Kwakisaki Mach 3?

[Paul in NZ]

If you look at the frame it is well up to the job. IMHO and from experience with Honda 350's, 400, 450,s 740s, Kwaka 350, 500, (etc etc) Nearly ALL the japanese brands in that era suffered from spindly forks, crap tyres and utter rubbish rear shocks.

Whack on some decent english rubber, a set of good shocks, beef up the springs / oil and whack on a set of ace bars and they were a different bike.

Like Dave said... Trouble was any first year apprentice could go put one on HP and wheelie off into the sunset. In a straight line, hitting the power band was not a terribly big deal and you got a bit complacent, powering out of a bend a gear too low and hitting the power band with useless shocks and solid nylon tyres tended to stand the poxy thing up and spear you into the shrubbery.... People raced these things with good results and relatively std frames...

We are talking 58bhp over optomistic 1970's BHP here - the average CBR600 owner would wonder whats all the fuss...

As time went by the port timing was softened to make it a little easier to ride and make a bit less noise and smog and eventually made it utterly pointless...

The RD350 yamaha was a far better package but someplace i wonder if I still have the issue of Cycle World where they ported a 750cc triple and put expansion chambers and shit on it... Suitable transport for a person whos main hobbies are shark hunting with a bowie knife....

[Pwalo]

I can remember getting very excited about riding the 500 triple. Only a very short ride but as I recall the bloody thing went across both lanes at the bottom of Ngauranga Gorge when I tried to corner and open the throttle at the same time.

I really should have known better. My younger brother had a GT380 which probably wasn't much slower than the 500, but was a much nicer bike to ride (in that 70's sort of marshmallow Japanese way). Still holed the middle cylinder fairly regularly.

Does anyone remember the Kawasaki two stroke twins that came out before the triples? I think that they were called 'Samurai's'. Chap I knew at school had one.

[Motu]

As everyone who was there has said - it was 90% inexperiance...any 16 yr old kid could get daddy to sign the papers,pay the money,the kid gets off his Puch moped and onto one of the most scary bikes of the day.I've riden 2 strokes with a bigger hitting powerband than a MachIII,but they weren't street bikes...um,maybe that made them scarrier.They were toned down with age,that was why the 750 came out,to get the performance back without the powerband.

Eric Bone,who has more experiance riding and racing big K triples than the rest of the country put together reckons he's never been tossed off a 500,he reckons the 750 is the dangerous one.He was spat off his H2 at the esses at Paeroa a couple of years ago.

All the Jap bikes of the era handled quite well if used sedatly,but if pushed were bad news,that's why British and Euro bikes were held in such esteme for so long,it wasn't until the 80s that the Jap bikes gained any resemblance to handling.The sweetest bike of the 70s was the RD,because the power wasn't excessive,and Yamaha knew a little more bit mnore about handling than the others.

[TLDV8]

I pretty much went from a S1250 to a H2 so don't know what all the fuss is about,you could handle it or not,no different to today regarding sensibility ..H2's still hold a lot of 750cc records,running in the 7's included...the early bridgeport 500s simply had a major power increase from 6000 to 6500rpm and it could catch folk our while cornering on occassion...Most H2's were around 62RWHP the first 500 or so H2's from late 71 on made more apparently.....With modern tuning applied 110RWHP is easy and reliable,some of the US tuners are saying 160+RW with big reeds etc...not to mention the machined from billet crankcases from Europe that take GPZ 6 speed boxs to solve that problem.

[TLDV8]

[TLDV8]

[TLDV8]

Can you tell i like Triples

Tony Narcosa this is a semi laydown chassis..how about a new World record in 1971 on a 500 with a stock chassis... 10.7 et at 125mph and compare that to a modern 500cc ?

[Ixion]

Anybody here ever brave enough to ride one of these animals? Sometimes referred to as the Kawasaki Kamakazi, if memory serves me correct they were available in 500 and 750cc vesrions. Triples. Two strokes as well I think. Nasty, evil machines. The most violent power band I've ever encountered. I think I recall that they were actually banned form being sold in some countries.

Or am I talking shite agin?

