Taken in Cairns, circa 1977, my old beast. I raced it for a short time. Clocked at 146mph down Conrod straight at Bathurst. that was with the factory cams, pipes, a lot of balancing, lightening and other tuning thingies. In its day this bike was a goddamn weapon on high speed mountain roads. Now I have an FZR400 3TJ1 that is in a sad state. cheers Blair
Hi Phil, Well, yes for the money it would be worth now, and no, probably because it was only good for riding fast. I once borrowed my friend's Honda CBR250RR, after I arranged to have it fitted with a set of sticky tyres, and had a blast blowing bigger bikes away on some tight twisties behind the Gold Coast. Horses for courses! My dream bike now is a Honda VFR400 (ultimately with a Rotrex supercharger). I just like the design and the technology. New bikes do nothing for me at all, power you can't use and electronic junk. Me, I like the visceral feel of the old stuff. It was originally a 750 but I fitted the larger bores etc. All that did was lower the torque peak because the rubbish heads can't fill the bigger cylinders at high rpm. It didn't go any faster. Fit larger pistons to a VFR400 Honda and you get a dramatic jump in power which is a direct result of the amount that the stock cylinder heads can flow. Nice article here http://mngforce.typepad.com/nc450vdev/nc428v-clubman-motor.html
Hey Blair The larger capacity motorcycles are great, but for pure exhilaration you can't go past the 80's and 90's 250cc Jap bikes. Late last year I sold my Honda Blackbird, 2005 model. I owned it for 3 years and never once had an issue with it, as for power, well just moucho to play with. Having said that, Chris and I did up an NSR and that provided me with heaps of adrenalin rushes, it handled well, weighed little and hitting a certain rev range sent you soaring at a rapid rate of knots. Superlatives don't adequately describe that machine. Today, enjoy my Suzuki 400 Bandit V, awaiting arrival of one of your kits that Chris ordered from you, got some needles coming also and should be ready to get this little gem blasting away down the highway.
