Any future in air-cooled?

<G>

I knew I'd catch someone )

And the 900R wasn't the first water-cooled across the frame four the
Japs built, either. Oddly enough. Lots of people think it was, but
they're wrong.

In early 1983, one of the Big Four made a DOHC 16-valve water-cooled
across the frame four, but it sank into near obscurity. A virtual pint
for anyone who can name it.

 

Coughyamahaxs750xs850cough

 

Wrong! See other posting. And besides, aren't you forgetting the Honda
VF750 and other early vees?

 

I only knew because I've always had a thing for triples. In the
early 70s I had a BSA Rocket 3 and a Kaw H1 and I always lusted after
the modern Trident. It's snowing here too. Sigh.

 

I had an H1D. Wonderful and dreadful machine. I preferred the 400. The
250 was fun, but a bit wet. The 400 was definitely the best of the
three, all-round.

I still hanker after an H2C, mind.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Serves me right for not thinking more critically!

 

The H1 scared me like nothing else has since. And I loved it. It was
certainly a piece of crap by today's standards, but man oh man, did it
kick ass in a straight line. Stopping was of course a whole 'nother
thing. If I close my eyes, I can still see the 2-tone blue paint job
that perfectly matched the smoke out the back, usually obscuring the
rich guy behind me in his 'Vette. My then-wife once told me that if I
made her a widow on that thing she'd kill me. Again.

 

The reason they're doing that is because both run very lean from the
factory (I think the Harley even more than the BMW) in order to pass
emissions legislation. And obviously the

I think it's worse on the very latest ones (1550cc twin cams) as they
supposedly run extremely lean thanks to the wonders of modern engine
management.

I think that's a "yes and no". Both engines share the same basic layout
with their older siblings but are substantially different. That said,
both are very large capacity and thus slow-revving twins, which is a
layout that doesn't really lend itself to low emissions (partially
because you've got rather big combustion chambers so you tend to get
incomplete burns).

 

Cor, I must have missed the water cooled XSs.

Never actually ridden an XS triple, must remedy that sometime. I suppose
I should mooch a play on a K75 & a Meriden Trident as well to get me
nearer completing the set of triples.

 

Nope, I was careful to specify four stroke because both Suzuki & Honda
had made 2 stroke water cooled triples.

BMW were making the triples from the early '80s on. Dunno when they
stopped.

 

I had a 1979 XS750F Yamaha triple, and I can't for the life of me
recall it being water-cooled. I did own both a 1997 Triumph T509
Speed Triple and a 1999 955i Speed Triple, and both of them were
indeed liquid cooled. And really, really, fun bikes to boot!

 

Heh. It's a lovely trick question, all the same.

 

I think that is an admirable summation.

<Touches forelock>

 

Heh. Good point; my bad.

Surprisingly good to ride, especially the 850. Shame about the
mechanical integrity.

 

The K75 was launched in 1985. Production continued until the mid-1990s -
I can't recall the exact year. 1995-96, I think.

 

Hmmm, let me think. '83? Near obscurity? That'd be around the tail end
of Yamaha & Honda building as many dumb things as possible.

For some reason I'm expecting it to be a 400 or even a 250 but it's
probably not. Hmmm some more.

GSX400W?

(I'll admit it, I googled)

 

CBA to go downstairs to check (and BMW seems to have removed the link to
their 'history') but this sounds about right. I think they were pretty
much phased out around the time the K1100s came in but with a certain
overlap, which would put it somewhere in the 94-96 range.

 

Can't really class 85 as early '80s, can I? Oh well, I remembered K75s
as having been around when I started riding bikes[1] so assumed they'd
appeared earlier than they had.

Best stop wasting time online & go finish sorting the triple indicators
- 3 of them work so I'll be dismangling the 4th one & cannibalising the
broken ones to see if I can get all 4 to work. Then I need to get the
front brake light to work. Joy, I hate electrics.

Bob

[1] my mate taught me to ride (the basics anyway) on his Dad's B25 one
Sunday in the local industrial estate. Summer 85 I reckon that was.

 

Close enough. GSX400FW, in fact.

Built for the Japanese 400cc market, but a very few came over to Europe
for evaluation by various importers.

Suzuki Sweden had one. I rode it in the summer of 1983, hammering it
down forest roads. As smooth as anything, very revvy, light handling,
but actually not as quick as the spec suggested it ought to be. The
write-up appeared in Superbike that autumn. A couple of months later
Kawasaki announced the 900R.

It's odd, isn't it? That little Suzuki is actually a historic bike, but
hardly anyone has ever heard of it, still less ridden it.

This month's issue of Classic & Motorcycle Mechanics, though, has a pic
and a correct date check.

And people still call the Kawasaki 900R the first Jap water-cooled
across the frame four. Because almost all the press make that claim. But
they are (and were) wrong.

IOU a virtual pint. What's your poison?

 

A double check shows that the original K75C was, indeed, launched in
1985. The S followed a year later.

Both models were discontinued in 1995, but the final version of the
K75RT lasted until 1996.

That's in the UK, anyway. It's possible that other markets had the bikes
for longer.