NOTE: This bike probably belongs over on the RSBFS sister website, Classic Sportbikes for Sale. Also, its an eBay classified ad, not an auction. But its so amazing that I just I had to ask Dan to post it here -Marty
Imagine for a moment you are at a local bike night/meet up. Probably some classic and recent bikes are in attendance, perhaps there is even some Italian exotica. And then this pulled up. No doubt your reaction will be the same as mine; a sudden disconnect between your brain and your mouth causing you to stutter “W..W…W” as you trying to form phrases such as “Whats THAT?!”, “Wow!”, “Whoa!”, “Wicked!”, and finally “Want IT!!!!”
1979 Kawasaki KH400 with Dyson Superbody
IT is a 1979 Kawasaki KH400 equipped with a Dyson superbody kit. I will admit I had to spend some time on the web to learn about this bike but from what I have been able to find out, the Kawasaki KH400 was a bonkers bike to start with; engines were air-cooled, three-cylinder, two-strokes. Can you just imagine what that would sound like?
And to top that off there is the Dyson bodywork. Back in the mid 70’s Designers Ian and Tony Dyson began designing and selling racing-style-but-street-legal fairing/bodywork kits, which they preferred to call “Superbodies”. The most common and famous of these was a kit built for the middle weight Kawasaki triples.
Now before you begin checking your bank balance, take a few deep breaths and consider the following; the bike is located in the UK, which for those of us here in the US would mean paperwork and fees. Also, its difficult to find any sales history for bikes like this so a realistic price is tough to come up with but given its outstanding condition, rarity of the bodywork kit and low indicated miles/kilometers there is probably not going to be much negotiating room with the dealer who is selling it.
But can’t you just image the fun it would be to be the one who rides up with this awesomely green three cylinder two stroke making the noises a real motorcycle makes and sees all the jaws drop? I know I can.
-Martin/dallaslavowner
I had one of these bikes in 1979 to 1981 with a 1/2 cafe faring; fun bike for a reckless teenager, but … WICKED speed wobbles; my triple also had the 2-stroke 3 into 1 pipe which I believe was made by Strator. The pipe required you to retard the ignition advance curve; less weight than stock pipes; more mid range torque, but it lost top end in comparison to the 3 into 3 set up and less top end speed . Interesting, but wouldn’t want to get on one of those again. LOL !
Unfortunately guys the KH400 was not that hot. The earlier S3 was the one to have. It wasn’t much slower than the HIE and the fuel consumption was nowhere near as bad. The frame was better, as were the brakes (for the time) and of course it had that fanastic Kawa triple howl :-).
Wanna kill a Kawa. Fit a 3 in to 1 🙁
The KH400 was a great bike. Not as fast as the 500, but by the time it evolved into a “KH” most of the unpleasantness of the earlier models was gone. However, it’s not at all a fast bike compared to modern hardware. I had one as a kid and recently bought another to relive my youth. It was fun… but what was fast as a kid is now slow. But while I disagree that the earlier S3 was better, Simon above is very correct, the 3 into 1 pipe is an abomination. Four cylinder Four strokes were getting 4 into ones and a few silly buyers wanted one for their two strokes… I guess those buyers just didn’t understand expansion chambers. All that said, this is a very cool bike. The ad implies it might be a 250 frame with a 400 engine. The bodywork looks very Mad Max to me. Just get a proper set of pipes on the thing.
For that money I rather have a RG400 thats a real 2 stroke! I owned one of these years ago and its not fast and it handles like crap, high speed frame flex wobbles, it does not have half the HP of the RG!