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The Early Days of the “Honda 4-Stroke”

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Posted by: Rich Rohrich---------------------

An interesting article on the Honda History website:

http://world.honda.com/history/limi...type/index.html


Posted by: Ol'89r---------------------

Great article Rich. Thanks.

I remember working at a Triumph dealership in Inglewood Ca. in the late 60's and the owner, Bill Krause showed me this new Japanese model that he was going to take on.

It was called a Honda and he told me they were going to take over the Triumphs and everything else. I told him he was nuts.

Well, the rest is history.

Ol'89r


Posted by: john3_16---------------------

Maybe this article will clear air on the idea that the 4 stroke motor has been just recently developed in the last 8 years.


Posted by: bclapham---------------------

that bike doesnt look much different than the thumpers i see at the races!!!

i bet it even sounds like a CRF!!!


Posted by: bclapham---------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ol'89r
I remember working at a Triumph dealership in Inglewood Ca. in the late 60's


Terry, i thought that if you can remember the 60s then you wernt there!!!?????

its a shame us Brits led the way with Motorcycles and now that industry is dead. Heck, after all the times Hitler tried to bomb Rolls Royce, i bet Winston turned in his grave the day BMW bought them.


Posted by: Ol'89r---------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by bclapham
that bike doesnt look much different than the thumpers i see at the races!!!

i bet it even sounds like a CRF!!!


Bruce.

If your wern't behind them, you wouldn't be able to hear them.


Posted by: Ol'89r---------------------

[QUOTE=bclapham]Terry, i thought that if you can remember the 60s then you wernt there!!!?????

its a shame us Brits led the way with Motorcycles and now that industry is dead. QUOTE]

Bruce.

That was the 70's. I think. Not sure, can't remember.

One of the problems with the British industry was their failure to make changes. They kept the same engine design for too many years while the Japanese were able to come out with a completly different engine each year. They said it was too expensive to change the tooling for a new casting design. If the Honda's had a problem, they fixed it. If the Triumphs had a problem, they hid it. Part of it was the labor problems they had in England while the Japanese enjoyed cheap labor.

Another thing was they didn't want to know about any problems that their bikes had. When the factory Rep's would come over from England to visit the Dealers, we were not allowed to tell them what an out dated POS their engines were. They had many problems with leaking oil out of the cases, poor quality primary chains, poor quality sand castings and don't even get me started on Lucas ignition systems. Remember Joe Lucas the prince of darkness.

When we did get them aside and tell them of some of the problems, they would look down their noses at us and get visibly upset and then hurry off the the next Dealer. It was like, how dare we talk down the brand. I know none of this information ever got back to the factory and it was their ultimate downfall.

Triumphs are back but, it took a group of independant employees to take over the brand and get away from the antiquated thinking of the factory.


Posted by: bclapham---------------------

Terry- good observations, and i agree- the Brits have never done themselves and favours with industry. Heck, one of the best incomes in the UK is pharmaceuticals, we produce a large proportion of the worlds best scientists, they they are closing more than half of the chemistry departments in universities.


Posted by: Rich Rohrich---------------------

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ol'89r
and don't even get me started on Lucas ignition systems. Remember Joe Lucas the prince of darkness.


Hence the saying, if Lucas made weapons there would be no wars


Posted by: CharlieT---------------------

Honda made some incredible bikes back in the '60s. I started racing in'65 on a higly modded S90 and had no troble outrunning the 2/'s of the day. Went from that to a 160 that was punched out to 198, cammed , etc. That little twin would run up to 14,000rpm!! Ran in the 200 class and could run with the Sherpa-S, etc.

I was always fascinated with their GP bikes of the era. I was always amazed at this one particular GP bike, the RC148. It was a 125cc, 5-cylinder, DOHC, 4valve sewing machine that turned like 20,000rpm!! I understnad they assembled the valve train using tweezers! As a kid I had poster of Mike-the-Bike at IoM TT rounding a turn on the RC166, 250-6cyl. those three megaphones on each side looked intimidating!! I would love to have an audio recording of that bike runnning up thru the gears, spining 18K rpm. Wish they had the on-bike cameras back then at the TT.



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