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| The CB900C'82 900 Custom was sold in 1982 and was available in one of two color schemes: Candy Muse Red with Candy Antares Red or Candy Empire Blue with Candy Blue. The engine color was black. The front brake discs were slotted with dual piston [[caliper]]s. The gas tank and side covers were 2-tone. The front forks were leading-axle and air adjustable. The exhaust was a 4-into-4. The transmission was a 5-speed with a dual range sub-transmission thus giving it 10 actual speeds. The engine was a 902cc [[DOHC]] 4-valve inline 4 cylinder with a shaft drive. The serial number began 1HFSC040*CA200101. | | The CB900C'82 900 Custom was sold in 1982 and was available in one of two color schemes: Candy Muse Red with Candy Antares Red or Candy Empire Blue with Candy Blue. The engine color was black. The front brake discs were slotted with dual piston [[caliper]]s. The gas tank and side covers were 2-tone. The front forks were leading-axle and air adjustable. The exhaust was a 4-into-4. The transmission was a 5-speed with a dual range sub-transmission thus giving it 10 actual speeds. The engine was a 902cc [[DOHC]] 4-valve inline 4 cylinder with a shaft drive. The serial number began 1HFSC040*CA200101. |
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| ==Review==
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|
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| Road Test Cycle 1980
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| "Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit." T.S. Eliot
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| Honda's cb900 custom is a bit of an enigma, to us and perhaps even to
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| its creators. According to our sources at American Honda, the 900 wasn't
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| intended for the touring rider, yet it definitely has some of a touring bike's
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| attributes. Neither is it a road-sport model, though it was directly derived
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| from one of the most sporting motorcycles Honda has ever made for sale to the
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| public. And despite having officially been designated a "custom," the CB900
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| isn't quite that, either. The only thing it clearly is, is a marketplace
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| competitor for the Suzuki GS850 and Yamaha XS850; on that basis shall it be
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| judged, by us and everyone.
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|
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| The CB900 has an interesting lineage. It was initially a bored and stroked
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| version of the 16-valve [[Honda CB750F|CB750F]], made for the European market and introduced
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| there last year. Honda opened the 750's bores from 62 to 64.5 millimeters,
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| stretched its stroke (also 62mm) to 69mm, and thus increased its displacement to
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| 902 cubic centimeters. They made the stroker crank's webs thicker, lengthened
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| the block and rods, upped the intake and exhaust valve diameters by 1.0 and
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| 0.5mm, respectively, and added five degrees of duration at the cam lobes'
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| opening sides. There were other performance-related changes as well, because
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| what Honda wanted (and by all accounts succeeded in making) was a super-sport
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| motorcycle capable of holding its own on Europe's no-speed-limit highways. To
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| that end, they even gave the European CB900 an oil cooler as standard
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| equipment'. . . an item not usually necessary in America, where the law's
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| admonition to "cool it" tends also to keep oil temperatures low. We'll admit
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| that we'd have been well pleased if Honda had decided to fit the European CB900
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| with DOT lighting, EPA carburetion, and sent it here without making another
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| change. That was not to be. Europe's CB900s are chain driven, and Honda wanted a
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| shaft-drive model to slip into the broad product gap between the GL1100 and
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| CX500 shafties. The bike got its drive shaft, along with many added pounds and a
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| greatly lengthened wheelbase. So, to borrow from the beer commercial, the
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| Americanized CB900 gives you more, and less: more civility, less performance.
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| Honda's American CB900 would not be so long of wheelbase, nor mechanically
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| quite so interesting, if those who designed it had not chosen to use a maximum
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| of existing hardware. Specifically, they opted to work with only lightly altered
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| CB900 nee CB750F engine/transmission cases and the GL1100-CX500
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| final-drive assembly. This approach, like making the CB900 out of the CB750F,
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| was shaped by manufacturing economics. They had to couple a left-side
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| transmission output stub to a right-side final drive, and the twain could not be
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| made to meet without taking complicated measures.
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|
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| What Honda's engineers did to resolve their right-to-left dilemma was to
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| cobble together some transfer gears, a jack-shaft and right-angle bevel drive in
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| a housing that wraps around the left side and rear of the main transmission case
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| but is not inseparably a part of it. They also doubled-up the transfer gears,
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| which occupy space originally taken by a sprocket, and added a shifting dog,
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| etc., to give the CB900 a two-speed secondary transmission. And although the
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| entire exercise was prompted by cost considerations they did not stint in
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| building reliability into their cross-over drive unit. It is a very strongly
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| constructed piece of equipment, with its own oil supply and a small trochoidal
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| pump to keep its bevel gears lubricated; splash oiling takes care of the
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| transfer gears.
