Viva 19
VIVA 19
A HONDA CB1000 IN THE SPIRIT OF FREDDIE SPENCER'S DAYTONA WINNER
ALLAN GIRDLER
PUT “SUPERBIKE” AND “Freddie Spencer” in the same sentence and for me, there’s an instant recall, an image sharp and quick as summer lightning.
It’s Daytona, 1982, early in the Superbike race and I am standing outside the turn where the infield section of the roadcourse jinks left to zoom up onto the west banking.
The speedway’s infield is an afterthought and the pavement is rough, a prime example of work done by the lowest bidder. Further, there’s a pavement change, a literal gap between asphalt and concrete, making this section a perfect place to separate boys from men and men from machines.
This was early in the stock-based Superbike era and the purists-a.k.a. Kenny Roberts-made fun of the notion that a roadgoing motorcycle or even a replica of one could ever become a racing machine. As Of s Editor back then, I was riding the biggest and baddest sports models of the day, and I secretly figured Roberts was being just a bit of an elitist.
Until Spencer and No. 19 came yowling into the tum and he bulldogged the beast into a lean punctuated by showers of sparks. The force generated by the huge and sticky tires and the weight and mass Spencer had thrown against those tires wound the frame and suspension into a twist. I mean a deflection, visible from the sidelines-a warped motorcycle.
Then they hit the pavement break and in a micro-second, the tires unloaded and the frame unwound, and Spencer and the Honda leapt sidewise and canted another degree or so as Freddie blurred limbs and torso catching the leap as it began, then bracing as the weight came down on the new pavement and the tires bit and the bike kinked into cornering mode and they were gone up the banking, full revs and full lean with Freddie hanging off the inside.
And I thought...no, I didn’t think. Took me a couple of blinks to get my rational mind to accept what I’d just seen. When I had it processed, then I thought I’d seen riding skill and determination not only beyond anything I’d ever experienced, but so far beyond that I could only just comprehend it. Freddie won, of course. Post race, I asked if he had any idea what the bike was doing under full load and he looked puzzied, as if he was too polite to say, “Well, of course I know.” I blundered on, asking if he knew what gyrations he was going through to keep the motorcycle doing what it had to do, and he shrugged and said, “That’s the way you have to ride ’em.”
I took back all my reservations about Kenny Roberts’ views on the difference between a roadbike and a racebike. And that brings us to our Freddie Spencer Replica Superbike Project.
Spencer’s connection with the project is, at best, minimal. He knows the bike was built and his name used. He says the idea sounds “neat,” and when the occasion presents itself he’ll give the beast a try, but that’s as close as he’s been to date. The idea, details and actual work all came from by Mike Velasco. Currently Velasco runs Mike Velasco Racing out of The Brothers, a performance-oriented dealership in Bremerton, Washington. But back when Spencer was Honda’s top gun in U.S. roadracing, Velasco tuned Spencer’s four-strokes. He shared credit for that 1982 Daytona win, a win that was the inspiration for the project bike shown here.
Beginning point was a 1993 Honda CBIOOO. Not the cutting edge of speed or technology, is the sportbike fan’s first thought, and that’s correct. No fairing, no radical suspension, no exotic engine components. The CBIOOO is a sporting version of a standard motorcycle, as in two shocks in back, conventional fork up front, inline-Four across the frame. Except for liquid cooling, the CBIOOO is pretty close to the bikes on which production-class racers were built in the early 1980s.
The CB1000 “reminded me of the old days,” Velasco grins, not needing to add that the old days and their machines were pretty good.
The project’s first step was upgrading: Sigma chain from Tsubaki; stronger clutch springs from Barnett; Öhlins shock absorbers and steering damper, just like Freddie used back when; Kevlar brake and clutch lines from Goodrich; and tidy little turnsignals, smaller and lighter than stock, from Lockhart Phillips. (Like any good racer, Velasco is careful to mention the sponsors.)
