Kawasaki Ninja H2 | My Ownership Experience 🙈

Welcome along guys, well I've had this bike now for two seasons, it's now the end of the year, it's getting cold, it's getting damp. I thought it's about time I brought this bike out one last time before she's put away for the winter, winterised, just to give you a run through of what's happened to this bike, what mods I've done to it, just a big old update on the H2 because it's been a very very long time since this bike has been on the channel. She's now 240 horsepower at the back wheel, so she's got a bit of poke, she's titanium, she's fully modded, H2 are wings, upper and lowers, beautiful, beautiful piece of engineering. So I'm going to take you out for a spin, ride along with me and I'll tell you all about the H2 and why I love this bike. Chopsy, roll the intro. Right, so let's do it. Yes, this place is the place where Baron and Fagan rode the Foggy P1s, are they called? Not the P1s, the Patronus race bikes. It was this place, this is the place which restores them. As you can see, there's a bit of money's worth of kit here. I may go and knock the door at some point to see if I can get my hands on one of those and take them for a spin, but this is the place. I thought what better place to bring this bike to start the video with other exotica, but there's no denying it, the H2's got it. So I bought this bike last year, beginning of the season. Yeah, so I've had it a year and a half, two summers I've had playing on this bike. It's now got just under 3,000 miles on it, so not many. I bought it new. Footpegs, they're high. I bought it new, well new, not brand new. It was a bike which had been living in a dealership as like a demo bike. It was a 2017 bike. Hang on, I'm just going to put it back into rain mode a minute. I'll tell you about that in a minute. But it's been sat in a dealer for a year, you know, just as a showpiece. It had one mile on it. You know, it was registered, road registered, but with one mile, so that's how I bought it. I got a really good deal on it. Otherwise, these are £26,000 new. I cannot afford a £26,000 motorcycle, so I got a really good deal on this bike. Not because of YouTube or anything, but just because I was in the right place at the right time. I'd sold my Supermoto project, my old 500 EXC, to get a 690 SMC-R at the time, so I had the money from that. I'd also sold the GSX-R, so I had the money from that, and I was like, well, look at that. That's an H2, a bike I'd never thought I'd be able to afford, and I could just about afford it. So that's how I got it, by remote off. So this bike is an absolute animal. I mean, standard, these are 215, 220 horsepower. This one has been mapped by Chris at CJS Racing. He can now map these via the diagnostic port. The biggest pain in the arse for getting these mapped is having to take off the ECU, which is under the front cowl, and on the UK, or I think the whole of the European spec bikes, that ECU is secured with tamper-proof bolts. So you can't get the ECU off. I had to butcher the cage which holds it on and then buy a new one to get the ECU off, but he can now flash these via the diagnostic port. Incredible, incredible what they've managed to achieve. I think that's all Karasaki's, some other model. I think it's every model which uses the Mitsubishi ECU, contact CJS if you're interested, but it makes this bike, flashing this bike and chipping this bike, absolutely so easy now. So what else have I done to this bike in that time? This has got the full Van Diemen exhaust system. So the full titanium system, that saves about, I think it was about 15 kilos or something off the weight of the bike, because the standard exhaust on these is massive, absolutely massive. Full titanium, it's a replica of the H2R system. It's the same diameter tubing, looks just like the H2R one, full titanium. That's incredible. Sounds amazing. Listen to that. Sounds amazing. And that is with the baffle in. Yes, the baffle is in on this bike. The baffle out, the noise is just ear bleeding. It's so loud. I have to wear my custom fit guards earplugs on this bike because it is, it's that loud. 10% off by the way, link in description. So why did I buy an H2? I mean, it's not a practical motorcycle by any stretch of the imagination. It's expensive. The paint on these has a layer of real silver in it. So it's real silver, which is then applied in some chemical process. That's how they get this shiny effect. The bike is the only production supercharged motorcycle. When it came out, obviously Kawasaki have sort of filtered that down to some lesser models in the range, but this was the original supercharged beast. And what I love about this bike, Kawasaki made this bike because they said, because we can, it was a demonstration of what Kawasaki heavy industries are capable of. I mean, they didn't normally, if a bike manufacturer were to produce something like this, they'd go to all of their partners, all of their suppliers and say, we need a supercharger which fits these specs. But they didn't, they did it all in house. They went through 37 or believe 32 different impeller designs for the supercharger. They settled on number 27. The figures on this bike are phenomenal. When it's at full chat at 11,000 revs, it shifts a hundred litres of air per second. To put it into perspective, the ZX-10R shifts 20 litres of air per second and probably the same amount of fuel. It's not, it's not an economical bike to ride. The supercharger actually saps 40 brake horsepower from the engine. So to run that supercharger, all the gearing to turn it, it costs the bike 40 horsepower. So it just goes to show how much power that supercharger gives to the bike to make up the deficit of 40 brake horsepower, plus the extra you're getting on top. Standard, these are quick. These are, these are fast bike standard, but they're not massively different from the latest proper litre