Technical: V-TEC and ABS

THE V-TEC system fitted to the VFR has been knocking around in the same basic form in the car world for quite some time, making its first appearance on a Honda in the sporty CRX and the Prelude as early as the mid-’80s. In the bike world, Honda has had a home market 400 using V-TEC for five years, and Suzuki also uses a similar system on the Japan-only Bandit 400.

V-TEC allows the engine to run on two valves per cylinder at low revs, and on all four above 7000 revs. The shims over the valves have a hole in them, allowing the valve shaft to pass through the shim, keeping the valve closed below 7000rpm. Oil pressure pushes a pin into that hole, making the valve active.

V-TEC has meant an end to the famous gear-drive for the camshafts on of the VFR. It was adopted to eliminate the problems Honda had with camchains on the VF750 in the early ’80s. It says there is no problem now with camchains – none of its other machines has suffered notable problems – so this was the right time to go back to chains on the VFR. Chain-drive takes up less room so the engine can be narrower, it offers less resistance, so internal friction is reduced, giving better power and letting the engine build revs more quickly and Honda claims modern chains are far quieter.

The VFR’s optional £500 ABS offers a step forward for ABS on a motorcycle. Anti-lock brakes, which are almost universal on cars, are still viewed with scepticism by bikers.

As fitted to the VFR, you could be forgiven for thinking it wasn’t working at first for the simple reason that it allows you to lock the wheels. But that’s only for a moment. Some set-ups measure wheel speed and release the brakes before the wheels lock, but that can make it difficult to stop at all on very slippery surfaces. Honda therefore allows a moment of lock before it releases and re-applies the brakes. Trying them through a patch of muddy gravel about three inches deep, the marks in the mud told the story. The front tyre left a series of tiny skids nine or ten inches long, the end of each skid marked by a little ” bow wave ” of mud where the ABS allowed the wheel to roll again.