MAGIC CARPET HONDA
Honesty is the best policy. Possibly. I was staring at an online pic of a vaguely strange Honda. Do not laugh – several Hondas look vaguely strange to someone who knows almost nothing about Hondas, which would include me. However, I am familiar with sohc CB750 fours, because I ran one for a couple of years in the mid-1980s. Mine was a 1976 CB750 K6, bought cheaply because it sounded like no Honda should ever sound and the owner was convinced that the ghastly misrunning, clattering and misfiring was because the camchain tensioner had failed and the engine was eating itself. My mate Bill, who ran a GPz750 Kawasaki so plainly knew all about Hondas, had already viewed the bike and had nodded and winked and said to me a magic word: ‘carbs’ – and he was not discussing diet.
Of course I offered a paltry sum, sensing a bargain. Of course the vendor accepted it, sensing a fool.
Happily, my mate Bill, despite a curious taste in Kawasakis, was head of maintenance at the company which employed us both and his diagnosis was entirely correct. His view, possibly based on grim experience with his Kawasaki, was that the wonderfully gurgly matt black 4-1 Piper exhaust was playing utter havoc with the four carbs on the Four. He was right. He could also tune the carbs to match the eccentric characteristics of the exhaust. He did that. It pays to have mates.
The Honda did exactly what it should have done. I liked it. In a remote sort of way. It was reliable. In a dull sort of