Most of the work went into the engine. Which takes us back to the past. In 1979, Spencer set a lap record for Ducatis in the Daytona Superbike race, but the drivetrain collapsed. For 1980, the then-18-year-old rode a Honda. Velasco added 20 horsepower to the CB750-based engine sent from Honda’s racing shop in Japan, but Spencer was second at the finish—not quite enough power. Oh yeah, he lost two engines during practice and qualifying. In 1981, his RSI000 and his aggressive riding got him a huge lead early in the race, until the engine threw a rod. The recitation brings another rueful grin from Velasco. Yup, nearly drove ’em nuts, learning how to make the power live. But they did.
In 1982, using the race version of the CB900F, Spencer was fast qualifier...and won. (To be fair here, note that Spencer rode thoughtfully. His engine was thirsty and needed more fuel than the Kawasakis, so Spencer actually won by being at the front when leader Eddie Lawson ran out of gas.) In any event, Velasco has a lot of hard-earned knowledge of Honda engines and how to make them work and live.
Velasco began with the oldest trick in the book. The engine was enlarged to l 132cc, with bore and stroke of 83 x 53.6mm. The project also benefited from Honda’s in-house experience. The CB1000 engine is based on the CBRIOOOF’s, which makes about 20 horsepower more. Longer duration camshafts came from the CBR. as did the GDI, which has a quicker advance curve. Carburetors are a quartet of CBR 38mm CVs replacing the 34mm units of the stocker, and the six-speed gearbox also comes from the CBR1000. As you'd expect, the internal ratios are matched to the engine’s power and torque curves.
That’s the factory share of the improvements. Velasco trimmed, wait. Trimmed isn’t enough. He whacked several pounds off the crankshaft, pounds that acted like flywheels in keeping engine speed from making radical changes. And he took Wiseco pistons and handcrafted them to fit, match and complement the ports and passages and combustion chambers. Compression ratio is 11.8:1 and, yes, it does demand premium fuel.
More to our purpose, the engine cranks out a healthy 122 rear-wheel horsepower, as compared with the 98 for the offthe-showroom version.
The first bottom line, so to speak, is that the Spencer Project runs in the 10s at the dragstrip. 10.86 at 127 mph to be exact. Top speed is sort of whatever you want, in that at 152 mph it will hit redline in sixth with gearing to suit daily riding. Run it hard in the mountains and across the plains and you’ll still see 40 mpg.
The second and more important bottom line is not what this motorcycle will do, but how beautifully it does what it will do. Crispness and clarity are the key words here.
This is a tall, rangy motorcycle. Siting of the seat and controls has been tailored to fast roads. Where feet and hands and butt find themselves are just right for sport riding, the sort of riding where you're too busy with the road to look at the dials, okay?
Everything happens as you wish, as soon as you wish. There’s no lag. The engine note is that sharp, almost trumpet sound that comes from jetting and timing and breathing being at optimum. Where a stock engine goes varoom, this one hits: Whap! Whap! Crack the throttle as you roll down the drive in the morning and you can all but hear the cheer from the grandstand as you watch the starter’s hand on the green flag...ooops, got carried away there.
But that’s what this bike will do. There are no real drawbacks to a 122-horsepower Spencer Replica, but in the practical column, spring rates and damping to control this large machine at the speeds and loadings of which it’s capable make for a firm ride. A frost heave can skip you out of the seat and an interstate with the slabs timed wrong will set up a bobbing of head and helmet that approaches cartoon dimensions. Those are the only mechanical shortcomings.
There’s another consideration, more subtle.
As they bragged in the Old West, when you're halfhorse and half-alligator with a touch of snapping turtle, when you can outrun, outbrake and outcomer anything this side of Turns 8 or 9, it’s difficult not to push things harder than they should be pushed in public, not unless you want your mirrors to grow red lights. Some drawback, eh? Freddie’s really gonna like this bike. □
