The old six cylinder motorcycles

[tz89]

I just sold some of my digital carb sync stuff to a guy in Germany with an old Kawasaki KZ1300. That got me looking around for info on that and the Honda CBX1000. Anyone here with experience riding and working on these bikes? What was that like? Especially the carbs, but the bike in general. Any good forums like this one for those bikes? Thanks!

 

I did find this https://www.motorcycleclassics.com/classic-japanese-motorcycles/6-cylinder-motorcycle-shootout.

[paysaw]

I owned a 1979 Kz1300 back in the 80s.it was a great bike.The carbs were hard to sync as I remember and my stator went.It had big power for those days for a big bike.It was quite the bike.I wish I still owned it now.

[BlueSky]

The local Honda Motorcycle dealer has a CBX1000 in the showroom and it looks almost like new. They don't have a price on it but it is supposedly available to purchase.

[tz89]

The local Honda Motorcycle dealer has a CBX1000 in the showroom and it looks almost like new. They don't have a price on it but it is supposedly available to purchase.

 

Is this it? Eight grand it looks like. https://www.cycletrader.com/dealers/Iron-Horse-Motorcycles-3015908/listing/1982-Honda-CBX1100C-SUPER-SPORT-115668951

[cowpuc]

Yep,, I had a couple CBX's thru the years! TOTALLY awesome scoots!! As anyone can imagine, they were extremely smooth runners and the one below (it was an early model) was a GREAT performer!! IMHO, they were no different than any other carbed scoots (all of the Honda's were carbed,never had a Kawi inline 6 so cant speak for them) in that as long as you rode then regularly and didnt let em set to long so the carbs had no chance of plugging up, they were AMAZING!! Similar to the early CB750's, you let the carbs go south and WOWZY = you got a major undertaking on your hands..

The CBX's had an AMAZING sound of their own!! I almost chopped one of mine when I was building SOHC Chops just for the sound!! Got a high dollar offer ($16k) on it cause it was stock so I didnt go that direction but,, it was hard not to cause,, well,, cause that motor is that special!! Wayyyy cool!!

Also,, on the CBX's, the center jugs can be problematic due to that gorgeous scoot being air cooled. I also rode the early Kawi 3 cylinder 2 strokes (LOVED THOSE PUPPYS) and was always dropping new piston's in the center hole, the Honda 6's were way more durable but still problematic if run in warm air. You could upsize on the jetting in the center carbs (Honda's are always jetted lean anyway for EPA stuff) and it did help but,, be warned - not easy!! Folks think our Venture carbs are a pain in the neck to work on = those CBX's ARE rocket science LOL.

If you find one and are gonna pay big money for it you will want to check exhaust pipe conditions very very closely.. Like the early CB750's (actually all the early Honda's with upswepts), they are prone to rot out and are made of unobtainium!!

While certainly be farrrrrr from the performer that my R1 liter bike is, the Honda Super Sport CBX you see in the pics below was a very very good performer!! IT FLEW for what it was and was amazingly frugal!!

Concerning the Kawi 6, I had friends who owned the early Kawi Voyager with the 6 in it.. Those were nice bikes but they were not problem free by a long shot.. Kawi dropped them in favor for the 1200cc 4 cylinder Voyager 2 for a reason!!

Thats all I know,, my brain is empty!

Puc

[bongobobny]

Yup, I remember the CBX, that was one wide engine!! A bit scary fast too...

[CaseyJ955]

The newer German inline 6 is admirable to say the least, but its not the eye candy of the old school Hondas. The CBX is just too cool for words, all those cyl and dp shamelessly out in the breeze. Whats not to love. I have not seen one on the road for decades.

[Freebird]

I had a co-worker about 30 years ago that had one exactly like that picture. I rode it a few times and then he offered to sell it to me for $1,000.00. At the time, I thought that was a bit high for it so passed. That was a long time ago but I seem to remember that it had good power but didn't handle so great.

 

A few years ago, I was visiting a customer who worked out of his home here in Ohio. As I was leaving, I saw two of them sitting in his garage. He had a white one with the bags and etc. and a blue one. He told me that he and his father had bought them new. The white one had belonged to his father and he stopped riding soon after buying it for health reasons. He offered it to me for $4500.00. I felt that it was well worth the money but decided that I didn't need to spend the $4500.00 at that time. I've kicked myself ever since for not buying it.

 

It looked exactly like this one, had just under 10,000 miles on it and looked like you could put it on the showroom floor and sell it for new. I'm sure it's long gone but if I remembered who the customer was or approximately where it was, I would find out if he still had it. Would love another chance at it.