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|
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| There certainly was some justification for the two-speed feature of the
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| drive. Gold Wing owners never have been able to agree on the overall gearing
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| their bikes should have: some want the ratio "tall," for low-stress cruising;
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| others, habituated to hauling big loads and pushing bulky fairings, prefer the
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| shorter gearing that lets them pull steep grades without downshifting. The
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| CB900's Select Range feature provides two overall ratios. There's a 5.26:1 ratio
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| (in fifth gear) for mountain or urban conditions, and a 4.50:1 ratio for
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| economical cruising.
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|
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| You can get economy, both in fuel mileage and engine life, by using the
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| Select Range's high gear for cruising. In fifth/low the CB900's engine spins
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| 4378 rpm at 60 mph; in fifth/high it turns only 3745 rpm, and feels like it's
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| idling. There's a dramatic difference in fuel economy, too, which hints that the
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| power engines need merely to overcome their own friction is significant. We rode
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| the CB900 on a long loop around this area's freeways, first in fifth/low and
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| then in fifth/high. Low-range riding returned 41.8 mpg; in high the mileage rose
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| to 48.6 mpg. Using low-range for a period of maximum-effort performance and
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| handling testing brought the CB900's mileage down to 28.5 mpg, and the overall
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| average for the entire test was 37.2 mpg. That fuel consumption rate would give
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| the Honda 164 miles before its 4.4-gallon tank empties, but running at a steady
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| 60 mph would stretch the range to 184 miles if you keep it in granny, or 214
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| miles if you use the overdrive.
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|
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| Whatever drive ratio you select, it's a long path for power to get from the
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| CB900's crank to its rear wheel. A broad Hy-Vo chain links the crank with a
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| jack-shaft, which has a vane-type rubber-loaded drive cushion at its center and
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| spur gears at each of its ends. The leftside gear drives the engine's oil pump;
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| the one on the right meshes with a pair of gears on the clutch basket. Only one
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| of the clutch-basket gears actually participates in the drive; its mate, also
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| straight-cut but much narrower, has one fewer teeth than the driven pinion and
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| therefore rotates slightly faster. This causes a scrubbing drag between the two
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| gears that takes up lash in their meshing with the jackshaft pinion, which keeps
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| this part of the drive train from rattling.
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|
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| Interesting lineage: Honda's 16-valve CB750F, made for America, begat the
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| European CB900, which begat the shaft-drive American CB900 Custom seen here.
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| After passing through the clutch, the drive goes through a conventional
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| constant-mesh five-speed transmission hopping across from input to output
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| shafts, and then to the secondary transmission's gears, shafts and bevels before
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| being sent back to yet another pair of gears at the rear axle. There are, in
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| all, 20 gears, six shafts, a dozen bearings, three torque cushions, a U-joint
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| and assorted couplings employed in making the crank/rear-wheel connection.
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| Something in the above train puts too much lash in the CB900's drive. Our
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| prime suspect is the cam-type drive cushion that's incorporated in the crossover
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| unit's jackshaft. Whatever the source of the lash it's there and it's
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| bothersome, especially in first and second gears. Going too quickly from closed
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| to open throttle, or vice versa, gets you yanks and lurches the like of which
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| you won't find in any other motorcycle presently in production.
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| A portion of the on/off-throttle lurching may be contributed by the 32mm
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| CV-type Keihin carburetors. These get off-idle help from an accelerator pump,
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| which discharges into all four throats, but there still is a slight hestitation
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| in the low-speed throttle response to aggravate the effects of drive-train lash.
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| That's the only carburetion flaw. EPA-dictated jetting has made the mixture lean
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| enough so that a bit of choking is needed for starting if the engine is just
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| cool, not cold, but you won't have to use the choke for more than a minute even
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| in the morning chill. The CB900 isn't as cold-blooded as many of the pre-EPA
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| Hondas.
