Kawasaki KZ1300 | Does The Big Z Sounds Better Than CBX? 

After listening to numerous videos and comparing to my 79 CBX with DG 6 into 1 I have to agree. Would still like to have a KZ1300 to go with it though.

Yep, it sounds like a V8 F1 car.

@@RevvingHeart more like V12

@@MrChevrolet94 Yep , and the Kwakka sounds like a Maserati V6

Honda had a far superior sound to it . Especially with aftermarket exhaust pipes. It truly sounded like an F1 racing car . Plus the Honda was a better built bike.

There's something very satisfying when riding your CBX on an interstate, and the guy in the car next to you rolls his window down just to listen. Honda developed an exhaust for the CBX that captured the sound of the F-4 phantom....I wish I could hear THAT!! Other motorcycles are manufactured...Hondas are ENGINEERED!

Wow... That turned out to be a great investment.

Thanks for watching..

@Bruno Smith hi Bruno, well as you knew both, which one do you prefer and why? Appreciate your comments Cheers 🏍

@@ricardojuricic9027 I liked both bikes - for different reasons. The 850 being shaft-driven gave a smoother ride over long distances and we would often do journeys of 1000 miles. The Kawa was more macho and great for shorter, fast runs - particularly around winding country roads. Both bikes are icons in their own right and I do miss those days quite a lot.

But they both were intended and loosely hyped to be the fastest thing on two wheels you could buy off the showroom floor in late 1978. The CBX in particular massively upstaged the poor, un-loved workhorse XS11.

@@scottb8175 The big Yamaha was a good bike. I was under age to legally ride on the road back then, but the smaller triple cylinder Yamahas were a nice bike to ride that I liked quite a bit. Good power, with a nice sound, smooth and shaft drive. An older friend stored one in our garage, and when I was 14, I used to ride the thing everywhere! An 850 Midnight Special in the black and gold. Let me tell you, I felt like King S**t riding that around town! It was new at the time. The good old days!

@@hugejohnson5011 I always liked the look and sound of the XS triples, especially the Midnights, but I have to say mechanically they weren't very good or well designed. Ever had a clutch or final drive apart on one? What an ass-backward, weird and awkward design. The whole engine was like that, too. Complexity for no good reason, with many more and strange parts than needed to get the job done, IMO. Even more so than the infamous Honda CBX or Kawasaki z1300. Kawasaki and Suzuki's 750 4's had way fewer, simpler, and better engineered parts than the XS 3's. And, even for the era, the triples were definitely on the overweight and slow side. I recently had a mint (appearing) candy red 78 XS750 Special in my shop. Unfortunately, it had overheated and spun a rod bearing. With both new and used-but-useable spare parts being practically non-existent for the XS750, 850, and even the 1100 (the 1100 was in production until at least 1985), the owner had no real economical alternative but to part it out and scrap what was left over......

Was the guys name Art that you bought it from?

Agreed. The engine note changes dramatically when it's under load. Revving in neutral is so ho-hum yawn.

EXCELLENT post. Certain older motoGP soundz mebby tops. Personal best Yamaha dragster on NitroMethaen

I think quality is an aspect you did not evaluate.

definitely

z1. .900 and 1000 mad max model 4 cylinder sounds great. But CB1000F 1981/82 HOnda orgasmic. And CBX is wonderfully but sounds as a car.not as a motorcylcle.

@@raymundogt2634 True.

and i thought i was the only one😃😃

@@JB-zp5fb I would definitely choose this as a daily driver not that the cbx is horrible but i would choose this one

Ouch...

Yes it has the same engine with a bit more power; 130bhp I guess..

is this an kwak commercial?

A Benelli sei revving to 16,000....lol

have you still got it, 150 or 160, i always fancied the hurricane

@@twmlloyd5257 naa but it was 150 😁

Quoted 95hp (at the crank) so nowhere near 100hp

@@ekspatriat But the XS11 had way more off-idle torque than either the CBX or the z1300. Put all three side by side in top gear at 40 mph and nail the throttles, and the CBX would be last, the z1300 only a bike length or so ahead of it, and the XS11 would be 4 or 5 bike lengths ahead of the z1300 in the first 5 seconds...Yes, real world results back in the day....(Then the GS1150E, 1100 Sabre, and V-Max showed up and torque-kicked all our asses to Mars).

@@scottb8175 Yes roll-ons in top are useless as a real life situation...no on does it in real life (on the road)....that is why gear levers and clutches exist!...knock it down a couple and off you go!