[BlueSky]

Is this it? Eight grand it looks like. https://www.cycletrader.com/dealers/Iron-Horse-Motorcycles-3015908/listing/1982-Honda-CBX1100C-SUPER-SPORT-115668951

 

Nope, that's not it. The dealer is in Wilmington NC and the bike doesn't have all the plastic. no windshield, no bags, no fairing. It looks like a great bike for a collector but for riding, there are much better bikes out there these days.

 

While they were fast for their time, the specs say that the 79 thru 82 had 103hp. These days 103hp is not so impressive.

Edited November 9, 2017 by BlueSky

[Geobob]

I just sold some of my digital carb sync stuff to a guy in Germany with an old Kawasaki KZ1300. That got me looking around for info on that and the Honda CBX1000. Anyone here with experience riding and working on these bikes? What was that like? Especially the carbs, but the bike in general. Any good forums like this one for those bikes? Thanks!

 

I did find this https://www.motorcycleclassics.com/classic-japanese-motorcycles/6-cylinder-motorcycle-shootout.

 

This might answer your question and get the conversation started

 

 

I have had my CBXs longer than my Venture and the forum support is very good like it is for the Venture. I cannot see owning a CBX without the support of the ICOA and others forums. I have my 82 up for sale on craigslist and cycle trader. I hate to sell it but I had not been riding it.

 

I put a built up 79 motor in an 82 frame and it is really a nice ride that draws a lot of attention if you go anywhere with it. I have been building the twin turbo for over 10 years now and since I got it running and on the road I have decided to focus on it and sell the 82. At least that was the plan.

 

If no one want to buy the 82 I really won't be that disappointed now that it is back on the road also. It sat for 10 year until last summer when I decided it needed to be sold. I pulled all the parts together and got it running with the hot motor and 6 into 1 pipe and now I am thinking twice about selling it.

[Geobob]

Did I understand you correctly, you got offered or you sold this bike for $16k. How long ago was that. I see the condition and mileage but did not think they were selling that high.

 

Yep,, I had a couple CBX's thru the years! TOTALLY awesome scoots!! As anyone can imagine, they were extremely smooth runners and the one below (it was an early model) was a GREAT performer!! IMHO, they were no different than any other carbed scoots (all of the Honda's were carbed,never had a Kawi inline 6 so cant speak for them) in that as long as you rode then regularly and didnt let em set to long so the carbs had no chance of plugging up, they were AMAZING!! Similar to the early CB750's, you let the carbs go south and WOWZY = you got a major undertaking on your hands..

The CBX's had an AMAZING sound of their own!! I almost chopped one of mine when I was building SOHC Chops just for the sound!! Got a high dollar offer ($16k) on it cause it was stock so I didnt go that direction but,, it was hard not to cause,, well,, cause that motor is that special!! Wayyyy cool!!

Also,, on the CBX's, the center jugs can be problematic due to that gorgeous scoot being air cooled. I also rode the early Kawi 3 cylinder 2 strokes (LOVED THOSE PUPPYS) and was always dropping new piston's in the center hole, the Honda 6's were way more durable but still problematic if run in warm air. You could upsize on the jetting in the center carbs (Honda's are always jetted lean anyway for EPA stuff) and it did help but,, be warned - not easy!! Folks think our Venture carbs are a pain in the neck to work on = those CBX's ARE rocket science LOL.

If you find one and are gonna pay big money for it you will want to check exhaust pipe conditions very very closely.. Like the early CB750's (actually all the early Honda's with upswepts), they are prone to rot out and are made of unobtainium!!

While certainly be farrrrrr from the performer that my R1 liter bike is, the Honda Super Sport CBX you see in the pics below was a very very good performer!! IT FLEW for what it was and was amazingly frugal!!

Concerning the Kawi 6, I had friends who owned the early Kawi Voyager with the 6 in it.. Those were nice bikes but they were not problem free by a long shot.. Kawi dropped them in favor for the 1200cc 4 cylinder Voyager 2 for a reason!!

Thats all I know,, my brain is empty!

Puc

[Geobob]

That is a nice looking 82. Those were the days, when you could buy them for 1000. I picked up a couple at that price. This is exactly why I an debating weather or not to sell my 82.

 

 

I had a co-worker about 30 years ago that had one exactly like that picture. I rode it a few times and then he offered to sell it to me for $1,000.00. At the time, I thought that was a bit high for it so passed. That was a long time ago but I seem to remember that it had good power but didn't handle so great.

 

A few years ago, I was visiting a customer who worked out of his home here in Ohio. As I was leaving, I saw two of them sitting in his garage. He had a white one with the bags and etc. and a blue one. He told me that he and his father had bought them new. The white one had belonged to his father and he stopped riding soon after buying it for health reasons. He offered it to me for $4500.00. I felt that it was well worth the money but decided that I didn't need to spend the $4500.00 at that time. I've kicked myself ever since for not buying it.

