Ed's 1976 CB750F Super Sport

When I bought this bike, it was actually much worse than it looks in the insert. It sat outside in the weather for three years, behind a used motorcycle shop. Everything was rotted away. The wiring harness was so bad that when I tried to troubleshoot it, I decided within a half hour that I might as well strip the bike of all wiring. Wire by wire, I cut to fit and soldiered all the terminals. The hi-low beam switch didn't function either, and when I took it apart, I dropped the 1/8th inch ball berring in the grass. It took me an hour and a half on my hands and knees, tearing the grass out leaf by leaf, until I found it.

The carburetors were also in terrible shape. I ended up having to replace every single part in them, except the floats. Someone had tried to work on them, all the jets were wrong or bad. And by the way, don't ever let anybody tell you that the needle jets don't wear out. That's bs, new ones make a big difference.

I also replaced: solenoid, rectifier, coils (with Accel hi-performance), points plate (Dyna S pointless Ignition), all cables, grips, headlight, rebuilt front forks, rebuilt rear master cylinder, all clutches, brake pads, tires, seat cover, chain, side panels, and I'm sure I've forgotten a couple things. Fortunately, the engine only had 35,000 miles and is good. I still have more to go, and eventually it'll be band new.

As I was learning to tune the bike and beginning to ride it, I noticed an explosive quality that showed up even when it wasn't running real well, and getting it to idle correctly seemed more difficult than it should. When trying to sync the carbs, the mercury would jump all over the place even after triple checking the valve adjustment over and over, and the compression seemed lower than it should be considering its explosive top end. My dad, thought that from my descriptions of various problems I was incurring, said it was displaying the qualities of a high performance cam. Update: It turned out to be a problem with my compression testor. When I got a good one, all cylinders measured up to 150psi.(that's as far as I kicked it), dead cold, of course with throttle opened fully, but the engine was at 38 degrees from a cold night.

At that point I decided to investigate its history. It was owned by a technician that work for a now gone Honda dealer. He put in a K engine from the same year, an 836cc bigbore and had a machinist re-grind the Honda cam for slightly higher lift and longer duration. Nice surprise!! This 'ol bike is pretty quick. It spins the rear tire at around 6500 rpms in 1st, 2nd and 3rd gears. One time I opened it up on the interstate and did 85 to 125 mph in well under 3 seconds. Its 15/43 sprockets really work with that big bore and cam. I had to let off at 125, it had a good bit more to go.

Yea - I know the bike's a bit of a rat, but I spent enough $$ on it, and it sure surprises people when I leave 'em in my rearview mirrors.

Current Photo/61k mi.