The magazine for classic Japanese motorcycles

Honda 400/4 Then & Now

Is it the best honda yet?

The howl from the four - into - one exhaust is more subdued than ever but it doesn’t disguise the nature of what is probably the best Honda yet. Behind the high level of silencing is an equally high level of performance; the stuff that made Honda the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer.

Since those days back in the ‘sixties when Honda amazed everyone, they seem to have gone downhill. Develtpment reached its peak with the CB450 - the stirr caused by the 750 was due more to its size, Most models, in particular the twins, deteriorated as they developed; the only real improvements being the handling of the later 750s.

Now Honda seem to have re-traced their steps and are once again on the right path. The 400, developed from the 350-four, is smaller and more comfortable than the 500 and the design is less cluttered. While I like the sheer power advantage offered by the 750, the 400 is more compact, manageable, gives a better ride and more precise handling, and, in my opinion, wins on points.

It looks and feels very small, without a cramped riding position. The layout is so good that it seemed to please everyone who sat on it. Honda must have found a new Mr Average upon whom to base their dimensions.

Since the early, ultra sporty, high revving lightweights, Honda have degenerated, each model getting woollier than the last with handling to match. The signs are that they are rethinking just what makes a motorcycle; at least the 400 points that way.

The engine is a neat blend of the old and the new, giving crisp response and using revs more than muscle. To the rider it is almost completely silent, at times even seeming stifled by the exhaust - probably a psychological effect as the kind of performance you get makes you feel the engine is entitled to make some noise. Like all Hondas the motor appears to be unburstable but unlike the early ones which felt as if they would rev forever, this one flattens off just before the needle reaches the red line. Power builds up smoothly and steadily, reaching useful proportions as it passes the 6000 mark but with no noticeable jump at any particular point.

The biggest difference has to be the ride position and the blend of comfort and handling. At last their suspension has moved out of that indefinite limbo and now it copes with bumps and holds the machine in a taut way which makes the handling predictable. It’s good, it’s reassuring yet it still lacks that finesse which makes you feel completely as one with the machine. The 400 is the kind of motorcycle you feed into corners rather than throwing it about, relaxed in the knowledge that it will tell you when you’ve gone far enough.

Although there were no definite faults - the front suspension topped too easily but deliberate attempts to set up a weave failed - I never became relaxed to the point where cornering became second nature. Maybe it was just my astonishment at finding a Honda which behaved itself at all. It felt as if it were banked over ten degrees more than it actually was. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In any case the Honda would go where you wanted it to go, it didn’t show any nasty habits and it did give a comfortable ride. The 400 confirmed my suspicion that getting a good riding position is nine-tenths of the problem. When you are in a natural position, able to operate all of the controls easily and your weight is balanced against the force of the airstream, it’s as if your body becomes part of the suspension. Your legs take just the right amount of weight and absorb bumps before the jolt goes crashing into your spine; your arms can be used solely to work the controls and not be braced, hanging on to the handlebar. If your arms have to be struts in tension they will transmit all the shocks and jolts fed into them - a good riding position keeps them loose and relaxed. My conclusion is that in the right position the body can pretty well take care of itself, leaving the suspension to take care of the handling.

The controls, with the exception of the twistgrip. are good. The pedals are adjustable, with a remote linkage on the gearshift. and the handlebar levers are light and smooth. Standard Honda switches are fitted, while they are not close to hand they were surprisingly easy to use and the ignition switch is now up with the instruments. where it belongs. Unfortunately, Honda still cling to their two-cable throttle with its sloppy feel, excessive free play and wrist-dislocating amount of travel.

Styling, for a change, is nice and clean, rounding off the slim, compact look of the machine. Several people criticised the exhaust as being a gimmick, but it does its job, it doesn’t seem to hamper access to anything and it’s tucked away as well as any four-pipe system. That’s good enough for me and if they can make it fashionable at the same time, well why not?

The tank looks a bit utilitarian - as I was collecting the 400, the owner of a CB500 came over and his first comments were about the tank, not its shape or colour or quality, but its size. The 500 doesn’t go too far between fuel stops and the 400’s tank looks a lot bigger. Deceptively so. I’m afraid. It holds just over three gallons of which two and a half get you on to reserve, which gave an effective range of about 120 miles. Another six or seven pints would make all the difference, especially as they could do it without altering the outline shape of the tank.