 

It looked exactly like this one, had just under 10,000 miles on it and looked like you could put it on the showroom floor and sell it for new. I'm sure it's long gone but if I remembered who the customer was or approximately where it was, I would find out if he still had it. Would love another chance at it.

[cowpuc]

Did I understand you correctly, you got offered or you sold this bike for $16k. How long ago was that. I see the condition and mileage but did not think they were selling that high.

 

I know,, sounds insane don't it!! The one I got 16k out of was the sister bike to the one in the pics and was wayyyy before I ended up with the 79 in the pic's. It was back in the late 90's and in a totally different day and age for our industry = flat out crazy fun times IMHO.. Believe it or not, folks were paying 50 to 70 thousand for cookie cutter Choppers with HD Evo copy cat motors in em (TOTAL INSANITY IMHO) and I was putting together Amen plunger and Santee Hardtail 750 SOHC Chops at the time and offing them for 12 to 15k too.. Just nuts in the mind of a person who didnt live thru such nonsense!! The most fun I had back then was with the little hard tail (round badges drew the biggest $$ with the 1st year white grippers seeing 7 to 10 grand for an original clean bike) Honda Mini Trail 50's = little scoot's I had been working on since my early years in biking, nothing to em but WOW did they fill the cash drawer!! I was averaging 5 to 7 grand a pop on those little restored Mini Trails!

Most Harley shops back then were more than a year out after ordering a new bike for a person, they could not build bikes fast enough and the Sturgis Rally was going NUTS too!! During the rally, I-90 was coned off and 2 mile lines of bikes backed up waiting to get into town = only way you could get in was to wait for someone to leave = bikers were actually camping on the sides of the highway!! Definitely a different day and age - a GREAT time to be in the business and a fun time to be a biker!!

As far as the CBX's, they were VERY collectable and extremely valuable too as long as it was the 1st year model and a clean original example! Not unlike the mini trails and many many other collectables - prices/values between the first year model's and others were often tremendous but I am sure that a stock, clean 82 model CBX back then could have seen 6 to 8k. I was fortunate - had been in the industry my whole life, took the time to toss a 4 year degree in Business in my tool box so I sort of knew how to run a business and I lived/breathed and loved bikes well enough (about all I was ever really good at) that I became a master "cherry picker". A couple other prime examples that I also did really well with back in the day were the 1st year Honda 750's = these were known as "The Sand Cast" because they actually had engine cases that were rough cast in sand. I once sold a motor out of a sand cast that I pulled from a junk yard and rebuilt for 11k = just for the motor. Still another real good example were the 1st year Kawasaki Z-1's = WOW were they valuable (not to far behind were the H1 and H2 2 strokes)!! I shipped numerous ones of those back to Japan at 10k a pop in ANY shape as long as they were 90% complete or better!! Domestically, those bikes sold for 12 to 18k all day long for original bikes and about the same for a nice restored one. Also, a word of note here,,, a good original set of exhaust pipes for either the early SOHC 750 Honda or the Z-1 would easily see 7k = just for the pipes and those little Honda SL350 pipes (because they were upswept too and rotted out quickly) were seeing 3k for set too!!

Here is another example that, quite frankly, still has me shaking my head in wonderment, I also got involved with shipping containers of Harley AMF Shovel Heads to Europe.. As far as HD goes, those AMF Shovels were the most unwanted HD's of all time (main line HD's and excluding the Sporties) but the folks over in Europe couldnt get enough of em!! Pic em up here for 2.5k, fill a container and send over there @ 7k each. Here is the rub in that one,, the top of the line model of those Shovels = the FLT Tour Glide with the fixed fairing (now known as the Road Glide) were absolutely NOT wanted or a sellable commodity in my world.. Couldnt give the dog gone things away even though they were actually the best of the best that HD offered back then IMHO and, to this day, that fixed fairing, twin headlight scoot is the highest dollared bike they sell (excluding the trikes) and folks that own em love em!!

Ya got me on a roll here while taking a walk down memory lane Geo... Wowzy,,, here is another good one that popped into my tired ol beaner just now.. One time back in the early 90's I grabbed an H1 triple at a yard sale for a hundred bucks.. The guy I bought it from asked if I wanted to take along the 6 crates of parts he had sitting in his shed for it.. Of course, I said of course... I get home in the garage and find out that one of the boxes of parts is half full of those little pre-formed oil lines for the H1's and included the bottom of that box was layered in H1 igniter boxes (CDI's).. aWhen Ebay took off I had one of my employees sort out that little box of oil lines into "oil line kits" and stuck em up on Ebay @125 bucks a kit.. I had dozens of kits and they sold out in less than 2 days!! Not to long ago I noticed those same kits selling on Ebay for $15 and free shipping.. WOW how times have changed = I NEVER did free shipping ,, - of course my employees didnt work for free either!! Capitalism at it's finest!

That's my story and I'm stickin to it!!

Puc