bikes. They've got the slight edge, but they're not massively different because they are a little bit heavier. These are about 240 kilos wet. You know, I've shed the, I've shed 15 kilos because of the exhaust. I've put other titanium bits on this bike. I think this probably weighs about 220 kilos wet now, but it's not that light. So compared to the 200 kilo sports bike standard, they're, they've got the slight edge, but they're not massively above. But if you get a little bit of tweaking done to the mapping or not even really much tweaking, all you have to do is stop the throttle bodies closing because Kawasaki didn't want to release a bike, which produced 250 horsepower for the road. And they thought that could be pushing our luck. That could draw some attention to us. So what they've done on their standard, they make the throttle, as you get to about 9,000 revs, the throttle bodies, you know, the actual butterflies start to close. Even though you've got the throttle at a hundred percent here, they start to close. And by the time you're at about 11,000 revs, they're only open 33% and they're almost closing. And you can see that on the dyno curve, they tail off at the top. So these bikes make their maximum power standard really quite early on, because from that point, they're slowly being shut down. So if you get this chipped or tuned or the ECU flashed, all we, all they basically do is remove that restriction so the throttle bodies stay open. So this bike, now, this bike has a one-to-one throttle mapping. So whatever I do on the twist grip is reflected on the butterflies one-on-one. So, you know, this bike is a bit of a handful because of that reason, even standard, you know, Kawasaki had limited that initial opening of the throttle body, sort of below 6,000 revs, they don't open fully. So this is now one-to-one. Because of that, it's a little bit lively in first gear. You know, you've got full power in first gear now and around town, you know, it is a little bit on the snatchy side. I have to be honest, I'm going to take this back to Chris next year, and we are going to optimise it a little bit better. But what I tend to do around town, as I say, can be a little bit of a handful. So what I do, I just pop it into rain mode, which is why I was in rain mode earlier on. That reduces the power to 100 brake horsepower. But not only that, it puts back all the smoothed off throttle response. So you've got the rain mode throttle response, which means you can be a lot lazier with the throttle. And it just makes it easier when you just want to cruise and go slowly. So this really is Jekyll and Hyde, this bike. Rain mode on and off absolutely transforms it. With it on, it reminds me a bit of the new CBR 1000. That's a bit like that feels when it's winding up. So you've got that nice flattened off response when you just want to cruise and not go mental. But when the red mist descends, hold the button down. You don't have to close the throttle either. Then you've got the full power. And all the three. I'll increase that slightly. I don't want level three. I think that's maybe not enough. Level one. Let's go level six. Level six. There we are. Just because of the conditions. All the noises this bike makes. All the little chips, all the little chirps. You know, that supercharger, that making the sound barrier, so they say. So they say that's what's been said. I don't know how true that is. But that. But it it makes constant little burbles, constant little noises. It's something special. It is a very, very special motorcycle. And the reason I bought one was just because I think it's definitely going to be a future classic. Without doubt, it's going to be a future classic. Like I say, I got this for a really good price. I could probably still sell this for exactly the same amount of money I bought this bike for. They're really holding their money. So while this bike is not losing me any money, potentially going to be gaining me money over the long term. It's a no brainer. Why would I get rid of it? It just means quite a lot of money tied up in one bike. But that bike is incredible. She is truly something special. So as I say, I've done a lot of mods to this bike. The H2R wings, the full carbon front cowl like the H2R. That's all Motocomposite, all that carbon fiber work. It's all from a company called Motocomposites in the States. Absolutely top quality carbon fiber. If you want carbon, I do highly recommend those guys. So that was all from Motocomposites. Upper and lower wings, front cowl, these inserts, they're all carbon. So I've changed a few bits to carbon on this. Rear chain guard as well. I'll do a full walk around in a minute and I'll show you everything. The Van Diemen exhaust, of course, was another mod. Also I've got a lot of titanium fixings on this from Race Fasteners. There's links to all these places down below, so go check them out. But I've got full titanium disc nuts, yoke bolts, there's titanium bits and bobs everywhere. Full engine set of titanium bolts as well. I've got a few videos on the weight loss on this bike, weighing everything before it went on, so I'll stick a link to that or a link up there. I've also got a lithium battery on this which saves about two and a half kilos straight away. So I've done a lot of mods to try and reduce the weight of this machine. Titanium bolts and all of the perches and stuff. So she really has been taken, I think, really as far as you can take a bike to try and reduce weight. I could put a set of carbon wheels on it, but I really like the look and design of the standard wheels. That's why I haven't changed the wheels. Obviously, of course, that's a hell of a lot of money as well, but I like the look of the standard wheels. I think they just go in keeping with the bike, so that's why I haven't changed them. And to be honest, it doesn't need any more performance, even though carbon wheels would lighten up the feel from it a little bit. It feels pretty nimble. It feels light on its feet when you're riding it, even though it is a big, heavy bike. Okay, let's give it a little tickle. Let's drop down to third and give it a little tickle. Traction control coming on then. I just love the sound. Oh, what about that? Sensible to a 30. We're sticking in and we can just cruise and be gentle. