Turns out the bolt is a cylinder head damper.

 

Don't think that we don't see the turbo 3.8L!

 

CYLINDER HEAD DAMPER???? What is that? BS!
Those ATV bars have way more sweep to them, I like it!

 

Yeah, I kind of wondered when I saw that, what would it be damping? I was wondering if the fastener was really just covering a hole that was necessary for machining of the head. The work is done then the hole is plugged with that fastener. After all, there is the flat machined in the head and it would be one location point to secure the head for machining or possibly allowing access to machine a passage in the head. I'm probably wrong. Maybe some day I'll remember to go look at the bike.

 

I don't know, Nigel, did you ever have head work done?
With the head bold holes, why would you be putting a hole in the side of the head? But, one never knows until he's done it!

 

I was thinking it was a factory machining process. Perhaps the machining process would need some support or location on that area outside the cam drive tower. Just a thought. I know there are places where machining is done and holes plugged with either some sort of ball insert or a threaded plug, like in oil line machining. Any machining requires a part be located.

 

If you check the new 300, that bolt is a change from my 07. So there are a lot of them around, I thought it was added after mods.

 

Really I don't know, so your guess is as good as mine until someone actually finds out what it's there for.

 

Kawasaki calls it a damper bolt. Since the head has been around since Jesus was a baby it is probably not for mechanical integrity. With more and more stringent noise requirements to meet euro5 or EPA, it may damp out some acoustic resonance as a guess for example. Kawasaki knows why they did it and why they call it a damper bolt.