1974 Kawasaki H1
(Page 2 of 4)
July/August 2009
By Margie Siegel
All that power came at the expense of civilized riding. The mufflers were really racing expansion chambers, muffled just enough to meet the loose decibel requirements of the 1960s. The H1 would pop wheelies at the slightest provocation, sometimes in the middle of turns. Vibration was annoying, and the seat was uncomfortable, but the kids who bought H1s didn’t care, and the H1 became immensely popular with the young men who formed the bulk of early Seventies riders — if not with their parents and the highway patrol.
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Here was the ultimate bad boy, with blistering acceleration and looks to match. And it would stop, too. While much has been made of the Kawasaki’s supposedly ineffective brakes, the fact is that by today’s standards, just about all 1960s-era motorcycles had lousy stoppers. In March 1970, Cycle magazine did a head-to-head comparison between Honda’s CB750, a Harley-Davidson Sportster, a BSA Rocket 3, a Triumph Trident, a Suzuki 500 Titan, a Norton Commando and the Kawasaki triple. The Kawasaki was second only to the Honda, which claimed the best deceleration rate Cycle had ever tested.
After its introduction, Kawasaki tried hard to civilize its bad boy without destroying its essence as a street legal drag bike. Engineers burned a lot of midnight oil over the electronic ignition. The first version of the H1 was sparked by a CDI ignition that was complicated and had weak links. It was so bad that Kawasaki temporarily gave up on electronic ignition in 1972 and installed three sets of points instead.
The 1973 H1D returned to electronic ignition with a second generation CDI unit that was more reliable and gave a hotter spark at low and midrange engine rpm. As a result, Kawasaki could re-jet the triple Mikuni carburetors for a (somewhat) wider powerband.
Other changes over the years included making the huge induction ports smaller and changing their shape, decreasing fork rake, stiffening the frame (something it definitely needed) and beefing up the swingarm. Metal swingarm bushings replaced the previous plastic ones, and changes in weight distribution lessened the triple’s tendency to pop unintended wheelies.
At the same time Kawasaki was trying to make the H1 acceptable in civilized society, the company was developing the 4-cylinder, 4-stroke engine it had temporarily shelved when the Honda 750 came out. The 900cc Z1 appeared in 1972, and it was everything the H1 wasn’t. The handling was decent, the brakes actually stopped the bike, and the seat was comfortable for an all-day excursion.
When sales figures proved that customers would pay for a comfortable, safe and durable machine that sipped rather than gulped gas, the H1 was headed to oblivion. 1976 was the last year for the triple, hastened in its demise by impending environmental legislation paired with increasing market distaste for loud, smelly and smoky 2-strokes. Yet even in its last and most civilized incarnation, Cycle World summed up Kawasaki’s triple in the words of the Steppenwolf song: “Evil, wicked, mean and nasty.”