Honda CBR 400F

In every way, the CBR400F Endurance surprises. It competes in a class filled with fierce sportbikes as uncompromising as a Ducati Pantah; yet the CBR is cushy and comfortable by comparison, without sacrificing anything but the last fraction of racetrack handling.lt gives away 75 pounds to the Suzuki GSX-R, but is only marginally slower. With the CBR, Honda has mastered the trick of having the cake and eating most of it, too.

With that weight disadvantage, the CBR400F can't afford any power disadvantage as well. And although its air-cooled, 16-valve, inline-Four doesn't look special, new technology lurks inside the ordinary exterior, hinted at only by the REV acronym cast into the cylinder head. The REV system mechanically disconnects one inlet and one exhaust valve from each cylinder at low engine speeds, and sets them operating again at high rpm. This allows radical cam timing without killing low-speed power.
On the road, the CBR engine with REV lives up to its promise. At low rpm the engine pulls at least acceptably, and even better than that if the standard of comparison is the original Honda CB400 Four. Then, at 8500 rpm, there's a leap in power that's almost two-stroke-like as all 16 valves go to work and send tfc CBR rocketing toward its 12,750-rpi redline. Amazingly, vibration is almos non-existant, with only a brief bit o buzzing between 5000 and 6000 rpm.

Handling on the CBR is solid, andi starts to feel slightly mushy am underdamped only at racetrack speed; Motorcycles that work better on tli racetrack don't ride as well as the CBR so the suspension is a very reasonaH compromise for street use.

The CBR' 16-inch front wheel and quick steerini geometry allow it to turn nimbly, bu without sacrificing stability. No wiggle or wobbles here.
Sacrifice, in fact, is a word that's nd in the CBR's vocabulary. Its seat is so( and well-shaped, the riding position i sport-touring rather than pure sport, am the fairing keeps the wind blast off th rider's chest without bathing him in hea from the engine. The only discomfor comes from footpegs that are too closeti the seat, cramping taller riders after i few hours on the road.
There's a lesson to be learned from thi CBR. It's that the last few percentagi points of performance are often purchased at a dear price. The CBR isn't tht quickest or best-handling 400, but it cai deliver performance approaching 558 class standards, and do it without pain.

Review

MAN. IT IS SAID. IS A PRODUCT OF
his environment. It follows, then, that the products of man, too, are influenced and shaped by that same environment. Especially products such as motorcycles, and environments such as Japan and the United States.

Honda's CBR400F taught Cycle World this lesson in motorcycle sociology last November. We went to Japan to explore the two-wheeled products of that environment, to compare what we ride with what they ride, as well as the way they ride with the way we ride. We tried seven dif-
ferent streetbikes that aren't available anywhere on this side of the Pacific; and on those bikes, somewhere between the streets of Tokyo and the foothills of Fujiyama, we learned that there's a very good reason why the bikes of Japan are so different: The environment of Japan is so different.

Of all the machines in that crop, none in the under-500cc category seemed able to bridge the formidable gap between Japanese and American riding styles. None, perhaps, besides the Honda CBR400F. It was the most !1 versatile, the one that seemed the most likely candidate for Americanization. But the only way to be sure of that would be to ride the machine over here, to test it in this envi- .. ronment rather than in one that is so . . . so foreign.

We did just that by spending a month riding a CBR400F that had been brought stateside by Honda. And we found that in this environment, the machine takes on a considerably different personality than it had on its home turf.

Understand, of course, that this is the same 400cc, 16-valve, inline-Four sportbike that won us over in Japan. Its main claim to engineering fame is its Revolution Modulated Valve System, or REV, which is a valve-actuation system designed to widen the bike's powerband. It does this by utilizing only one intake and one exhaust valve per cylinder at low rpm, then bringing each cylinder's other exhaust and intake valve into play above 8500 rpm. Adding significance to the REV system, and another reason for taking a closer look at the CBR400F, are rumors of its use on some 1986 Honda sportbikes, motorcycles of larger-than-400cc displacement that are scheduled for sale in the U.S. market.
First impression of the CBR is that it's small, physically as well as in displacement. The seat-to-peg distance is, with rare exception, more cramped than that of any streetbike currently sold in this country, and the low, flat handlebars tilt the rider forward in a decidedly racy position. But at least the high pegs give the bike an exceptional amount of cornering clearance.

This compactness isn't due solely to any genetic size difference between oriental and western peoples; it also results from the CBR being more sport-oriented than the average American bike. By almost any standards, though, the CBR still is small. Four hundred cubic centimeters isn't exactly minibike class, but in this is country, where the roads are long and the countryside is wide-open, this 400cc machine ranks as one of the smallest streetbikes around.

Despite its smallish displacement, though, power actually isn't what the Honda lacks; its quarter-mile numbers testify to that. Rather, the CBR pays for its cc-deficit in the width of its powerband.

Few other motorcycles sold in this country are peakier or have more of a jump in power output as the rpm climbs. Not until the CBR's tach needle is beyond the maximum rpm of most streetbikes does its engine start pulling. And "pulling" isn't exactly the proper word. At 9500 rpm. the Honda starts accelerating with turbo-like ferocity, rocketing to its 12.750-rpm redline almost instantly and generating a lot ofexcitementalong the way. Forwhile the REV system may preserve some semblance of low-rpm power despite the long-duration camshafts that deliver high peak power, the CBR still has a radical power surge on top.

That's fine for the racetrack, and perhaps even on the racetrack-like city streets of Japan. But on the well-patrolled main roads of America, the high-strung exhaust note of a motorcycle screaming at almost 13.000 rpm is enough to attract the attention of any every cop in the vicinity.
So the CBR is a creature of the backroads. a bank-and-scrape road weapon with hardcore sport aspirations. And it takes that sort of flat-out approach for a CBR rider to explore the bike's true potential.

The only comparable machine in America is Yamaha's RZ350. and even it can't match the racetrack demeanor of the CBR

CBR. The Honda is faster, revs higher, has more cornering clearance and is downright racier. The RZ does have a handling edge due to its weight, which is about 80 pounds below that of the Honda. The CBR is by no means hefty, but it lacks the exceptional agility of the RZ.

That weight is a disadvantage on any kind of road. One advantage the CBR has on any kind of road is its suspension, which is impressive by any standards. When you first sit on the bike and bounce up and down, you get the impression that it's as plush as any cruiser—surprising, considering the bike's roadracy personality. And on the Botts Dots and expansion joints of American freeways, the bike seems smooth and plush-too plush, you would think, for an all-out assault on the" backroads. But that's hardly the case. The CBR doesn't wallow or wiggle as the rider pushes harder and harder in the twisties. Only when the bike is taken to full-on racing speeds does the suspension start to reach its limits. So in this country, just as in Japan, the CBR's suspension proves to be its most versatile and valuable asset.

That is. however, one of the only aspects of the CBR that seems the same in either environment. Over here, the standards of comparison change; instead of fierce sportbikes like FZ400s and GSX-R400s.the CBR's competition is somewhere between GPz550s and 450cc cruisers. Over here, the CBR seems smaller, more cammy and less exotic than it did in Japan. Taking the CBR out of Japan, it seems, wasn't quite enough. Because there's still too much Japan left in the CBR.

Source Cycle World 1985