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|
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| In most ways the CB900's engine is a pure pleasure, whether it's touring,
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| drive-in visiting or home/work commuting you've asked it to do. It has the
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| general power-delivery characteristics of an electric motor, with its torque
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| seemingly independent of tachometer readings. There isn't the top-end power
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| you'd expect from an engine with so many valves and long-duration cams, and this
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| makes the CB900's real-world performance better than its drag-strip numbers
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| suggest. Our best quarter-mile run was in 12.76 seconds, at 104.89 mph, which is
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| two-tenths of a second slower than the best time turned by Honda's spirited
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| CB750F. But the CB900, running with its Select Range box in low, will fifth-gear
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| accelerate very briskly and even at the drag strip where it isn't at its best
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| it's both quicker and faster than the Suzuki GS850 or Yamaha XS850. The CB900 is
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| 0.21 second quicker than the GS850, with an essentially identical speed; it
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| totally out-performs the 13.26-second, 101.46-mph Yamaha triple.
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| Nothing else in the CB900's class, and few outside it, can equal its ride
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| quality. The bike doesn't quite have enough rear-wheel travel to cope with its
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| weight, and bottoming can occur under certain conditions, but the new
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| leading-axle fork is wonderfully compliant and if you adjust the suspensions
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| full-soft you'll feel like you're riding on airwhich is exactly the case. Honda
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| has given the CB900 steel springs, but they're there just to keep its
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| suspensions from collapsing completely against their stops in the event that air
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| pressure should be lost.
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|
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| Honda's first version of the American CB900 had a center-axle front fork;
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| this new one, a 1981 model, has similar 37mm fork tubes but leading-axle
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| sliders. We don't know why the change was made. The new fork's tubes are angled
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| back a little in their triple-clamps to place the axle right where it was
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| before, so there's no appreciable alteration in steering geometry. And the
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| below-axle portions of the new sliders are hollow, mere adornments promising but
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| not delivering extra travel and/or slider overlap. In fact, the 6.1 inches of
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| fork travel is just what it was before. Apparently, all the fork's changes are
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| for styling.
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| Although closely similar to the Gold Wings', the CB900's shocks are different
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| parts. In design, these units are not unlike short, inverted fork legs. Each has
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| two coil springs, but their resistance to compression is supplied mostly by air
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| pumped into the shock's interiors. Air is added, or bled off, through a single
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| fitting located behind the bike's left sidecover. Honda recommends pressurizing
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| the shocks to between 28 and 64 pounds per square inch, and has provided a
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| sensor that lights a warning lamp on the tachometer face if the pressure drops
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| below 20 psi. The shocks' internal coil springs do keep them from telescoping
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| completely down against their stops when pressurization is lost, but most of the
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| 3.8 inches of travel is gone when they're airless, and a decal by the warning
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| lamp tells you to keep the CB900's speed below 50 mph when the lamp is glowing
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| red.
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|
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| Honda's recommendation for fork pressure is 11 to 16 psi. You can get close
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| to the ultimate in floaty rides by running minimum pressures, front and rear;
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| that's not what we'd suggest. After some experimentation we settled on 45 psi as
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| the best rear shock pressure for all-conditions solo riding, and we used 14 psi
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| in the fork. At that pressure the CB900's stiction-free fork responds with
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| near-total compliance to small ripples and highway expansion seams, yet it
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| stiffens enough in the second half of its travel to keep braking nose-dive from
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| upsetting stability. Higher pressures may be needed to adjust for "full-dress"
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| loads, but when riding solo they make the ride slightly stiff without yielding
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| any payoff in improved handling.
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|
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|
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| Most riders will judge the CB900's steering and overall road manners
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| satisfactory. It's straight-line stable at normal and reasonably fast cruising
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| speeds, though traces of wobble begin to appear as the speedometer needle
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| approaches the instrument's DOT-mandated, 85-mph limit peg. You will need to
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| apply some muscle at the bike's handlebar to whip it through fast esses quickly,
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| but the steering is nicely neutral so you don't have to fight to hold a line
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| once you've stuffed the CB900 into a corner. Few people will want to do much
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| corner-stuffing with this Honda: it weighs too much (610 pounds) and is too
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| bulky for such games, and would be a handful even if it had firmer suspension
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| damping and more cornering clearance.
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| For sheer wheelbase, Honda's CB900 is one of the giants of our timebeing
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| only 0.3 inch shorter than the Harley-Davidson-FXE "Fat Bob" Super Glide. Honda
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| needed wheelbase to make room for an absolutely enormous engine bay; they
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| devoted remarkably little of the space to the CB900's swing arm, which is too
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| short to subdue the shaft drive's torque jacking effects. The Yamaha XS850 and
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| Suzuki's GS850 are also shaft-driven motorcycles, and the latter is only five
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| pounds lighter than the CB900. Both handle better and neither has the Honda's
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| habit of lifting and falling when its throttle is opened and closed.