The motor spins quickly on the starter and’fires up immediately. During the initial warm-up it is very sensitive to throttle and choke and needs running at about 3000. for perhaps half a minute before the choke can be backed off and the machine becomes rideable. From there on it is incredibly smooth and responsive all the way through the rev range up to the 10,000 limit and down to the slow, even tick-over, There’s really only the tacho to let you know what’s going on below the tank.

The demonstrator had US specifications which include a permanently switched on headlamp, while on dipped beam, both front indicators glow at about half strength. I gather that this is deliberate but I’m not sure why. I usually switch the lights on anyway simply for the amusement of watching all the frantic light-flashing, waving and pointing from the rest of the world. Even pedestrians join in. The way I look at it, it costs me nothiyig. and if two Out of five pe6ple flash their lights back it means that two Out of five people have actually seen me and if they then swerve in front of me, at least I know it was deliberate.

I guess the Honda is as nimble and quicker than a 250 through heavy traffic. It will get up into the 70s and cruise happily in top, but with very little in reserve. To keep up speeds above this you have to use the gears almost continually to cope with hills and headwinds and overtaking. On a longish run, two-up into a headwind, the 400 was quicker in fifth than it was in sixth and quite often needed fourth. The three higher ratios are spaced fairly closely, which makes it easy to use the Honda’s full potential - and even encourages it - but doesn’t do a lot for the fuel consumption.

There was a fair amount of room for the passenger, who would have been quite comfortable had it not been for the footrests mounted on the swinging arm, but the 400 is infinitely more enjoyable when ridden solo.

On paper, the performance isn’t outstanding but to do the Honda justice this must be taken in conjunction with all of its other qualities. As I said earlier, they have recouped the style and performance of the early Hondas and it’s interesting to compare the four with the CB450 twin, A 1968 road test of the 450 shows it to have almost identical performance to the four, it was heavier but had better fuel consumption and was listed at £365 lBs lid. Honda are claiming 37 bhp at 8500 for the four, as against 43 bhp. also at 8500, for the twin which only had four gears.

Under the worst test conditions, from the fuel consumption angle that is. using all the revs and all the gears, we got 46 mpg. The signs were that modest cruising, using sixth gear as overdrive, would give about 60 mpg, only that isn’t really the style of the 400 - a motor as nice as this was surely intended to be used to the full. I think the Honda would be even more appealing as a sports machine if sixth gear were a true top and if all the lower gears were closer together. It would lose some of its flexibility, a price I’d be prepared to pay in order to get the maximum enjoyment at the other end of the scale. I don’t like low bottom gears - they make the back wheel hop and slide - and on the 400 I found it easier to get round hairpins in second even if it meant slipping the clutch very slightly to get away.

The clutch, like the brakes, was superb. Mainly because of the idiot throttle control, it took a lot of abuse on the standing start tests - a cynical fitter had taken up all the adjustment at the clutch itself, leaving the full length of the handlebar adjuster to be used, "just in case you need it, I know what you journalists are like". He may have been right about journalists, but he was wrong about the clutch. It went back with the adjuster still hard up against the lever and still working as sweetly as ever.

The brakes are also among the best. I hesitate to call anything perfect but if these were any better it would need an extremely skilful rider to take advantage of it. The disc loses efficiency in the wet but less so than others. And the 400 stayed controllable even under ten- tenths braking which is more important than having super- powerful brakes.

Detail finish appears to be as well-engineered as ever and the details, like the rubber strip which flips up the prop stand, lest you forget, are functional rather than mere gimmicks. The handling, braking and mid-range acceleration are more than satisfactory, the 400 would probably run out of grip before it ran out of ground clearance: on the whole it is a most likeable machine. Its peak power, the product of torque and engine speed, relies mainly on the latter which in a high gear makes the machine susceptible to external conditions. Things like changes of wind, different riding clothes and so on gave us top speeds ranging from 98 to 104 mph: under favourable conditions I don’t doubt the Honda would go even faster.

There are just two improvements I would like to see. A decent throttle operation and a fairing. A fairing would enable several things to happen: top end performance would improve: the 400 could pull slightly higher gears. which usually means an even nicer feel to the bike: fuel consumption ought to improve and the rider might avoid some of the weather.

By John Robinson

 The new Honda CB400F

35 Years A long time coming

It’s funny to see how the past can shape your future, but that’s exactly what led Glynis Roberts to buying a tatty old Honda 400/4.

