Honda 4s
Honda 4s
The classic 70's Honda SOHC 4's, a personal view through my rose tinted specs.
They were good bikes for the money in their day, bikes that were reasonably priced, reliable and fun, funnily enough they were not designed as a sports bike, despite most models being called 'super sport'. Compared to today's models some handled like a sinking boat, although with all models if you jacked the rear shocks up to max or preferably changed for Konis, and put 6 two pence coins under each fork cap to increase preload; they handled enough to drag the pegs around corners, with the right tyres, there was not a lot of ground clearance though!
In my humble opinion the 400/4 handled the best, which I believe was due to its much lighter weight and tiny size, a very flickable bike. It was just as quick; but not as comfortable; as the 550, the 400 was a great short distance or town bike. For longer distance the 550, or if carrying a pillion the 750, was a better bet, being a 6 footer I found the tiny 400/4 a bit of a girl's bike. The difference between the acceleration of the 400 and 550 models was difficult to spot despite there being a 13bhp difference, I had similar top speeds from both bikes (I owned several models from all the range during my years as a courier) the 400 could reach 105 if you used 5th instead of 6th which was an overdrive gear and 110 for the 550, this is of course without me 'tinkering' with them and actual speed not 'speedo' speed. The 0-60 time was split by a half a sec if you ignored the redline on the tacho of the 400, more about that later. The 750, despite its much greater weight was very quick compared to the 550, having nearly 20bhp more than its smaller brother. Top speeds on the 750 models varied greatly from the 120mph of the F1 to a staggering 140mph out of an F2 SOHC, read through a speed trap set up on an old airfield in Beccles, Suffolk in 1979, the speedo was reading between 140 and 160. I must admit at that speed the handling was not inspiring any confidence in me. I have had loads of people tell me tales much greater speeds, but I take most of those with a pinch of salt.
400/4's thrived on revs, to get anywhere quickly you had to have the engine spinning in the top third of the rev band before it got exciting, 550's were much more tractable but all the ones I owned had a weird flat spot just below 5000 revs, this could be cured by playing with the carbs i.e. throw the air filter away and raise the needles a notch. In fact I threw away the air filters for all my Honda fours in the end, never seemed to hurt them, in fact almost all of them gave better fuel consumption, revved better (after a bit of fiddling) and gave a great induction roar!
Fuel consumption varied wildly even between same size models, I had one 750 F1 that returned nearly 60mpg on a motorway and another that I could not coax more than 45mpg out of it, no matter how gently I treated it. The 400/4's were fairly consistent returning 60mpg on a run (at legal road speeds) and never less than 40mpg in town. Once coming back through France where no garages were open at night, I squeezed 75 mpg by cruising for 150 miles at 40 in 6th, God was I bored.
To get the most out of them though, you had to be constantly checking the timing, if the points when out by even a small amount it affected the fuel consumption greatly, I fitted electronic ignition whenever I could, and checking that the carbs were balanced helped a lot.
The 550 and 750 were fairly heavy bikes, but ultra reliable if looked after, where most people went wrong was in not changing regularly or using the correct grade of oil, they had 'restrictor' jets at each side of the barrels which compressed the oil and squirted it up to the head, if you didn't change the oil these would get blocked and the head 'could' seize.
I only ever had one from brand new, I bought a CB 550 K3 (£899 cash (?)) in 1978 ('T' reg) the one with the 4 into 4 pipes, I rode it out of the showroom, took off the indicators and matt blacked it outside the shop, Which was Rye's of Fulham, they were staring out the window at me.
Later I lost the pipes (that lost nearly 60 lbs of ugly weight!!) for a Motad system that let it breathe better, threw away the air filter, after that its top speed at MIRA was recorded as 116mph (speedo read 128). As far as I believe the pipes and air filters were designed to meet strict Japanese regs, even though at the time most Japs could only have motorbikes with a 400cc maximum in towns. I got rid of it 3 years later, oil had been changed every 1500 miles and the oil filter every second oil change. I believe the engine is still running in my mate's low rider and it has probably done 250K miles now.
In 1978 I went with a friend to help him out as a spare rider in a 12 hour endurance race at Snetterton. We were using a standard 1976 400/4 fitted with clip-ons and rear-sets. As we were setting up, a Japanese bloke who was with another team wandered over and started chatting to us, as Dave covered up the speedo, you really don't want to look at it while racing and it's the regs, he said to make a mark at 13,500 on the tacho. He then asked us why we thought Honda's had such a reputation for longevity and straight away answered that himself with, it's because they put the redline lower than it needs to be. On the 400 its starts at 11,000 then ends at 14,000. And he was right, revving to 13,500 made a massive difference, but was it more psychological than actual? God know, but it felt a lot quicker whilst keeping the revs above 11,000 rather than 9,000.
