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Kawasaki KVF 360 – it won't let you down
By Dave Abrahams
It's powered by a 362cc, air-cooled, single that's been tuned for torque – 26Nm of it at 4500rpm. With no balancing shaft there's a fair amount of rattle and clatter as it revs but never any sign of stress; so robust is the bottom end that I don't think this motor is capable of revving hard enough to hurt itself. It drives through a centrifugal clutch and a hand-operated, three-step transmission, with high, low and reverse positions. In high it'll get up to an indicated 60km/h remarkably quickly for a one-speeder while in low it'll crawl up the side of a house – no matter how heavily you pack the carriers, it just doesn't seem to notice the extra load. All you have to do is stop, using the right-hand lever for the front brakes and either the left-hand lever or the right foot pedal for the rear brakes, shift the big black lever on the tank and away you go
There's also a lockable brake on the left handlebar so you can get off and leave it running while you work. It's even rated to tow a trailer loaded up to 500kg, although the test unit didn't have a tow hitch so I can't confirm that. The final drive has a heavy-duty shaft and bevel gears to a solid rear axle – only 4x4 quads (and not all of them!) have rear-axle differentials. The rear suspension is by the industry-standard cast alloy swing-arm and single shock-absorber but at the front it has extra-robust Macpherson struts, which make the steering a little heavy but are almost immune to bump steer – which prevents the bars from being knocked out of your hands when you hit an irrigation ditch that's sharper than it looks! Doesn't stop you taking a tumble into the bushes, though. All this robustness comes at a price – a hefty 263kg dry weight. At first the KVF 360 seemed a little slow and clumsy to be a decent recreational quad but the further I rode it the more it grew on me. It may too big for a racer but it's not as slow as you think and the extra heft damps down the worst of the bumps – it was the most comfortable of all the quads on a long ride. Everybody on the launch liked the 360 more than they expected; it's that kind of quad. Distinctly unsophisticated, noisy and a little rough around the edges – but it'll never let you down. The KVF 360 comes with a 24-month warranty in private use and costs R51 895. Specifications: Motor: Air-cooled four-stroke single. Capacity: 362cc. Bore x stroke: 80.0 x 72.0mm Valvegear: SOHC with two overhead valves per cylinder. Compression ratio: 8.3:1. Power: 15.7kW at 7000rpm. Torque: 26.1Nm at 4500rpm. Induction: One Keihin CVK34 carburettor. Ignition: Digital CDI. Starting: Electric and recoil. Clutch: Automatic centrifugal. Transmission: Dual range CVT with reverse; final drive by shaft. Suspension: Macpherson struts with coil-over shock absorbers in front, swing-arm with single hydraulic shock absorber adjustable for preload at rear. Brakes: Twin discs with single-piston floating callipers at front, enclosed wet multi-plate disc brake at rear. Tyres: Front: AT 25 x 8-12 tubeless. Rear: AT 25 x 10-12 tubeless. Wheelbase: 1250mm. Dry weight: 263kg. Fuel capacity: 13.5 litres. |
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