Sunday, 15 July 2012

Honda NTV650

I needed some wheels quickly, I had around £2500 and wanted something that would run relentlessly, not having the time, energy nor coherence to deal with some old rat of a motorcycle. I was still running some kind of debilitating fever from my African adventure, that left my hands shaking so much I doubted if I could hold a spanner let alone use it.

There was also the possibility that I might be forced to go despatching if a deal I was trying to cut fell through or that if a lot of dosh fell into my hands I'd want to immediately leave these far from fair shores. Within a week of returning I was so bored out of my head that I was badgering old friends for rides on their pillions, usually something I stayed clear of as they were generally crazier than even I.

One of these friends had proudly been showing off his brand new NTV650. He was quite impressed with the torque at running in speeds but he'd become bored with the lack of high speed power, complaining that he couldn't get the thing above the ton. He had the chance of buying a bargain priced GSXR750 which meant he happily took £2400 off me for the four month old machine (new they cost £3300).

The NTV650 is very similar to the old 600 vee twin, the major difference was that Honda knocked a pile of dosh off the price. They seemed to make up for this by fitting cheaper ancillaries which were somewhat at odds with the ultra trendy single sided swinging arm and shaft drive that was so well designed it didn't seem to intrude. After too many old hacks the NTV seemed incredibly sophisticated, with a vee-twin engine that was very smooth after the old boxer, had a gearbox of great finesse and slickness, and had even more torque between 2500 and 8000 revs.

Honda claimed 55 horses at 7500rpm and 44lb-ft at 6500rpm. The maximum torque figure seemed about right but the top speed of around the ton indicated that only about 40 horses were reaching the back wheel. Although the transmission has an extra twist in it to align engine direction with that of the shaft it's unlikely that so much power was lost getting from crankshaft to back wheel.

The poor power output was probably down to the three valve heads being hopelessly out of date and the strange exhaust system that ended in an ultra short muffler after going into a massive collector box. The way the pipe exits from the rear cylinder also hinders efficient exhaust flow. On the other hand, it may just be that Honda went for the real world rider who needs exactly what the Honda delivers on UK roads, a large dose of torque inspired acceleration between 40 and 90mph in top gear.

The Honda was, then, incredibly easy to ride. After some experimentation I found I could take off in third, use that gear for town work and then change up to fifth for use at higher speeds. The original owner, after I'd had the bike for a couple of weeks, asked how I was getting on with the gearbox. He was shocked when I said fine, saying he'd always found it a great hassle to change gear smoothly. I pointed out that I'd gone through a series of old hacks that left me feeling lucky if I did a hundred miles without the gearbox seizing up.

On the Honda I felt lucky if I did ten miles in the wet without sliding off. The OE Bridgestones I did not like one little bit. There was 5000 miles on the clock, they had less than 3mm of tread and they felt very treacherous, not really imparting any information as to how they were reacting with the road surface at town speeds. I could bank over hard in the dry, but on wet roads the chassis became very queasy indeed.

The wheels were 17 inchers, so there was a large choice of replacements. I got a good deal on Metzelers, which I knew wouldn't last long but that was a small price to pay for keeping the Culler frame intact. Jolly nice they were, too, letting me up the pace both in town and on the open road, whatever the weather.

What kept intruding, showing up where Honda had cut some corners, were the disc brakes, one at each end. Lack of outright power was the most worrying aspect, the hotter the front disc became the more the power faded away. It was like riding an old Honda CD175 hard, the old drum brake out front fading away as the casting distorted. On one occasion I was left frantically pumping the lever as it came back to the bars.

Running the Honda off the road in such circumstances was pretty nasty. Especially when the front disc suddenly locked as we hit the grass, the front wheel slewing away with great ferocity. 17 inch wheels are supposed to be the business, these days, but despite the fat rubber they seemed to react to circumstances in a much more violent manner than either 18 or 19 inch wheels.

It was an interesting contrast to ride a seventies Tiger with a 19 inch wheel out front. The front tyre looked, in contrast, as if it came straight off a bicycle. The suspension was so stiff after the Honda's compliant if slightly wayward stuff, that the impression of riding a rigid framed machine was paramount as we chugged down the road. But what a great feeling of security I had from the chassis, how well planted on the road it felt with so much feedback, so much certainty as to how the old-fashioned tyres (in shape not compound) were reacting.

What's more the 650cc vertical twin engine had as much, if not more, torque in top gear roll-ons between 35 and 80mph. True, thereafter, the bane of the design, dreadful vibes, buzzed the whole chassis in a way that no Honda engineer would tolerate, and it was an utter pain to my wrecked body to kick into life.

Coming back to the Honda after 30 miles on the old Triumph, it felt like total mush for a while. Honda had deemed it necessary to fit to their high tech single sided swinging arm a mono-shock, that even when turned up to its highest settings, was about on a par with those Fade-Very-Quickly units fitted to Superdreams. Come 8000 miles what had been mildly annoying became very worrying, as every time I backed off the throttle the swinging arm leapt up and down in a thoroughly crazy manner, the back tyre threatening to come through the seat.

It hadn't taken me long to put that mileage on the clock as business had necessitated a couple of mad runs up to Scotland and back. This basically consisted of putting the Honda in the fast lane, holding on to 90mph regardless of other traffic. Cars that refused to budge, and there were very few of them, after a dose of flashing main beam, were taken on the inside with a dose of horn and shake of the fist. A technique I'd learnt on the African Continent which didn't seem to go down too well with English drivers. A carefully obscured numberplate combined with not registering the bike in my name meant I could ignore hidden cameras and hovering helicopters.