I had several 750's and one 550 that were turned into Swedish style choppers, I loved the long look with high bars and pipes the swept up alongside the sissy bars. There were so many things you could do to them, I have even seen some great café racer style 400's.
The last one I owned was an early eighties K7 750 import, another SOHC with the heavy 4 into 4 exhaust set up, a great bike, very reliable and with pretty good economy, it had about 23k on it when I picked it up, sold it to a mate with 57k on after 2 years; then bought it back for the same money 6 months later. He had done 1000 miles on it. I last saw it after flogging it to my mate Trevor in Chessington, he resprayed it and tweaked it a bit, I borrowed it off of him once, it went like a scalded cat, but the throttle was flat and unresponsive below 6000 revs, this made for interesting riding in the rain.
Looking back I had probably ridden Honda fours for at least half a million miles in my life time (15 years as a courier). I'm not exactly sure how many I have actually owned, at least 5 750s, 4 550s and 5 400/4s that I remember, only one from brand new though. They will forever be a favourite of mine.
400/4's thrived on revs, to get anywhere quickly you had to have the engine spinning in the top third of the rev band before it got exciting, 550's were much more tractable but all the ones I owned had a weird flat spot just below 5000 revs, this could be cured by playing with the carbs i.e. throw the air filter away and raise the needles a notch. In fact I threw away the air filters for all my Honda fours in the end, never seemed to hurt them, in fact almost all of them gave better fuel consumption, revved better (after a bit of fiddling) and gave a great induction roar!
Fuel consumption varied wildly even between same size models, I had one 750 F1 that returned nearly 60mpg on a motorway and another that I could not coax more than 45mpg out of it, no matter how gently I treated it. The 400/4's were fairly consistent returning 60mpg on a run (at legal road speeds) and never less than 40mpg in town. Once coming back through France where no garages were open at night, I squeezed 75 mpg by cruising for 150 miles at 40 in 6th, God was I bored.
The 550 and 750 were fairly heavy bikes, but ultra reliable if looked after, where most people went wrong was in not changing regularly or using the correct grade of oil, they had 'restrictor' jets at each side of the barrels which compressed the oil and squirted it up to the head, if you didn't change the oil these would get blocked and the head 'could' seize.
I only ever had one from brand new, I bought a CB 550 K3 (£899 cash (?)) in 1978 ('T' reg) the one with the 4 into 4 pipes, I rode it out of the showroom, took off the indicators and matt blacked it outside the shop, Which was Rye's of Fulham, they were staring out the window at me.
Later I lost the pipes (that lost nearly 60 lbs of ugly weight!!) for a Motad system that let it breathe better, threw away the air filter, after that its top speed at MIRA was recorded as 116mph (speedo read 128). As far as I believe the pipes and air filters were designed to meet strict Japanese regs, even though at the time most Japs could only have motorbikes with a 400cc maximum in towns. I got rid of it 3 years later, oil had been changed every 1500 miles and the oil filter every second oil change. I believe the engine is still running in my mate's low rider and it has probably done 250K miles now.
In 1978 I went with a friend to help him out as a spare rider in a 12 hour endurance race at Snetterton. We were using a standard 1976 400/4 fitted with clip-ons and rear-sets. As we were setting up, a Japanese bloke who was with another team wandered over and started chatting to us, as Dave covered up the speedo, you really don't want to look at it while racing and it's the regs, he said to make a mark at 13,500 on the tacho. He then asked us why we thought Honda's had such a reputation for longevity and straight away answered that himself with, it's because they put the redline lower than it needs to be. On the 400 its starts at 11,000 then ends at 14,000. And he was right, revving to 13,500 made a massive difference, but was it more psychological than actual? God know, but it felt a lot quicker whilst keeping the revs above 11,000 rather than 9,000.
I had several 750's and one 550 that were turned into Swedish style choppers, I loved the long look with high bars and pipes the swept up alongside the sissy bars. There were so many things you could do to them, I have even seen some great café racer style 400's.
Looking back I had probably ridden Honda fours for at least half a million miles in my life time (15 years as a courier). I'm not exactly sure how many I have actually owned, at least 5 750s, 4 550s and 5 400/4s that I remember, only one from brand new though. They will forever be a favourite of mine.
Jake
