Best Motorcycle Engines ever Built

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As an add on to the article which was more rage than prose, the Nissan QR25 series motors with their set of complicated problems, it would be pertinent to cover motorcycle engines which made history, some famous, some infamous. Motorcycle engines are not supposed to outlast motor car engines, they are high revving, power comes in at the top end with most of the Japanese machines and to a larger degree motorcycles just get thrashed. There are some engines that just lasted forever or were the best engines to nitro, turbo or just plain race tune. The 500cc triples by Kawasaki is a case in point, phenomenally fast, the widowmaker 750cc MachIV H2 designed for robot to robot straightline dragging and the the ever popular RD350cc were the rage in my day. Two strokes are simple beasts to work on, light and simple. They weren’t as reliable as four strokes but if you were the fastest kid on the block who really gave a damn. The Kawasaki bikes were notoriously poor handlers and cornering was never part of the equation.

The website Visor Down has a very good article on the top ten motorcycle engines ever developed. There are complaints about not seeing certain engines, the BMW boxer Twins being just one of them but I think from a popularity point of view they are spot on. The fact that they added the NSR500 is a case in point. I don’t know of anyone driving these animals today but one thing has to be said – nothing could beat them. Looking back I’d say if anyone has not ridden a two-stroke hasn’t ridden a bike, full-stop. I drove many small capacity two strokes in my younger years and the only big one was the 750cc “waterbus” from Suzuki and boy could this bike accelerate. Sadly, I never rode the RD350 although it was rumoured to be the best out there when it came onto the tracks and street racing. It was rumoured to chew big 4s for breakfast – it wasn’t cheap but still a lot cheaper than the 750s of the day. The RD350 used torque induction – I rode an RD125cc and it definitely outperformed any other bike of it’s class. Getting onto Honda twins, every heard of the Honda 450cc – an interesting aspect to the 450cc was the use of torsion bars to close the overhead valves instead of springs. This allowed the Honda to run over 6000 RPM, something which ‘bigger’ twins could just not do in the 60s. This made it a very interesting bike to race with, especially against bigger British twins. As kids, we had one in the house. It had done it’s time (rather aged compared to the bikes of the era – late 70s/early 80s) but the engine was still rock solid, didn’t leak, didn’t smoke and pulled like crazy. I don’t know what happened to it. My first big bike was the Z750 Kwacker, a very nice twin. Easy to work on but heavy as a Mac truck. At the time it was possibly the slowest 750cc out there but then again it wasn’t designed for performance, Kawasaki had enough of those floating around.

If I had to put money on the best bikes around in the 70s and early 80s it could only have been the Honda 750 fours, the Kawasaki 900cc, the Katana and the oft mentioned RD350. All based on the awesomeness of the engine, nothing compared to now but that which could be fixed at home. Putting money on the MOST awesome machine between mid 70s until early 80s could only have been the six cylinder Honda CBX 1000cc. There were no worst bikes although enthusiasts are bound to disagree. The best looking bike was the Katana. My favourite manufacturer has always been Ducati – Visor Down is spot on when they slot the 851 in at #1. They are also spot on to list the Kawasaki 500cc H1. I never rode one, I never wanted to ride one – just too many bad rumours. Read about a new ride here on the H1.

If I was going to buy a bike now from the classics of yesteryear it would be a CBX or the Suzuki GS1100, preferably a very good nick CBX. Second hand prices are ridiculous of course so if you need to get one make sure it’s never fallen and has a full service history. If you don’t know bikes, this one is going to cost you an arm and a leg to fix.

I saw a workshop bike, 851 ten years back going for U$7 000. If only I had the money. I wouldn’t have driven it – it would be in the lounge instead of my plasma screen.