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|
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| What price reliability? Honda cobbled together eight gears, three shafts, a
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| U-joint, an extra torque cushion and many seals and bearings just to replace a
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| length of chain.
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|
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| One genuine improvement Honda made in the CB900 for 1981 was in its tires.
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| These are the same sizes as beforea 110/90-19 up front and a 130/90-16 at the
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| rear. Both tires are H-rated, as before, but they're now tube-less, which we
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| consider a step forward. Two kinds of tires will be fitted on 1981 CB900s:
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| Dunlop Qualifier, and Bridge-stone Mag Mopus. Our test bike had the Dunlops, which provided adequate dry-road traction and a smooth ride, along with a couple of minor problems. The rear tire has rather tall, straight sidewalls and these flex sideways enough to be felt as a squirming at the Honda's rear when it is worked hard in fast turns.
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|
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|
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| Also, California's infamous freeway rain-grooves caused the semi-ribbed front
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| tire to weave slightly, though not enough to be worrisome.
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| Motorcycles with the Honda's weight and capacity for sprinting rapidly
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| between corners give their brakes a serious workout. Not all of them have brakes
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| that hold up as well under the strain as the CB900's. Its three disc rotors
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| turned faintly straw-colored from the temperatures reached during one long
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| session of mountaineering, and even that wasn't enough to destroy their
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| effectiveness. Heat made the brake pads literally smoke; it didn't glaze them or
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| warp the stainless steel rotors, and the brakes continued to do their job. The
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| only ill-effects noted during this phase of our testing were an elevation of
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| lever-pressure requirement with extremely high temperatures and a deterioration
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| of brake feel. At normal working temperatures there's a linear relationship
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| between squeezing and stopping; when the pads begin to smoke the lever feels
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| spongy, the braking is weak at moderately hard lever pressures, and tends to
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| shudder and grab if you attempt a maximum-effort stop. The rear brake neither
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| fades nor loses its feel, but then it isn't worked nearly as hard as the
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| dual-disc unit on the front wheel.
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|
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|
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| The CB900's split-level seat has been upgraded for 1981 ... or so it is said.
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| There's supposed to be thicker padding under the seat's forward half, and a
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| reshaped step, but the differences are too slight to be noticeable. No matter:
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| the Honda is perfectly comfortable to ride, for as long as you can stand being
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| in the one position it allows you to assume. The seat is low (only 30.8 inches
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| from the ground) and that makes the reach to the pegs a tad short for
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| long-legged riders, but the handlebar-grip placement is exactly right and the
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| tapered tank has been shaped by someone who paid attention to the inner contours
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| of human knees and thighs. The only thing wrong with the CB900's seating
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| position is that it's rigidly enforced; the seat locks you in place, and however
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| well you like it for 15 minutes you'll wish you could move around some after an
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| hour of riding.
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|
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| You won't have the effects of engine vibration to massage your numbed
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| backside. Honda has inserted rubber bushings in the CB900's engine mounts, and
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| achieved a remarkable degree of smoothness at all speeds from just past idle to
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| 6000 rpm. There isn't much engine vibration detectable at any speeds. You feel
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| tremors at idle and a subdued buzz above 6000 rpm; that's all.
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|
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|
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| Honda hung a big outside-flywheel alternator on the CB900, giving the
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| crankshaft some added inertia and providing an adequate power source for the
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| bike's superb Stanley headlight. This quartz-halogen lamp draws 55 watts on low
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| beam, 60 watts on high beam, and puts out enough light on either beam to crinkle
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| the paint on stop-signs. For 1981, the electrical system also includes dual
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| horns, which may not be mellow but most certainly are loud. Also new is the
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| '81's instrument lighting: Honda has gone to shine-through illumination, with
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| bulbs behind the instruments' faces.The markings glow in a pale green, highly
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| readable yet restful to the eyes.
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|
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| The CB900 comes about as near to being a service-free motorcycle as we are
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| likely to see anytime soon. Its ignition system is pointless, its cam chain is
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| automatically tensioned and its cooling system (plan fins) can never
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| spring a leak. Keep an eye on the bike's three oil
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| dipsticksengine/transmission, Select Range transfer case, and final drive
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| and various air pressures, and you won't have much trouble. The infrequent
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| post-warranty valve clearance adjustments should be made by an authorized Honda
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| shop, which saves aggravation even if it costs money. You have to slide the
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| battery sideways out of its mounting box to check electrolyte levels in the
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| cells, but the retaining strap is held by a single cap-screw so this chore is
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| easily managed. And removing two screws (on the leftside airbox cover) will give
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| you access to the air filter element. There isn't much you'd want to do,
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| including removing the CB900's wheels, that can't be done using just the tools
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| provided with the standard tool-roll. You even get an air gauge for checking the
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| tire and suspension inflation pressures.