@@ekspatriat Well, I've been on dozens of 1000+ cc bikes since 83, and that might be fine if you are the one to get the low gear drop on the unsuspecting whoever you are trying to leave in the dust. Or if you always ride around only in first or second gear like the imbeciles on 600 sport bikes constantly bouncing off the rev limiters and getting pulled over by police. But time spent with the clutch pulled in, throttle backed off, or the transmission slopping between gears - is time wasted slowing down, not accelerating. A quick shifter would help a bit, maybe, but is out of character for an old Cogger 80's superbike, IMO..... I know as fact - I've been caught many times on fast top end power biased bikes with pitiful mid-range and low end (like the CBX, GPz1100 DFI Uni-Trak, YZR600, etc.) relaxing one or two gears too tall when someone else on a less powerful but higher torque bike (like the early VF750 V-4 and KZ750L3) nails the gas the same or one gear lower than me and leaves me for dead. Then I'm stomping down on the shifter two or three times before I can get on the throttle. By the time I've fanned the clutch, dropped down the gears, and got on the gas, it's already over and they are gone.... With old bikes that have mountains of torque anytime the tach is above 900 rpm (like my big FJ and GS1150E - from idle to redline the GS positively stomps the sixes and all inline fours of the era except the 86 FJ1200 ), even casually slogging along in top gear, just twist the right grip and hang on.... No-way no-how is anything like a DFI GPz1100 or CBX going to catch up no matter how fast they stomp down gears. Then there were the V-Max, Magna, and Sabre (yes, I've ridden all three). The GS and FJ pulled hard in a roll-on. The V-Max, Magna, and Sabre were another level above them. Opening the throttle stretched your arms, flattened your eyeballs, and left traffic looking like it was going backwards in the mirrors - any rpm, any gear.

@@scottb8175 Mate you are dreaming in the past.......stretched your arms flattened your eyeballes ...those power and torques dreams are long gone. The bikes you quote are pussies now...SO now you may be terrified by what is available. AND why is an 600 an imbecile when you are just doing the same with lower revs and gears?

It made 125 bhp @ 8000 rpm and 117.2 Nm @ 6500 rpm. I think I mentioned these figures at 1:43.

So , you gave him a 25 metre head start & it took you all the way to 3rd gear to catch the Z1300 with your 160 HP Race Bike passing at a 100 Mph ; nothing to brag about. If the two were in a 1,000 Mile Endurance race - my money would be on the Z1300...

@@1arritechno LMAO 🤣 You obviously don't ride bike calling a blackbird a race bike 😂 Its always fun putting someone down who's bragging about his bike being faster than someone else's bike when in reality It isn't.. It's funny you mentioned you choosing the reliability of the Kawasaki over the Honda… I did a 5,000 Europe tour with a friend who rode a Kawasaki ZZR 1100 and that thing broke down more times than Zsa Zsa Gabor's marriages 😂

IMO - Nah, running z1300's and Voyager 1300's are even more rare than the CBX now. I'm sure Kawasaki produced fewer z1300's than Honda built CBX's. But neither sold very well. The big four cylinder z's (900, 1000, 1100) are the longest lived and most numerous of the 70's - 80's superbike era still in running condition, IMO. They were in production from 1973 to about 2003 in one form or another - many more of those were made for way many more years than either the CBX or z1300. Another problem is parts for thez1300 and CBX are mostly discontinued. Keeping either running is just getting extremely difficult and expensive with every passing year.

@@scottb8175 I don't think any of the six cylinder models sold particularly well, but would agree the Z1300 is probably the most rare based on how many I've ever seen in person, or for sale. Sales were limited mainly because they weren't that good, for all the extra expense compared to the 4 cylinder offerings of the time. Looking back 40+ years later the rarity and novelty value combine to make them much more appealing. They are a much different proposition too as a "toy" for a collector in 2022 than they were as something used for regular transport, as they were in their time. As you state the parts situation is now a problem when compared to other bikes of the era. I have a 78 Kawasaki Z1000A2 and could easily buy every part needed to build another one, between all the NOS parts available, used parts and the huge market in pattern parts.

1300 120hp/314kg wet = 0.382hp/kg cbx 105hp/272kg wet = 0.386hp/kg slight advantage to Honda so 'underpowered'?????? Also the CBX is beautiful...the Kawa is just slabby pig ugly!

@@ekspatriat Thats distespectful kind sir...the Zed 13 range also outlasted the cbx til '89...and how couls a 1000 cc ever compare to a 1300...like a Gti to a V8...happy dreamland my china...

@@Teacher-lj6in Well I did make a valid point to 'underpowered' and 99% will agree the CBX looks far better. As for a longer production life. the Trabant was produced for 33 years and that was always a croc of crap.

CBX ist symphony. Z is Heavy Metal 🎉❤

Forever and Ever..what are you 6?😂