Kawasaki H1 Triple Top Speed

This was a video that was no longer found on YouTube.
It's a great video - luckily I saved it with it's original name.
Enjoy that triple sound with no wind noise.
Looks like he just hits 120mph or 193 km/hr at 1m 08s
The 500 triple was awesome to ride even by today's standards.

The H1 handled well in the corners compared to the H2. If you look under the tank at where the frame tubes join at the steering yoke - you'll find that the H1 has a better stronger design. The H2 was too bendy in the frame & would not hold your chosen line in a corner. I saw a few H2R racing bikes & the frame was completely different. It shows that Kawasaki knew how to make the triples a lot better but they never did. That's almost criminal as many people lost their lives from the bad handling. The bike was too powerful for anything less than a proper racing frame. You'll also notice on the H2R that it had a giant drum rear brake compared to the puny little one on the stock model. Also the stock model had facility for a double front disk but hardly anyone had them fitted. It should have been standard on the H2 to have double front discs & a giant rear drum brake. (why drum? - better when riding in wet weather.) Also - the clutch on the H2R was a dry type as the wet clutch always had slipping problems. The H2R had the 3 heads all the same - they only used middle cylinder barrels. Why? - to have even cooling as the stock H2 & H1 had larger fins on the left & right barrels & heads. Also - many stock triples would vibrate badly - you had to be lucky to get a good motor - why? The balancing on the crankshafts was too much of a fluke. Nowadays I believe specialists can split the crank - take off the con rods - assemble it without con rods & balance it properly then put the con rods & everything back to have a perfectly balanced crank. That way the H2 can rev to 9,000 without destroying the motor. All the H2Rs were properly balanced at the factory. Once again Kawasaki knew what to do but just flogged substandard bikes to the public.

The porting was slightly more radical on the 69 version H1.
Many people had their H1ports modified to copy the 69 ports. Also the later versions had CDI ignition - as the point ignition on the 69 version would go out of adjustment every 1000 miles. Add some expansion chambers & stronger clutch springs & the later H1 models would accelerate faster than the 69 model.