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|
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|
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| American Honda informs us that the 1981 CB900 Custom we tested will not be
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| available at dealerships until early October, this year. They anticipate that
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| the retail price of the "new" model will be approximately $150 to $200 more than
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| the $3348 being asked for the 1980 Custom. That means it probably will be a
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| price roughly $200 to $300 greater than you'd pay for a Suzuki GS850 or Yamaha
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| XS850, which is a matter of greater import than whether you should buy the
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| less-expensive 1980 CB900 or wait until the 1981 version is available. The
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| differences between the 1980 and 1981 CB900s are mostly cosmetic; the extra
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| money for the later model buys you tube-less tires, shine-through instruments,
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| an extra horn and a "demand" automatic fuel petcock as functional hardware.
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| But there are large differences between the Honda CB900, Suzuki GS850 and
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| Yamaha XS850. Go for the Yamaha and you get lightness and agility, with a
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| suspension that is almost as compliant as the Honda's and much better
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| controlled. The Yamaha also out-customs the CB900 Custom's looks, for whatever
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| that's worth. The Suzuki GS850 is recommended by superb handling and what we
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| consider supreme agreeability, with performance only fractionally inferior to
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| the Honda's. With the Honda CB900 Custom you treat yourself to what probably is
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| the best ride in motorcycling, strong straight-line performance, a look and
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| quality of finish most people will admire, and maybe the most comfortable
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| short-haul seating position ever provided between two wheels. If those are
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| things you find most appealing, then the Honda CB900 Custom is the bike for you,
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| whether you buy a 1980 model right now or wait for the 1981; whether it's better
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| or worse in other ways than the Suzuki or Yamaha; and whether it is called a
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| touring bike, a road-sport model, or a "custom."
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|
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|
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|
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| Source Cycle 1980
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|
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| ==Specifications==
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|
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| {| class="wikitable"
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| |-
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| !Make Model
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| |Honda CB 900 Ccustom
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| |-
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| !Year
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| |1980
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| |-
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| !Engine Type
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| |Four stroke, transverse four cylinder, DOHC, 4 valve per cylinder.
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| |-
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| !Displacement
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| |901 cc / 54.9 cu-in
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| |-
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| !Bore X Stroke
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| |64.5 X 69 mm
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| |-
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| !Cooling System
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| |Air cooled,
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| |-
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| !Compression
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| |8.8:1
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| |-
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| !Lubrication
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| |Wet sump
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| |-
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| !Induction
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| |4x 32mm Keihin carburetors
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| |-
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| !Ignition
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| |Inductive electronic
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| |-
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| !Starting
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| |Electric
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| |-
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| !Max Power
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| |95 hp / 70.8 kW @ 9000 rpm
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| |-
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| !Max Torque
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| |77 Nm / 56.7 lb-ft @ 8000 rpm
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| |-
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| !Clutch
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| |Air cooled,
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| |-
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| !Transmission
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| |5 Speed
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| |-
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| !Final Drive
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| |Shaft
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| |-
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| !Front Suspension
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| |37mm Air assisted forks,
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| |-
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| !Front Wheel Travel
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| |155 mm / 6.0 in
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| |-
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| !Rear Suspension
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| |Dual air assisted shocks,
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| |-
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| !Rear Wheel Travel
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| |97 mm / 3.8 in
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| |-
| |
| !Front Brakes
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| |2x 280mm discs 2 piston calipers
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| |-
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| !Rear Brakes
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| |Single 297mm disc 1 piston caliper
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| |-
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| !Front Tire
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| |110/90-19
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| |-
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| !Rear Tire
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| |130/90-16
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| |-
| |
| !Dry Weight
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| |277 kg / 611 lbs
| |
| |-
| |
| !Fuel Capacity
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| |16 Liters / 4.2 US gal
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| |-
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| !Consumption Average
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| |41.2 mpg
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| |-
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| !Standing ¼ Mile
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| |11.9 sec / 177.8 km/h
| |
| |-
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| !Top Speed
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| |135 mph 217.3 km/h
| |
|
| |
| |}
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|
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|
| ==References== | | ==References== |