of sportbike aftermarket accessories and good connections with reliable vendors, Roaring Toyz was uniquely equipped to create a selection of aftermarket goodies for the new model that would set these first customs off and also be available for sale to customers when the ZX-14 hit showrooms. New buyers would be able to personalize their bikes the day that they picked them up from the dealer.
This ability to quickly tool up a line of aftermarket parts was key, since the crew from Roaring Toyz would have less than a month to get the bikes ready for their big Bike Week debut. Not exactly a lot of time when you're starting from ground zero developing parts for an all-new, never-before-seen motorcycle model. Building these bikes in such short time was "chaotic," in Fisher's own words, and required every ounce of energy his staff of five could muster--not to mention above-and-beyond efforts from his most dedicated aftermarket partners.
Roaring Toyz' plan was to build two variations on the same theme, employing a variety of custom techniques to show how these translated to the ZX-14s unique shape and style. The green bike is the more radical of the two, featuring some subtle (but significant) body mods, more detailed paint and a nitrous system installed on the motor. The dark red one is closer to stock in specifications but does feature a wider, 300mm rear tire (compared with the green bike's 240mm rear meat).
Naturally, the first step for both bikes was to yank off the swingarms and send them off to C&S Custom in Mocksville, North Carolina, so the C&S crew could fab up extended, widened swingarms--the most popular modification for custom sportbikes nowadays. Fisher didn't want to get too cartoonish, so he ordered up a reasonable, six-inch stretch for both, with tubular underbracing for added support. "The back of the ZX-14 is really wide, so it houses the fat tires nicely," Fisher says. "The 240 almost looks skinny on it." Roaring Toyz also designed and manufactured the unique U-shaped, fully adjustable (Heim joint and threaded rod) lowering links that drop the rear end of both of these bikes.
At the same time that C&S was fabricating the first-of-their-kind swingarms, Fisher sent the stock ZX-14 wheels off to RC Components to have the hubs measured so a set of aftermarket rims could be created for this model. Fittingly, both bikes sport the latest spoke patterns from RC Components: "Ravens" on the green bike and "Assassins" on the red one. The green bike uses an 18x8.5-inch rear to carry the 240 tire, and the red one rolls on an 18x10.5-incher with a 300 tire. Both are fitted with 17x3.5-inch front wheels--Fisher prefers the 17-inch front over the taller 18s that are becoming popular on custom sportbikes because the 17 allows him to fit grippier, sportbike-specific rubber.
The swingarms and wheels are chromed on both bikes, and while the frame on the red bike has been chromed to match (all the chrome plating was done with a quickness by Sport Chrome in Westminster, California), the green bike features a painted frame. Fisher painted the frame on the green machine for two reasons: to give a more integrated look and also to avoid having to disassemble both bikes completely at the same time. "These were preproduction bikes, and we didn't even have so much as an owner's manual to tell us how they went together," Fisher says. "The red bike had to be completely stripped for chroming, and it turned out to be a good thing that we didn't tear the green one all the way down--we masked it off and painted it with the engine in the frame and the wiring harness still in place--so we could see how the red one went back together!"
Both bikes were painted by Roaring Toyz' house painter, Ryan Hatahaway--no small feat, Fisher tells us. "The ZX-14 is a very difficult motorcycle to paint," Fisher says, "with the monocoque frame and more than 25 separate body pieces to fit together on each bike. It's a very complicated motorcycle, laying a graphic pattern over it, painting all the various pieces and making sure that they all line up when the bike goes back together is very, very challenging, but Ryan really did a great job with it."
Before the body parts were delivered to Hathaway for painting, Fisher and his team spent some extra time cleaning up the green bike's panels. One of the more controversial aspects of the ZX-14's styling has been the "cheese grater" aerodynamic vanes along the side of the bike, which some have bashed for being reminiscent of a mid-'80s Ferrari Testarossa. Addressing this concern, Fisher fabricated a set of replacement "smoothie" side panels that did away with the vanes (these will be available from Roaring Toyz, painted to match the OEM ZX-14 colors). He also removed the speed vanes from the front fender and shaved and filled the fairing-mounted turn signals. The bodywork on the red bike, by comparison, remains as delivered from the factory.