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's fast and I'm not even really opening it up. I'm just tickling it in the mid-range and it's as fast as you ever need to go. So has anything gone wrong with this bike? Not that it wasn't my own doing. It fell off my Abastan and dented the tank. Two weeks after I'd had this bike, I dropped it and it had got a dented tank. That cost me, well luckily that only cost me 700 quid to put right. From Kawasaki, one of these tanks will cost you, I think it was £2,200 for a new petrol tank. Luckily, Wheels Motorcycles came to the rescue and got me the new tank and I think it was about 700 quid. So that was amazing. Other things I've done, I had the bike, I think it was the second night the bike had been in the garage. So it'd been in the garage for the second night of ownership and a dog cage that I keep in the little loft space above the bike in the garage decided to throw itself out and that fell out, hit the floor but it caught a little bit of the side fairing and it's got a little scratch on the side fairing as well. That was bloody the second night of owning the bike. That dog cage has been up in that loft for five years. It waits until my £26,000 motorcycle with silver coated paint arrives and is parked underneath of it and it decides to leap from its moorings, which has been quite happy there for five years, and land on my £26,000 Kawasaki H2. So I weren't too happy about that but I consoled myself in the thought that it could have been worse. It could have hit the petrol tank. And then a week later I dropped the bike and smashed the petrol tank up anyway. So we've had a bit of a shaky start, this bike and me. It's not been all roses and carbon fibre. Okay let's pull over and I'll give a little walk around and show you the details on this machine because it's incredible the details on this bike. Let me give you a little tour. That'll do, that'll do pig. Well there she is, my Ninja H2. It's a beautiful, well it's not beautiful, you can't really call it beautiful. Is it beautiful? It's angry, it's mean, it's aggressive but probably and beautiful. When these came out I saw them, I saw the pictures and I thought what a fantastic, incredible machine. I never for a minute thought it was a bike I could ever own and just to own this thing it's a special experience. I like to, you know, I love the, as I said, I like all the engineering with this bike. That's what I really love about it, the engineering, the no holes barred, let's do this, let's make something special. And as I say I think this has got to be a future classic. So what have I done to it? I've put on the carbon front cowl, a couple of reasons for doing that really. I love the look of that sort of H2R look, also it saves getting all stone chips on the original cowling, so you're sort of saving stone chips on the original silver cowl, so it's like a backup almost. It's also got the wings, the full carbon fibre wings, the top wings where the mirrors should be and then the lower wings down here. These produce 20 kilos of downforce per side, so 40 kilos in total at about, I think it's 150 miles an hour, so 40 kilos, so two big bags of cement on the front of the bike at 150. Well that's two bags of cement on the front and then there's 10 bags on the where I'm sat. It's a Van Diemen exhaust, full titanium, as I say a replica of the H2R system. You know these turn a fantastic amazing colour but mine's now getting to the point where it's starting to lose that colour a little bit, it's starting to fade, so it's a bit of a shame but it's losing that real bright vibrant rainbow effect that titanium has when it's new, so it's slowly fading. As I say the paint on these is actually silver, silver paint, my goodness, carbon fibre infills on the fairing and then of course you've got the full carbon on the outside on this piece and then back to the silver. Indicators, because the indicators are in the mirrors normally, I've had to fit bar end indicators, so I've got some Rizoma bar end indicators, so the wire for these runs through the inside of the clip-on and then just about here, I think you can just about see it maybe, I drilled a tiny hole and the wiring comes out here and then connects into the standard indicator harness, so it's all factory plug and play but little indicators there and they look really nice and they're bright. Let me show you, there we go, flashing in action so from the front of the bike you've still got an indicator. Another thing I love of the H2 is the dashboard, I'm not a fan of the new 2020 TFT, I think it looks a little bit cheap, I think it gives the bike a cheap feel, I prefer these old analog clocks whereby the rev numbers light up as you rev it, I just think they're much more classy, I like the sort of the whole black finish as well, much nicer than the TFT. Of course not as much information displayed but they're just more classy looking. On the other side of course we have the non-open swinging arm end, so you've got the sprocket and carbon fibre chain guard, the inlet to the supercharger here, so that's the inlet that feeds directly into the supercharger, this all looks pretty sweet from this side as well. Now one thing I have done is I've added some rim tape to the bike, so this is the side with the, I can't decide whether I like the rim tape or not, so with rim tape, without rim tape, with rim tape, without rim tape, what do you think? With or without the rim tape? I think with but I'm not 100% decided. I like to keep this