One of Honda's most famous and successful motorcycles was their RC 166, 6 cylinder 250cc. In the early 60's Honda was loosing on the tracks to Yamaha 2-strokes and Soichiro Honda wasn't happy about that at all. His engineers wanted to develop their own 2-stroke engine to beat Yamaha but Honda said no.

"So in 1964, when the engineers opted to follow the way of the competition,

Soichiro didn’t agree

And ordered a new racing engine project, that would not be a 2-stroke. This task was put on a 24-year old engineer – Shoichiro Irimajiri. The pressure was enormous as Yamaha was beating Honda during every single race. Irimarji knew, that the biggest limitation of 4-stroke vs 2-stroke is that there is only one work cycle against two crankshaft rotations. This was something that You cannot change. So to overcome that fact – he found one solution – RPM! If You cannot change the frequency of the work cycle, You need to increase the number of cycles in a unit of time. Easier said than done. Since high RPM would obviously result in increasing the forces generated by the moving components, he decided to overcome it with “miniaturization”. Smaller pistons meant smaller inertia and better heat distribution. The goal was 18,000 RPM… Sounds impressive? Remeber – this is 1964 we are talking about."

It's a fascinating read. https://caferacergarage.eu/hon...inder-racing-legend/


And the sound of that little motor screaming at almost 20,000 rpm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaRop_ZMwo0&t=75s

Wow, had never heard of that one.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
It's slow, relatively, but a CBR250RR is a grail bike for me.
20k rpm, and that banshee wail, can run it hard without committing a felony.

How about a smaller screamer?

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2006-honda-nsf100/

quote:

Originally posted by giuseppepepperoni:

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
It's slow, relatively, but a CBR250RR is a grail bike for me.
20k rpm, and that banshee wail, can run it hard without committing a felony.

How about a smaller screamer?

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2006-honda-nsf100/

If I could justify the expense of track days, that'd be a dun bike.
The 250RR is at least street legal, but pricey.

quote:

Originally posted by P250UA5:
It's slow, relatively, but a CBR250RR is a grail bike for me.
20k rpm, and that banshee wail, can run it hard without committing a felony.

And that's the appeal for me. Sure my 1986 FJ1200 and 1998 ZX9R are fun to bang the gears on, but hitting 140 by the end of the on ramp isn't exactly a wise choice. Back in the 55mph speed limit days with th FJ, I could take the off-ramp, get off the highway, stop at the stop sign, get on the on-ramp, and merge ahead of the traffic I was behind when I exited in the first place.

I've never ridden a 400cc motorcycle, but I suspect it would be a lot like driving my 1986 Honda CRX DX. That car had all of 76hp and I used every single one of them. Shifting was not optional. You couldn't skip gears either. It was fun though. I imagine a 400cc motorcycle would require shifting and using like 4 gears to even get to 60mph. Getting there quickly would require keeping the revs up. My liter bikes only require 1 shift to hit 60 or no shifts if I start in 2nd.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
That’s crazy to think those engine assemblies can rotate 200-250 times in one second.

I was amazed that my jet ski can cruise along at 7500rpm. I can’t imagine leaving a car over 5k for more than a few seconds.

My wife's Honda S2000 has a 9,000rpm redline and really is a lot of fun if you keep it above 6,000rpm.

Is your PWC supercharged? The 1.5l motor in my Sea-Doo will hit 8,100rpm, I belive the supercharger is geared 5 to 1, so it's running over 40,000rpm which blows my mind.

I have a little 50cc aprilia street bike. It probably makes 10hp. But it is a blast to ride as you have to actually work to go forward. Shift, shift shift while pinned to the max. Obviously not your interstate cruiser (but I did get to 70mph on the interstate once) but pretty much the most fun you can have on local and not crowded 2 lane roads. Once can certainly enjoy the small displacement bikes, this one would be fine on the street for backroads work, but of course you will be happier on your liter bike on the superslabs.

^ Agree completely, that's the appeal for me.
I've always been in the slow car[bike] fast over fast car[bike] slow camp.
My former Vulcan S had a 10k redline & saw it often, but had enough torque that it'd hit triple digits easily.

YammieNoob semi-deep dive on the ZX4

I have always had a fondness for small displacement multi cylinder engines, I use to ride my buddies CBR400rr and loved it.