The green and purple color scheme on the 240 bike was a no-brainer. "I thought that we had to do at least one of them in traditional green and purple Kawasaki corporate colors," Fisher explained, expressing bafflement (shared by many enthusiasts) that Kawasaki offers the ZX-14 in red, blue and black but not the signature lime green. A dark red basecoat was selected for the 300 bike in an homage to Kawasaki's earlier top-dog superbike, the candy red ZX-11 that first established the company as a top-speed leader. Finishing off both the Roaring Toyz bikes are tribal-style graphics, with skull-themed airbrushing motifs on the upper fairings and seat cowlings.
Once he wrapped up the body mods and chassis alterations, Fisher and his staff turned their attention to developing a full line of billet accessories to bling both bikes out. Everywhere you look on these bikes you see a trick Roaring Toyz bit. The mirrors are Roaring Toyz proprietary pieces, as are the grips and the stunning bladed brake and clutch levers on the red bike. For these bikes, Roaring Toyz tooled up a bunch of K- and ZX-engraved beauty caps, which are seen on the green bike covering the front axle, swingarm pivots, steering head locknut, motor mounts and fork caps. The red bike features the company's acorn-style pointed pieces in many of the same places. Billet kickstands are likewise Roaring Toyz parts, as are the license plate relocaters that mount to the left rear passenger peg--necessary with the fat tire and extended swingarm. Like what you see? All this stuff is available for sale now through Roaring Toyz' web site at www.zx14parts.com and, if all goes well, will also be available directly through Kawasaki's own parts and accessories line at your local dealer. The ZX-14-logo heel guards are one of the few bolt-ons that come from an outside source--those are the work of Brian Johnson at AlteredChrome.com.
One other component that Fisher is especially proud of is the floating front brake rotors, also built by Roaring Toyz. Traditional floating rotors utilize a carrier that is riveted directly to the rotor surface, a construction that greatly complicates a customizer's ability to chrome, paint or otherwise refinish the carrier. The new Roaring Toyz rotor, by comparison, fits into the carrier from behind and is held together with a single, oversized circlip that allows the rotor and carrier to be separated in seconds and any finish to be easily applied to the carrier. Finishing off the trick front brake systems are billet Performance Machine radial-mount calipers and custom stainless lines from Galfer.
Underneath the fairings, the 1352cc motors are mostly stock--owing to the fact that, as mentioned before, Fisher didn't even have a service manual available and he wanted to make absolutely sure that the bikes would be running well when they hit the streets for Bike Week. He did, however, rig up a wet nitrous system to the green ZX-14, with a purge valve located in a novel position--dead-center in the middle of the upper fairing's central air duct. Both bikes are fitted with the just-released Moira full exhaust system from Boz Brothers, the new aftermarket company launched by well-known roadracing brothers Ben and Eric Bostrom. "I was really happy to connect with the Boz Brothers and get the first ZX-14 exhausts that they built," Fisher says. "Exhausts are a big problem on fat-tire bikes because normal exhaust systems don't have the clearance necessary to work with the wider swingarms. The Boz exhaust exits from the lower fairing in front of the rear tire so there are no clearance issues, not to mention that it looks great and is a little bit louder to attract more attention, too."
To say that these two bikes attracted some attention during their debut in the Kawasaki corporate display at Bike Week would be an understatement. "The Kawasaki guys were very, very pleased with our work," Fisher says. "I don't think they expected us to take these bikes nearly as far as we did." And of course, the custom sportbike fans were even more enthusiastic--for many of them, the opportunity to see the ZX-14 in person was one of the most anticipated moments at Bike Week, and it's fair to say that no one was expecting to see two customs in addition to the production bikes. Jaws were dropping all over the demo area, a scene that was repeated tenfold every night when the Roaring Toyz crew took the pair of bikes out to custom sportbike hot spots like the Hess Station, where the bike freaks could see (and hear) them in action.
Kawasaki did it right this time. The company certainly made an impression with the new ZX-14 at Bike Week this year, and thanks to plenty of hard work by Roaring Toyz and their partners, it was a BIG one.