What’s The Kawasaki Eliminator 450’s Top Speed & Is It A Good Bike For Beginners?

The 2024 Kawasaki Eliminator is a naked cruiser-style motorcycle available with or without ABS in base form, or as the dressier Eliminator SE ABS. Kawasaki lists the MSRP for the non-ABS Eliminator at $6,649 and $6,949 for the ABS version. The Eliminator SE ABS lists for $7,249 MSRP on Kawasaki’s website.
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The base Kawasaki Eliminator comes in two colors, Pearl Storm Gray and Paral Robotic White, while the Eliminator SE ABS is only available in a two-tone Candy Steel Furnace Orange and Ebony color scheme. The SE version also provides rubber fork boots, a color-matched headlight cowling, and a waterproof USB-C port.
Regardless of trim, the Kawasaki Eliminator comes with a 451cc twin-cylinder engine. The engine’s four-stroke design also features liquid cooling, an 11.3:1 compression ratio, and dual overhead camshafts. Power ratings for the 2024 Kawasaki Z500 engine with similar specs list horsepower at 51 per ISO standards and up to 31.7 lb-ft of torque. Power is routed to the rear wheel through a six-speed transmission and sealed-chain final drive.
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At 451cc, the Eliminator isn’t the most powerful motorcycle in the Kawasaki catalog, but it is capable of top speeds exceeding 100 mph. In April of 2024, MotoSnax released video evidence of a Kawasaki Eliminator reaching 165 km/h (102.5 mph) on a public highway under the cover of darkness.