Honda XBR500
In an effort to compete with Yamaha, Honda looked to its heritage of single cylinder development and produced a bike aimed at capturing the spirit of past sporting singles. Steve Cooper finds out just how successful that gambit proved to be.
That the might of Honda hadn’t given up on taming the wilder excesses of large capacity four stroke singles was self-evident in late 1984. Strong rumours that an alternative view on the theme was in the offing were confirmed when shots of the XBR500 began to appear. Despite the issues, bad press, warranty claims and bad mouthing that the firm suffered thanks to the FT500, the Big Aitch was not about to admit defeat. Quite possibly it was as much corporate pride as anything else – oh, and of course the fact that arch-rivals Yamaha had two success with its XT and SR 500s! Knowing that it had a well-earned reputation for innovation, Honda opted for another techno-fest with the new bike’s engine. Utilising technology first pioneered a few years before on the XL250, the XBR featured a radial four valve head. This was, admittedly, something Rudge had done decades before, but this iteration on the theme came with an overhead camshaft rather than push rods. Still smarting from the FT500’s electric starting issues, a more conventional and robust system was employed, this time augmented by a traditional kick starter. With a 9:1 compression ratio, the motor offered 44 bhp at the crank but this dropped to 35 at the rear wheel, somewhat counter to the fact that the bike was marketed as a ‘Sport Single.’ However, unlike the bikes of the 1950s and 1960s it aped, the XBR’s 31.8 ft/lbs of torque was only available at 6000 rpm, i.e. just one grand away from the red line. If the XBR500 was truly supposed to be a modern incarnation of the lusty British single, its looks told another story. The biggest deviation from tradition was the use of Comstar wheels, a Honda thing from the latter half of the 1970s. Once again, Honda being Honda, these wheels were supposed to offer the flexibility of traditional wire spoked wheels with the rigidity of the cast alloy types used by its competitors. Arguably, the Comstars met that brief, but they really didn’t belong on what was, in essence, a late 1980s retro homage to Goldstars, Venoms and the like. The XBR’s tank, although capacious, struck many as simply too big, while a bulbous single/dual seat with lift-off cover polarised opinion. Some questioned the need for two exhausts and a pair of silencers, yet they were undoubtedly required to make the big single comply with ever-tightening noise emission legislation. In use the XBR500 was a decent enough bike, yet nothing exceptional unless the customer was ultra-pro big singles – and few were at the time of the bike’s launch. Just over 1800 machines were imported into the UK, with around 690 sold in 1985 and 700 the following year. By 1987 the XBR was old news and Honda only managed to shift around 120. It was a good bike in isolation, yet nothing extraordinary for the time, other than the fact that it was a big single. Handling was adequate to okay, and fuel consumption worked out at 50-55 mph with a top speed around 105 mph, all of which emphasised that it wasn’t a modern Velocette, Panther or BSA with any or all of their virtues. One feature the bike shared with most of its British cousins was the use of a dry sump and thereby the mandatory fitment of an oil tank. Honda had a long enough history of making wet sump motors, so the logical conclusion for adopting such a system was rose-tinted goggles. For some owners this foible went on to become the bike’s nemesis. Few wanted to be bothered with warming up the engine to accurately assess the oil level and, on occasion, disaster followed. On the same subject, the old Honda bogey of cylinder head wear could haunt the XBR if the oil wasn’t changed regularly and for the correct type. As the bikes racked up the miles, issues with split CV carburettor diaphragms manifested. Perplexingly, the centrally mounted spark plug buried inside the quartet of valves could sometimes seize in place, necessitating – at the very least – a thread insert and possibly a head overhaul. Staring a warm motor was often an issue, exacerbated by the extra lean jetting Honda was obliged to use to the get the bike through exhaust emissions. By the arrival of the 1990s, the XBR was little more than an anachronism with a small cadre of diehard owners. Once again Honda had caught a cold apparently trying to reinvent the wheel. It wasn’t a low-cost bike given its performance, and for what was on offer there were cheaper alternatives. Suzuki’s various GS twins were as good, if not better, and if it was a cheap thrill you were after, then used examples of Yamaha’s 350 Power Valve were on hand. The XBR should have been the end of the line for Honda and half litre singles, but it still wanted one more crack at the job as we shall see shortly.