Yamaha\ "Let's discontinue the 4cyl R6 and replace it with a parallel twin version because profits"

Honda\ "Let's make a "cruiser" with an ADV bike engine we've had in the international market for years because profits"

Kawi\ (snorts a line off a strippers ass) "LET'S BUILD A 400CC 4CYL CROTCH ROCKET BECAUSE HEE HAW!"

Seriously this will be the most fun track day bike EVER!!!
You will be able to wring this bike out and ride the hell out of it without breaking into triple digit speeds in 2nd gear like the big bikes.

quote:

Seriously this will be the most fun track day bike EVER!!!

Seriously, not a chance. none.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:

Kawi\ (snorts a line off a strippers ass) "LET'S BUILD A 400CC 4CYL CROTCH ROCKET BECAUSE HEE HAW!"

Thanks for the laugh, Ryanp225!

The "having to use all your gears at the right RPM's" is why my little Grom is my "funnest" bike.

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:

quote:

Seriously this will be the most fun track day bike EVER!!!

Seriously, not a chance. none.

Do you live to just be contrary yet provide no useful input of your own? It must really suck to wake up every morning as you.

quote:

Originally posted by Ryanp225:

quote:

Originally posted by hrcjon:

quote:

Seriously this will be the most fun track day bike EVER!!!

Seriously, not a chance. none.

Do you live to just be contrary yet provide no useful input of your own? It must really suck to wake up every morning as you.

Genuinely curious his thoughts on why it won't be a fun track bike.
From what little I've read, it sounds to be a mightily nimble bike, if not a rocket compared to the 600/1000cc big brothers.

This 14 speed 50cc twin racer was said to be the force behind HD setting a far lower limit on the number of gears permitted in AMA racing back in that era.

https://www.bikeexif.com/suzuki-rk67

I've ridden tens of thousands of laps on motorcycles around racetracks. Racing, teaching people to race and participating in track days helping people have fun safely and learn. All kind of different motorcycles and with a huge variety of skill sets. What that has taught me is that for most people there are some truly terrible bikes to learn on and the narrower the powerband and the more horsepower the tougher it is to get the kind of balanced learning to get the faster lap times that make it the most fun. You can have fun on anything at the race track and for some people the opportunity to open the throttle on their literbike and not go to jail is that fun. But many of them then get passed in the corners by people on Yamaha 300's who have figured out the cornering part of riding. Its still fun to just go fast in a straight line...but good track day bikes for skills development need broad torque curves and not enough power to get yourself in trouble. Think SV650 as an example of a great option. This 400 doesn't have a lot of power, but it makes it in a pretty small range. Its real work to make peaky engines go fast, just ask anyone who has run a traditional 2 stroke on the track. If you want to run a small displacement bike I vote the average person will be much happier on the Kawi 400 twin for example, at about half the price than this 4cyl. I'm pretty sure Ryanp225 has a FIM racing license so for him this will be the best track bike EVER, but for most everyone else it won't be. That is not to say it wouldn't be fun to ride on the track, they are all fun, but for way less money you can have more fun, or for just a tick more money you can go way faster.

Thanks, that makes more sense than a blanket 'no it won't'

All my riding has been on a KLR250, Vulcan S & a S&S 88 Indian Scout. Missed out on a few BMWs over the years.

I've long wanted a CBR250RR just for that banshee redline, speed be damned. This seems like it'll be a fun bike, maybe once the hype & markups die down.

I suppose all that money Kawasaki saved by not joining the fray and resisting the Grand Prix motorcycle racing circus affords them the ability to take some unexpected risks. I’ve given Kawasaki a hell of a hard time for their choice to not race at the top level but maybe it was a smart move.

I’ve ridden a lot of different types of bikes. The high revving 399 inline fours are one of my favorites. My local Kawasaki/Suzuki/etc dealership was smoking crack when I talked to them about the price of a DRZ400SM a year or two ago.

I’m really thinking a KTM supermoto will replace my adventure bike and racing ATV but this baby ZX double R is quite interesting. I truly never expected a manufacturer to have the balls to make a proper 400 again. It’s a damn exciting development for the small mill thrill faithful.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by giuseppepepperoni:


How about a smaller screamer?

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2006-honda-nsf100/[QUOTE]

From the comments: "I couldn't think of a better way to annoy the culdasec neighbors".


Both bikes would be a good back up bike to stuff in the back trunk of my GoldWing, so I have a commuter bike when I dock the two wheeled land yacht.