This article, exploring the horsepower loss noticed on the first 1980 ('A' model) CBXs, appeared in Cycle magazine's March 1980 issue.

Imagine you're the Number One motorcycle manufacturer in the world. Now imagine that your 1980 performance leader turns out to be a 12-second quarter-miler. Then what do you do? By Phil Schilling

"TELL YOU WHY IT ISN'T AN 11-SECOND bike," I heard myself saying. "Damn thing doesn't make much horsepower." Bob Doornbos, the Manager of American Honda's Product Research Department, was on the other and of the telephone. It was September 4, 1979, and for him the news was not good. The maximum our test bike had made was 71.59 horsepower at 9000 rpm. That was distinctly underwhelming, given the fact that our first Honda CBX recorded 85.56 horsepower on the same dyno back in October 1977.

By early September, CBX 2001471 was beginning to give Doornbos heartburn on a regular basis. In the first place, the CBX had been air-freighted from Japan to the United States in order to make the November cover. Good old 1471 (200 number identifies the 1980 model; 1471 indicates that the bike was the 1471st production unit built) had been rushed right off the end of the production line and onto an airplane. It's a hassle to do things this way; but it's not an unknown practice, because all magazines work on long lead times and new year/model introductions only complicate matters. Doornbos got the bike, the requisite number of checkout miles were run at American Honda, and then the bike came to Cycle.

One-four-seven-one got Doornbos' attention again at Orange County International Raceway, where this magazine, and all others in Southern California, do quarter-mile testing. John Stein, who does the drag strip riding for Cycle, could only turn low twelves and about 110 mph at the strip. John doesn't speed shift big bikes at the strip because that's an excellent way to lose a clutch. Rick Jackson, a Honda research technician who happened to be at the drag strip with John, wanted to see what speed shifting might do for the quarter-mile times and speeds. He jumped aboard and did a 12.14 second quarter at 111.38 mph before the clutch went up in smoke on his third run.

The low terminal speeds were worrisome. At the drag strip the speeds through the traps at the end of the quarter-mile suggest the horsepower a bike is making. Our staff experience with CBX Hondas indicated that these 600-pound motorcycles would have to turn about 114 mph in the quarter to break into the elevens. While the elapsed times that a given bike will produce depend upon many factors, the terminal speeds that a specific machine will turn on a particular day at a given strip won't vary more than one mile per hour or so. Speeds of 110 and 111 mph were a long way from the 116/117 mph figures recorded by our original CBX test bike, the one that had run 11.66 seconds at 116.12 on its first day at the strip, and some three weeks later, recorded an 11.55-second quarter at 117.49 mph.

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