"Picture isn't the real ninja 250 4cylinder"
The small-capacity shootout continues with Kawasaki tipped to release a four-cylinder Ninja 250 in response to Honda’s CBR300R. Rumours now persist that Kawasaki will strike back with
a four-cylinder 250cc model. Kawasaki previously made four-cylinder
250s through the ‘80s and ’90s, so there is a precedent. The Ninja
ZX-250A was sold from 1988 to 1991, followed by the ZX-250C from 1991 to
2004.
They were powered by a 249cc in-line, four-cylinder,
liquid-cooled, 16-valve engine with Dual Over Head Camshaft (DOHC) and
compression ratio of 12.2:1. The lightweight 144kg carby-fed bikes
packed a punch with 33Kw of power at a tingling 15,000 revs compared
with the Ninja 300 on 29kW at 11,000rpm. A new EFI model would likely
pack even more punch.
How does this compare with the current
crop? Well, the YZF-R25 produces 26kW at 12,000rpm and 23Nm at 10,000rpm
from its parallel twin engine and the CBR300R is 22kW and 27Nm. In this
low-capacity market sector, figures like that are quite important to
customers.
All four Japanese manufacturers used to make four-cylinder 250s, so could this start a new war of the small capacity bikes?
