In late 1982, the water-cooled engine with development code 990 started turning.
In the early stages of development of the next-generation Z, which eventually became the GPZ900R, it was concluded that the 900cc air-cooled parallel 6-cylinder, which had been tested many times, was too smooth and lacked motorcycle-like qualities and punch. The engineer, therefore, chose the parallel 4-cylinder route but struggled with vibration countermeasures. Also, aiming for high output with air-cooling naturally brings up the issue of heat.
The solution that was arrived at was "a liquid-cooled, parallel 4-cylinder with 4-valves".
This article is a re-edited version of the article "GPZ900R vs. FJ1100" in the May 1984 issue of "Motorcyclist". The interview with the development engineer is from that time.
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Information Source. [ Mosai powered by Motorcyclist ]
