Got my first proper chance to actually give the beasty a bit of a handful, and what I got was definitely not what I was expecting!
I just came off a ZX9R, which itself had once I'd finished with it, just over 140bhp at the wheel. The Fazer I have now is standard in the engine department, except for a slipon can, so I was expecting it to be down on the Ninja anyway, and due to the "midrange bias" of the FZS, I was expecting the Ninja to be a fair bit quicker once you got the revs screaming.
With this in mind, I pulled out onto the A6 at about 30mph, selected second and nailed it. With the 9, this would result in the front end going a bit light, and then once I'd selected third it'd be solid as a rock until ...mph. What actually happened on the Fazer was the front end came right up, let go of the throttle a bit and it went back down, put into 3rd and nailed it and it started getting incredibly light on the front again!
I've already been very impressed with the engine so far for it's sheer grunt, but now I reckon from 0-100 it'd have my old 9 beat, to maybe 140 odd it'd probably be pretty even, and only after that would the ram air and aerodynamics of the 9 get it ahead.
My general summation of the above: "Re-tuned engine"? Balls, it's an R1 engine that just has flat bars!
Can see me very much liking this bike, although I may need to sort a steering damper out if I start cracking on more as I'm very much not used to how light the bars were on it!