Kawasaki H2R

Sorry,

Not a H2R but a mere 1972 Blue H2 air-cooled two-stroke triple. This had a bad reputation caused by the H1 500 which was almost as quick but would spit people off while negotiating corners while hitting the hair-trigger power band midway thru the bend. The 500 frame was also much flimsier/twitchier than the 750 frame.

At about 430 lbs weight and 75hp, this second hand 750 would only do around 118mph but with acceleration that would take out a Z900 up to that speed. The steering was rather slow by todays standards so the straight line stability was excellent and it "cornered on rails" as the motorbike mags said of other bikes, but not this one which was unfairly slagged for it's handling.

Fitting straight bars improved the feel no end, as did fitting taper roller head bearings. This bike also had torque quite low down and would pull off from the lights without clutch slipping or bogging down and with a rearward weight bias, the tyre would bite and lift the front end. I always countered this by leaning over the front tyre and doing wheel-spin rather than wheelies. It got away quicker.

Mods included merely replacing the spacer tube in each front fork fork with a solid nylon cylindrical block to reduce the air volume to give a more rising rate suspension and prevent bottoming out. Simply adding more fork oil instead would have had the same effect.

An engine rebuild along with new crankshaft seals was to give a fantastic performance boost. But lacking self-discipline during running in ruined the performance. I had taken a file to the ports, knife-edging the transfer ports lower crankcase entries and cleaning up the inlet tracts and exhaust tracts but not altering the port timing except for slightly lowering the barrel with a paper thin gasket instead of the normal one. This possibly raised the compression very slightly. Exhausts were standard.

On the road with 400 kms on the new engine I got continually buzzed by a female in a sports car and a guy on a Z900. I tried to ignore them but it was a good road and I was getting annoyed. So chin on the tank I wound it up. The tacho went to 9500RPM in top. The speedo needle went off the dial past 140MPH and I held this for about a mile and a half until I hit traffic and Capt. Sensible took over. But the damage was done. After that, the bike never did more than 115MPH. Crank seals needed 1000kms minimum running in. New labyrinth seals may be different and more resilient to abuse.

This bike was not the best I've had but it was my favourite. My RG500 was heaps quicker but little fun..it had two speeds only, scooter-speed and rocket-speed. You could not ride briskly, just either very slow or very fast.

The H2 was sold when the left cylinder big-end went. I believe this came about because of the huge fuel consumption causing you to run out of gas. It was always the left cylinder that ran out first. No gas-no oil.

This low weight, high-torque two stroke and low C of G bike did not deserve the bagging it got for it's handling. Worst ever bike for handling in my experience was a GT750 water bucket, best was the RG500.