As soon as some money came in I spent it on a decent rear Ohlins shock (at trade price but still wallet warping) and put a pounds worth of washers in the front forks. Aha, that was better, I could actually feel what the tyres were doing and the Honda gained a bit of an edge to its handling. It was heavy for a 650cc vee twin at 420lbs, but was easy to throw about and, with the suspension fixed, nicely secure.

Its new found handling abilities meant the front brake was even more highly stressed than before. At 9000 miles it started making clanging noises, the disc, which looked rather thin, was warped. The pads had about 1mm of material left and the pistons looked a bit scored. I was tempted to leave them on, run off the road and sue Honda for a few million, but the thought of having to pay some arsehole of a lawyer soon turned me off that idea. I must admit that adding washers on top of the fork's springs had not been a perfect solution as there was even less travel left than on the old Triumph.

My mate who owns a breakers reckoned he could fit a CBR600 front end he just happened to have handy for a couple of hundred quid. As he's a bit of a wideboy I checked the forks over to make sure they hadn't been straightened. In his youth he used to go around swapping old dogs of engines for someone's nearly new motor when they were parked up. I've never seen someone remove an engine from a frame so quickly. With that in mind I hung around and half-heartedly leant a hand (usually fetching the beer from the fridge).

A useful cash bonus turned up when some punter came in demanding to buy the NTV front end so the actual cost of the transplant bore no relationship to the transformation of the handling and braking. The CBR forks are both well sprung and damped, totally adequate to the needs of the NTV, and the brake is a pair of huge discs with state of the art calipers. On the road, just touching the lever gently had the front wheel screaming and it took a week or so to re-educate my right hand.

So, two months into my ownership I had a thoroughly modern chassis that was as good as any and better than most. What I also had was a motor whose lack of outright power was boring the shit out of me. As my body began to shrug off the effects of the African experience, as my reflexes came back to their former sharpness, as the shakes went away and as my vision sharpened to maximum intensity, I wanted a machine that would send me high with its acceleration and blow my mind with insane speed. Well, alright, I didn't want to kill myself or wreck my spine on some race replica, what I really wanted was 125mph and a bit of blood and guts. I'd had more kicks off an old GS550 Katana, a machine renown for being flash but heavy and slow.

It was pretty obvious that some tuning was in order. The most obvious thing to pull off was the exhaust system, which must've weighed a good fifty pounds. Unfortunately, no-one seemed to make a replacement. The downpipes were retained, with some neat welding from another mate, becoming a two into one but without the collector box, which was already showing signs of rusting through. Before I fitted a silencer to the end of the 2-1, I fired the motor up to see what it sounded like. What a beautiful bellow! Some lout hammering on the front door for ten minutes after I'd turned the engine off persuaded me that a silencer might be slightly less anti-social.

A magnificent pattern Goldie silencer was attached, revealing that the engine wouldn't rev beyond 3000rpm. It was pretty obvious that the whole air-filter assembly, another weighty item, could be pulled out. My mate in the breaker was raided for bigger jets, the existing ones seemed sealed in but were persuaded out with some mild engineering work (readers, I feel, are too squeamish for me to go into details).

To be fair to Honda, there's absolutely no way that the bike would pass the noise tests in this state, although it was tolerable below 5000 revs in fourth or fifth. Torque seemed similar below those revs but the bike had a real crack to it between 5000 and 9000rpm. It didn't quite pull my arms out of my sockets or stain my pants, but it would shoot through the ton in a way the standard bike couldn't hope to emulate, whilst giving out a bellow that was reminiscent of a vintage racer. It was highly effective in jerking cagers out of their reverie, allowing me to blast past them at 100 to 110mph. The speedo would touch 120mph, but by then some vibes were emanating from the vee twin motor, about on a level with a Bonnie at 70mph.

The stock bike had been doing 40 to 50mpg, I once got it down to 35mpg on a particularly twisty country road excursion. With the freer flowing exhaust and induction, despite higher speeds, it still managed 45mpg for most of the time. The four gallon tank meant it would run for 160 miles before it was time to search for a petrol station.

That was about right in relation to the comfort factor. The seat was okay, the riding position well thought out but ultimately the lack of a fairing meant that I took a real battering at speeds over 90mph. More than two hours of that abuse had me looking forward to a quick stop for fuel and leg stretch. In town or at moderate speeds the bike was so comfortable that I could go on for hours without feeling tired, helped by the easy going nature of the motor.At the time of writing, after a mere four months of abuse on my part, there's 12500 miles on the clock. The only thing to go a bit dubious was the gearbox which has become a bit crunchy but nothing a firm boot and bit of determination can't overcome. I've become so used to the relative sophistication of the engine that any minor irritants show up in a way that wouldn't have been countenanced on my more usual old hacks.

All I've done to the engine is change the oil every 5000 miles. As lots of despatch riders will testify, they are extremely tough, can go around the clock without needing a stripdown. Stock they are so mild that they make an ancient CX500 seem sporty (if incredibly crude) but that easy going nature is a bonus to DR's who have to spend eight or ten hours in the saddle every day. The new price is sufficient of a bargain to make it a good buy, used prices make it an even greater one. But after a month most riders will be bored out of their heads with the mild performance.

Al Culler