2008 Ninja ZX-14 vs Suzuki Hayabusa

Ladies and gentlemen, may we have your attention ringside please. MotorcycleUSA.com is proud to present, for your adrenaline-pulsing entertainment, a comparo of felonious extraordinariousness! A merciless exhibition of titanic magnificence! A heavyweight bout of such gravity, such weight, it can only be described as the greatest two-wheeled extravaganza of all time! Two masters of the dojo from the land of Tojo... The biggest show outta Tokyo! A bitter duel between monster mounts mightier than the majestic massiveness of the Pacific Ocean they cross - the 2008 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-14 and the Suzuki GSX-R1300 Hayabusa!

Okay, so our Don King impersonation is third-rate, at best, but the ZX-14 and Hayabusa are the epitome of two-wheeled heavyweight brawlers. Sure, pound for pound, the 1000cc Superbikes may be the ultimate in production two-wheeled performance, but these two are the bad boys, the big cheese, the meanest monkeys in the sportbike jungle.

We discovered as much when we pitted the duo against each other in our 2006 Hayabusa vs. ZX-14 Comparo. In that encounter, the all-new ZX-14 got the better of the, until that point, unchallenged Busa. Fast forward to 2008 and we have new versions of each bike in our garage. But which contestant will come out on top in this latest clash of the titans?

In the challenger's corner, wearing orange and black, is the Hamamatsu Hammer, the Duke of the Dragstrip, the purveyor of horsepower porn - Suzuki's 2008 Hayabusa! Alright, alright... We'll drop the ringside announcer shtick.

Now, the Suzuki may be the challenger by our '06 comparo score, but there is no doubting the potency of the mighty Hayabusa through the years. Anyone who thinks otherwise need only be reminded that in 2005 John Noonan took a turbocharged Zook up to 256 mph on the famed Bonneville Salt Flats, making it the fastest conventional, non-streamlined motorcycle in the world.

The Hayabusa did not take kindly to its split-decision loss at the end of '06 so the '08 machine comes to the table ripped to the nuts, fueled by rage and more powerful than ever. We'll get into the nitty gritty details later, but the long and short is Suzuki bumped the displacement to 1340cc, an answer to the stinging 1352cc Kawasaki salvo. The result is increased horsepower and torque complimented with upgraded brakes and suspension.

As for the title-holding Kawasaki, the Ninja ZX-14 was the new kid on the block back in 2006, but this year it's back as the mean knuckle-busting punk - the kind that don't like to be called kid. In '06 the Ninja came out off the corner swinging and bloodied up the stalwart Busa, knocking it off the top of the hyper-sportbike heap with its combination of a smooth motor, comfy ergos and just enough power to keep the Busa on its heels.

The mad Kaw is also changed for 2008. It would be easy to assume the mods are nothing more than standard fare upgrades, but Kawaski did make some internal tweaks to the motor. The latest ZX-14's new tuning promises improved power off the low end while also meeting stricter emissions and noise regulations. All this was accomplished while maintaining similar overall peak power numbers of the original.

Claims, schmaims. As the saying goes: If PR claims were fishes, we'd all cast nets. So, let's test these ink and paper assertions with our own real-world observations. Our own, tale of the tape, as it were. Since the headlines for both these bikes are their monster motors, a showdown on the dyno will reveal just how monstrous these beasts really are.

Both 16-valve DOHC Inline Fours herald power numbers close to 200 hp at the crank, so we rolled the giants onto our Dynojet 200i to sample rear-wheel horsepower. Back in 2006 it was the Kawasaki that got the upper hand, humbling the Suzuki in both horsepower (169.1 to 155.9) and torque (103 to 94). This time around the reverse was true, at least in horsepower.

Peaking at 166.8 hp at 9600 rpm, the new Hayabusa mill enjoys an advantage of 5.1 ponies over the ZX-14, which registered 161.7 hp at 9200 rpm. Torque saw the Kawi hold its mastery with 102 lb-ft at 7700 rpm, but the new Busa is right there at 101.4 lb-ft at 7200 rpm, 500 rpm quicker than the Ninja. Just for the maniacal hell of it, we also buried the speedos during our final dyno runs. Pinned in sixth gear until they hit the rev-limiter, we saw a top speed of 182 mph for the Suzuki and 185 mph for the Kawasaki.

It is important to note that we used a more-seasoned dyno in '06 than we did this year. Head to head, however, the most obvious difference from '06 is the Suzuki moving past its nemesis in peak horsepower and evening the score in torque. Yet, although it loses ground, when comparing '06 and '08 the ZX-14 curve shows improved torque and hp in the low end - just like Kawasaki promised.

While the Kawasaki's raw dyno numbers are a bit of a setback, at weigh-in the Ninja gets its mojo back. In 2006 the duo were a mere three pounds apart on the scales (527 for the ZX-14 to 530 for the Busa - tank empty). The Hayabusa has since added some bulk, tipping the scales at a tank-empty 546.5 lbs, compared to the ZX-14, which is almost identical to its '06 fighting trim at 528.7 lbs. Those numbers equate to tank-empty power-to-weight ratios of 0.3051 for the Busa and 0.3058 for the lighter Kawi. You can't get much closer than 0.0007.