Yes. They were. All of that. Vicious malevolent homocidal maniacs. Mine used to brood all night thinking of what vile trick it could play to try to kill me the next day. I escaped though. Sold it before it actually managed to kill me . Guy I sold my Kockasucky to escaped also. He owned it for less time than even I did. It killed the next guy. I saw it in a wreckers, recognised it as my old one, and asked what happened. Threw him off in a highside under the wheels of a truck. Bloodlust sated. I really believe there was some sort of evil spirit on that bike. Like Mr Ramius's Suzuki. I reckon I was really lucky to escape alive. Put me off Kockasuckies for life it has. Vicious evil things.Like a rabid pit bull. Now the Suzuki two smokers of the period, lovely docile friendly creatures, - like a golden retriever, wouldn't harm a fly.

And it don't think it was entirely inexperience or being a different sort of bike. I came to it off a Yammy 350 two smoker, with about 6 years experience. It wasn't just the power band , or the tank slappers , it was just the total unpredictability of the handling. The slightest thing would upset it.

Myabe with different shocks and modern tyres -- and better forks--- and a different frame -- and an exorcism.

EDIT: yeah, it was the early drum brake model.

[trev]

Awesome bikes - especially the 68's & 69's. I had a play with a mates new 69 Mach III model. It took me about a dozen attempts to get going without stalling it or wheel standing it.
Piece of piss to beat them with a T500 Suzy. They ran town or open road plugs - most had the open road. Just slow them down for a few minutes so the plugs fouled then blow them off.

[justsomeguy]

A friend of mine had one (or maybe it was another similar 750cc 2 stroke kawasaki)- told me they were the devils creations, evil to the core......

This chap is an experienced rally driver who also did a bit of bike racing and go kart racing - but this thing scared him too a bit - put him in hospital once........

But sooooooooo much fun when it all came right...... or you realised you were still alive at the end of the ride, he said.

[Bonez]

Anybody here ever brave enough to ride one of these animals? Sometimes referred to as the Kawasaki Kamakazi, if memory serves me correct they were available in 500 and 750cc vesrions. Triples. Two strokes as well I think. Nasty, evil machines. The most violent power band I've ever encountered. I think I recall that they were actually banned form being sold in some countries.

Or am I talking shite agin?

A border own one when I was a wee laddy.
Launched him into buildings with a single bound, daily spark plug clean, didn't handle, had to own a petro chemical company to keep it on the road. Did I mention launching into buildings..............

[Kickaha]

Didn't ever get to try a 500 or 750 but had a 250,350 and 400 around the place at different times, all good fun to ride and with a hellish thirst for petrol (15mpg) when they got thrashed (which was all the time)

[Pickle]

If you want to see one ridden well go to Wanganui on Boxing Day, Tony McQueen has been racing his highly modified H2 for the last couple of years.
He was getting high placings in post classic. He has had to fit extra fuel lines just to get enough fuel into the motor and went thru a tank of gas per race!
Sounded awsome.

[Macktheknife]

My eldest brother had the RD250, 350, then 400, he still says they were the best bikes he ever owned. My other brother had the S1, nearly killed him twice, then he 'modified' it and it went a little faster and handled a LOT better, until he stopped it on a large rock!
That said tho, it did go like Feck!

[Biff]

the kid gets off his Puch moped

Holy shit! You must have been there. My only experience of riding a bike (my age at the time was still in single figures) was a Puch semi auto scooter thing. Then a mates brother let me ride (ok - we knicked it from the shed) one of these things. No sweat thought I - An 80cc Puch (?) to a 500CC, just take it easy.

Things started off ok, slowly let out the clutch (a novelty in itself coming from the Puch) and away I went. Thinking that it was a bit slow I opened it up, slowly accelerate, then took off like a fkin rocket. I think the front end came up, because I vaguely recall, what I thought to be, a sensation of flying. I shat myself. The thing almost tore my arms off. For a while afterward my shoulder joints hurt.

Thankfully I didn't bin it, but when I got off my mates thought it hilarious to see me shaking like a dog shitting peach seeds.