Buying 2014 CB1100 and have questions

[the Ferret]

1) we have guys with close to 150,000 miles on their CB's with no major work. My personal bike is at 76K miles and the valves have never needed adjusting. Spec is every 16K I believe. Oil and filter every 4,000.

Hi Ferret, I am impressed that your bike reached 76K miles and never needed a valve adjustment. I am curious as to how you achieved this; my guess is you keep your engine RPMs low. I am convinced that valve wear is directly related to engine RPM - the higher the RPM, the greater the valve wear. I remember a post you made a long time ago where your gas mileage was pretty incredible also. Can you please share with us some details about how you ride? What is the typical RPM you ride? Is there a maximum RPM that you don't exceed? What RPM do you typically shift?

Also, can you please share at what intervals your valves were checked?

Thank you.

Dave, I ride a lot like Wisedrum. Typically in the 2500-3500 rpm range, normally shift about 3200 rpms, and although I haven't checked it lately I average about 57 mpg if memory serves me.

Valve cover has never been off. I go by symptoms as advised by my tech with 30 years experience working in motorcycle shops...it starts easily, runs great, gets good gas mileage, no weird noises. I also ride my NC 750 like that and I did have the valves inspected at 40,000 even though there were no strange symptoms, and not surprisingly all were in spec. I also had the valves on my ST 1300 inspected at 50,000 again with no bad symptoms, and again all were in spec. I also believe low rpms keep valves in spec but now it's the nature of how I ride anyway, and have for the last oh...25 years or so. For the first 30 years or so I rode a little let's say "wilder" racing here and there, seeing what every bike would do...but now I just cruise. Been there, done that so to speak .......

I believe engines are a lot like hearts...they only get so many beats/revolutions

The Chinese have a saying and I'll paraphrase: an elephant and a mouse get the same number of heartbeats in their lifetime. The mouse uses his up very quickly and doesn't live very long, the elephant uses his up very slowly, and lives a long time.

YMMV

[dave]

Thank you for your reply Ferret. I've checked my valves once, and they were all in spec. I do NOT look forward to checking them again, as it was a lot of work just to inspect them. My plan is to not inspect them again until I reach 50k miles, but after reading your comments then maybe I'll extend this a little longer.

[misterprofessionality]

I can vouch for the valve business as I'm over 70k on my CB as well without ever having had the valve covers off or ever hearing any odd noises. Others have gone much longer than that.

[MagnaRider]

Thanks for all the info, I was already going to buy one of these bikes and now I'm definitely going to.

For those saying its not a touring bike etc... I'm still young and have slept with a tarp leaned against my magna plenty of times on long trips and I wouldn't do it any other way.

For valves, I will definitely be checking mine. I just can't drive anything car/bike that I don't mess with and make sure its up to my specs. I'll definitely report what I find... just need a bike first!

[Gone in 60]

I can vouch for the valve business as I'm over 70k on my CB as well without ever having had the valve covers off or ever hearing any odd noises. Others have gone much longer than that.

Royal Enfield? Yeah, gonna stick with the 6,000 mile valve checks. They move around a bit.

CB1100? If I had a dime for every hour I've spent cracking open Hondas and finding out that yup, they're still in spec, I'd be able to afford that '69 Mercury Marauder X100 I'm drooling over on FB Marketplace. In '69, it was illegal to sell that car to women or men without facial hair.

[the Ferret]

My opinion? They were designed to be ridden, at any rpm between idle and redline. The design statement produced by Honda said they were designed to just be enjoyable to ride. There are no instructions in the owners manual telling you to rev them, in fact the shift points and speeds suggested in the owners manual would indicate that high revs are not encouraged. I don't think Honda would advise you to run your bike in a manner that would be detrimental to it. The videos produced to intoduce the bikes showed riders lesiurely riding the bikes. I would think that a ride of any length over 10 miles would be sufficient to bring the motor/ head up to temperature. In fact extra oil passages are designed into the head to keep head temperatures from getting too high, as was the addition of an oil cooler. 2500-3500 rpms is certainly not lugging this motor, and 3500 rpms in 6th gear translates to about 65 mph, higher than the speed limit on most secondary roads. The motor will pull cleanly at much lower rpms than that.

Heck my wife's 2022 Mustang cruises 55 mph down the road at about 1250 rpms

[peterbaron]

My first '13 CB had 56K kms when I sold her.
My other two CBs :
'14 std has 127K kms,
DLX is at 27K kms.
None of them I had since new.
As far as the engine maintenance is concered, I change oil and filter every 6K kms, spark plugs & air filter every 50K kms.
Regular gas and add fuel injector cleaner from time to time, 1-3 times per season, depending on kilometers traveled.
I operate my engines from 2500-4000 rpm on average and somtimes crank'em up to 7K rpm as needed, no commuting, no short distance rides/min 60 kms, most kms are clocked during long distance rides.
Last year, I scoped cyl bore and valves of my '14 std = no carbon build up.

The bottom line: ride + perform maintenance as required.
>>>> chasing this rider >>>

[the Ferret]

Where they put the redline is where the motor isn't supposed to be operated past, where damage can occur. On the CB that's at 8500 rpms. So, you are not supposed to run them at 8600 rpms or above as damage may occur (of course they can't because Honda wisely put a rev limiter on the bike). They can be safely operated anywhere below that figure as long as the engine is running smoothly and not bucking, a point at which damage may also occur. On the CB that would probably be under 2000 rpms. So, keep it above 2000 rpms and ride for a hundred thousand miles or more.

We have discussed this before and the majority of the forum ride between 2500 and 3500 rpms rpms for their regular riding

http://cb1100forum.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=4050

but again, the CB will happily live anywhere between probably 2000, and 8500 rpms, your bike, your choice, on how you want to ride it.

[alprider]

my rpm are with my 6speed CB most at 2000-2200 bcos we have a speedlimit of 80km/h (50ml) of normals streets outside villages/towns and behind every bush radarcontroll with generous government donations

to accelerate short about 3000 and very rarely 4000

I often have to smile...USA, the country of 1/4 mile races where people ultimately think that rpms are necessary to move forward

byside from our strict speedlimits/control : The world is very cramped here on my place, rpm noise are frowned upon and personally I grew up for sustainable use of resources ( petrol consumption)

[alprider]

or too

The maximum torque is always available very early, at the latest then the gear shifts up