Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/142447
By Jack Mangus Photos by Dan McCauley No bike since the 1969 Honda CB750 has received as much media attention as has the V45 Sabre, and its sister bike, the Magna.. Advertisements for the V-4's scream, "The four cylinder engine is dead. Long live the four cylinder engine." In the long run, Honda 's 28 new approach to four cylin der engines mi g h t be m or e th e norm, but th e Sab re, as a package, h as a long way to go to " kill" o th er conventiona l four cylinder bikes in th e market place. Whi le no t the first V-4 mo torcycle, (as recently as th e sixties Ducati 's Ap oll o, a lbei t a proto typ e, offered a V-4 engi ne of over I ,200cc ), the Sa bre (and Magna ) is the fir st prod uc tio n V-4. " First" o fti m es m eans sales, bu t it a lso ca n m ean problem s. Soning o ut an all -ne w machine at th is stage of m otori zed transportation is us ually do ne prior to release to the p ublic. Not so with th e Sa bre. It 's sai d Honda released th e Sabre a year a head of sched u le. Repor tedl y, th ey did so beca use they heard other Japanese man ufacturers were working on th eir ow n V-4's . The V-4, as housed in the Sabre' s frame, offers a narrow profile with a low center of gravity. But it al so makes the engine hell to work on. ' Plus it's liquid cooled, and that system falls shan - way short. Riding the Sabre in gO-pius degree temperatures is akin to riding an .electric stove. It's hot, too damn hot! The Sabre carries 2.8 quarts of coolant and owners of Sabres report the bike runs fine in 80-degree or less weather. The thermometer rarely dropped below gO-degrees while we had our test bike on hand, and th e heat problem beca me so ac ute, o ne staff member reponed he had to pull out of traffic because h e was being " ro asted al ive." The overhea ting a lso .brin gs o n a p ower su rg e or dead spot a t 6,000 to 7,000 rpm. A Honda spokesman says th e firm is wor king with dealers on the p ro blem , a nd when they get an acros s the boa rd rem edy they'll p ublish th e in formatio n. The same spokesman says valve adjustment is critical on the V-4. H onda recommends the Sabre be returned to the dea ler a fter 650 mi les for valve ad justment. " Va lves get tight d uri ng the break- in period ," said a H onda tech rep. In ad dition , wh ile we experienced no p roblem s with th e carbs o r powerflow , th e carbs a re d ifficult to get at to sync han d that' s a p roblem because float bowl adj us tme nt is part of th e surge problem, according to H onda. T o adjust the valves on th e forward tw o cyli n ders, th e radi ator m ust be removed. Add that bit of labor, plus the fact that th e carbs ar en't readily acc essible, and you're looking a t big labor bills down th e road. A liquid cooled bik e with fou r ca m shafts, . 16 valves, single shock rear suspension (air pressure adjustable), black boxes, an anti-dive/brake system, LCD (liquid crysta l display) instruments, hydraulic clutch, etc., etc. , etc. isn't something the average sha de tree mechanic works on. Ever try to fix a black box? LCD instruments? An anti-dive/brake system? The Sabre is, as the maxim goes, the sum of its parts. But many feel there are just too many parts on th e Sabre. Many hi-tech featuresavailable today require hi-tech brains not only to understand, but to maintain. T he H onda Sabre is an exa m p le of a machine that was built to be maintained by a dealer, no t th e owner. Tha t' s all well .a nd good for the Honda chai n of profit ma kers, but not for th e own ers. Befor e we star t-so u ndin g like we . h a ted the Sa bre, let 's state th at it is one h ell u va motorcycle. It 's fast, it's th e smoothes t bike w e' ve ever experien ced, it's light (by today's stan dar ds), an d it 's a n eye-cat cher. T wo lifetime AMA m embers, who each ow n several bik es a nd ha ve ow ned j u st a bo u t every exam p le o f a two-wheeled machine' to co me down the road ove r th e p as t several decades, took spins o n o ur test bi ke. " If I was limited to j u st o ne bi ke, the Sab re would be tha t bi ke," said one as the othe r echoed h is sen tim ents. All th e problems H onda is facing with the Sa bre ca n be corrected. And then we co ul d focus on th e pl us poi n ts, of wh ich th ere ar e ma n y. O ur expectations were high when we first p icked up the Sabre. It brought a stampede of staff mem bers , a ll yelling "Let me ride it !" In itial ri des reveal ed th e already mentioned sm ooth motor. " Sm oot her than m y Gold Wing, " was the way one descr ibed the lack of vibration. The torque curve is as flat as a Midwest half mile track. Steady power from just above idle to the 10,000 redline (a nd beyond) and a nearly total la ck of shaft drive hop make throttle control as simple as we can imagine it being. Cruising on the doubleni ckel (55 mph) is accomplished with less than 4,000 rpm in the Sabre's overdrive sixth gear. While the bike m will pick up steam in sixth, we Foundon ourselves dropping down to fifth when passing, even on freeways. The six-speed gearbox could only is be faulted for a "crunch" between a first and second. Second on up to ni sixth is as smooth as any gearbox on 1& the market. ' - '1£ One staff member who always o wns ~l the biggest displacement "sp ort " bikes ,2 around our office (six-cylinder CBX, d GPzIIOO, and such), complained labout having to " ro w th e gearbox" 0 while out attacking the twisties, Sta ff members who own mid -displacement 0 bikes, voiced different opinions. What-.:} ever, fo r a 750cc bike, th e Sabre deliv- 11 ers sm oo th, controllable power. It 'srrs not th e fastest 750 out th ere, but it's 1 close and it's far and away th e smoothest. The h ydraulic cl u tch ta kes a m while to get u sed to, but th en per- lri forms fau lt lessly. T he seat a nd th e position it puts the o pe ra tor in received both pro a nd w ca n rem ark s. The bars are adj us ta ble an d we tri ed th em in different positions. Our tall est staff m ember did n 't like th e riding position at first. H e felt the bars wer e too far forw ard a nd tOQhigh, but af ter so me extended rid ing he reversed h is opinion. " I felt like I was inside th e bike, rather than perched on top of it ," was his final opinion. , All the usual hand co n trols (turn signal switches, high/low beam headlight switch, -kill switch) .are well located and easily operated. The clock/stopwatch controls are miniscule and take some attention to operate. The gas petcock control is one of the best we've ever encountered. We found the large, circular control the first time we had to go on reserve as easily as if we had done so hundreds ' of times. It'll be a big plus item for Sabre owners who ride in cold weather