bike clean so even underneath of this machine, I put some pictures on Instagram the other day of it underneath, I mean it is clean and I say I like to keep this clean but you know it is, it's like new, it really is like new, you know even the underneath of the bike. What a sado! I think that's about it for the details of this machine, well there's so many details, you know I could go on all day about details but let's ride it. Right power up again, yeah! Another thing the mapping did, and this is something else I want to change really and something I don't like, is when you close the throttle, what we decided was on older bikes when you close the throttle no fuel goes in, you know you're shutting the injectors shut down but that makes it a bit of a trap, when you do go on the throttle it can make it a little bit snatchy as you bring the power in and the fuel gets re-injected again. What we did to try and smooth this bike was when the throttle shut, put a little bit of fuel in, put a little bit of fuel in which what that does mean is it runs on so when you shut the throttle you lose a bit of engine braking and you know I like engine braking, that means if you're going into a corner you shut the throttle, whereas normally engine braking would enable you to not use the brake, you've got to then touch the brake to correct your speed and that upsets the bike, so I like a bit of engine braking. The bike does have some adjustable engine braking, it has on the high or low and I've put it back on high and this has helped but there's still a lot of push on if you like I'll go back to Chris, we're going to re-flash it, turn that off again so we get full engine braking and then see if we can just smooth up that initial throttle response because as you can see, I mean that's quite, that's quite, I gave it quite a handful there, but it's very very responsive so perhaps we're thinking of using a little bit of the rain map, the initial opening of the rain map, putting that on the on the bike for that initial, initial throttle turning just to soften that initial amount up, but it's work to do next year so I'll be going back to do Chris with this again next year to fine tune and tweak it so it's blooming perfect. Okay second gear, let's give it a little bit of a handful It's a beast! It's a bike whereby giving it a handful in second gear is actually not particularly easy on the road because as you saw, you know, the traction control's limiting it so it's jumping up and down a bit and then I'm holding on quite tight so as the wheel comes up, I'm turning the bar slightly I need, I need to be gripped, I need to grip with the tank, keep your bars, keep your hands loose, that's what I'm doing, I'm too tight and it's, I'm turning the bars as the wheel comes up and then you're in all sorts of worlds of pain and you have to shut it down. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's not the easiest bike to ride, it's a handful. As I say, the Dash is more basic, more classy, but it's more basic but it does still come with lean angle indication so you can have your, it remembers your maximum lean angle which is a fun feature, nothing more really is it, so my maximum lean angle to the left is 39 degrees, maximum lean angle to the right is 42 degrees and that's sort of the maximum I've done since it was reset so I promise probably the last ride I did actually, I haven't done that today that's for sure. You've got other information like, you know, temperature, water temperature, 72 degrees, I find these bikes run incredibly cool, 72 degrees, it never gets hot this bike, even in mid-summer you never get a lot of heat off the engine, it runs very very cool, I never see it hardly ever go above 90 degrees which is a real surprise for me being a supercharged bike, you'd imagine it would produce a lot of heat but it does not. You've got boost temperature, so your boost inlet temperature 41 degrees at the moment, the boost going into the engine, you have your percentage of boost, so at the moment I'm running 108 percent so only seven percent above atmosphere on boost on percentage, I don't know what that equates to but, and it's something you could never see while you're riding it anyway so it's a little bit pointless. Mileage of course, the time, the gear indicator, the speed, the level of traction control you're in but that's about it so, you know, it's a pretty basic, everything's there but you've just got to cycle through to see everything but I'd much rather have this display over the later, you know, more TFT, a bit cheap and nasty looking if you ask me, classy. So I'm going to go to the petrol station, I'm going to fill this to the brim with super unleaded and I'm going to tuck her up and put her away, put her on the Optimate and leave her for the winter and then we'll bring her out again in the spring and that'll be that, that is, I may put a little bit of fuel stabilizer in it but what I've watched recently on YouTube on Fortnine channel, I don't know if it's worth it, we don't have the dodgy fuel in this country, what do you call it, the E10 fuel, I can't remember, we don't have that ---- here, the ethanol based fuel, we don't have that so we haven't got to worry about the whole ethanol splitting the water out of the petrol and all that ---- that happens when you leave it. Fuel light's just come on as it happens so I'm going to fill her up and I'll see you guys next time so probably next time I see you I'll be in the garage doing something and maybe starting a new build series, the hyper hasn't gone, don't worry, that'll happen when I get the bits but I'm going to be starting a new build series so, oh yes, stick around for that take care guys, see you later on and have a good Christmas, bye-bye, this is power level one which is full power I could do that all day, what have you done here, I told you I was scared back there the bike has ruined my life