Part of you expects a pint-sized CB750, part of you knows Honda better than that. The 400/4 was a better bike than that original 750. It feels small, light and yet comfortable for anyone from five-foot-two to six-foot-something. No one knows how Honda do it, but ‘one-bike-fits-all’ is a speciality of theirs.

Push button starts were still a novelty back then. Ironically, it’s the kick-start that appeals today. Obviously, being a Honda, it goes first kick and that beautiful engine settles quickly to a steady idle. The motor revs freely and builds power gently. There’s no step, no thrills compared to the two-strokes. But the Honda doesn’t need a power band – it’s got that four-into-one exhaust and a whole load of speed to make sure it gets noticed.

The original test makes reference to how getting the riding position r ight makes a bike so much easier to ride. As usual, John Robinson had got it nailed. Asking the questions and working out what the answers really meant. Because a rider who feels naturally in control of a bike tends to find that his machine rolls into turns like its been there 100 times before. A good 400/4 is still quick enough to keep ahead of modern traffic, still feels different enough (despite the UJM snipes from some) to be emotional and still evokes the 1970s with that glorious sohc-a- round sound.

It’s the small things that matter. Those wide-set clocks, the endurance-style fuel filler cap and the evocative 70s Honda switchgear – hum-drum at the time, but important now.

Keep the motor revving and you’ll see the needle pass 100mph with ease. Optimistic maybe – the 400s top whack was only a fraction over 100mph when new – but still the equal of any of its two-stroke rivals which says much about just how quick that engine is. Just don’t go racing Kawasaki triples from the lights. The S3 400 was almost two seconds quicker over the quarter mile. 

 

Most of us will remember being couriered around on the back of our mates bikes; it was economical transport at its best. It was also the way in which Glynis was introduced to Honda’s 400/4. Her best friend had gone out and bought one and, before long, just about every local route had been travelled by the duo. At the time, Glynis hadn’t passed her bike test, so the pillion seat of the little Honda was her gateway into the world of motorcycling; one that she truly relished and enjoyed. With the best will in the world, Glynis’ ambitions to get her test passed were put on the backburner as life, along with its many commitments and demands, took over and rendered it impossible. In 2001, some 33 years later, the test was finally ticked off the list and the roads were finally accessible for her two wheeled ambitions. A string of contemporary bikes were owned and ridden, but none of them gave her that feeling of happiness that she’d experienced in her youth. “I was so happy to be out and biking on the roads, but for some reason the modern bikes just weren’t doing it for me, I wanted to get back to my 70s roots”.

In 2003, Glynis was browsing through the free-ads of Old Bike Mart one day, when her attention was drawn to a picture of an old 400/4. On calling the seller, she was advised that the machine had potentially sold, but she left her number just in case. A week later, a call out of the blue brought music to her ears when the vendor called to say the bike was still available should she still want it. Before the phone had chance to go cold, Glynis and her husband Greg, had packed some sandwiches, printed off a map and were heading over to Rugby to buy the machine. On arrival, they were greeted by not one, but two scruffy looking Honda 400/4s, tucked away in the back of a shed. A deal was struck that saw Glynis leave with both bikes and a box full of spares to accompany them.

Back home, the better machine of the two was chosen and the best bits from both were bolted onto the number one bike. It ran, albeit in a state of disrepair. For the next few months, Glynis blasted around on the old bike, rekindling the happy memories from her past. “The 400/4 was so much fun, plenty quick enough and came with handling I could be confident with”. By the time winter had arrived, Glynis was besotted with the machine, so the decision was made to restore it to its former glory. In an all out assault, the bike was once again stripped back down to basics, as Glynis and Greg set to on the 25-year-old Honda. With Greg owning a bike shop, a lot of the work was carried out in-house, but specialist areas were farmed out. JBS paintwork gave the tank and panels a new vibrant yellow paint scheme, while P&P Seating took care of re-covering the seat base. Replacement shocks were sauced from Hagon and Greg treated Glynis at Christmas to a new, original four-in-to-one exhaust system, completing the renovation. All that was left was for Glynis to give the bike a thorough polish over and have it taxed ahead of the new season.

Nearly seven years on from her restoration, the bike means just as much to her now as it did back then. And looks as good too. Any excuse sees her use the bike, be it for a trip to work or leisurely jaunt. The only problem is her admiration for riding the bike is seeing the mileage clock up faster than a bankers bonus... It will soon be time for another rebuild.