Faults:

Minor oil leaks (tach drive seal, valve cover gasket).

Fuel petcock leak.

Timing chain requires frequent adjustment.

Signal light switch contacts need cleaning every two years.

Hard on the rear tire (keeps turning into smoke and long, black lines on the pavement).

General Comments:

Overall a great bike, and very hard to kill!

As a young punk (I purchased the bike when I was 17), I did nothing but beat on this thing for years, and it has never been out of commission (except for multiple crashes from goofing off).

On long trips, the seat becomes uncomfortable, but I got a custom aftermarket seat for Christmas 2005; I'll see if that improves it.

A small windscreen works great on this bike for keeping wind off the rider, because of the relatively low seat height and relaxed, upright rider position.

The fuel tank is relatively small for a large bike, and range is about 240km/150miles at best on the highway with luggage, but the factory seat makes you want to get off and stretch about that frequently anyways.

The cam chain requires frequent adjustment on these bikes; not a difficult procedure, but vitally important to prevent major engine damage. Mine starts to get slightly noisy (rattles) at about 4000km/2500miles.

Lots of power; does 13.2 seconds (traction limited off the line) at 105.4MPH in the 1/4 mile even after 13 years without being tuned; high 12's are likely if I get around to tuning this year.

The factory exhaust was long gone (rusted out), and the aftermarket replacement 4-1 header is shot (2 pipes are crushed and lots of rust). The only replacement exhaust systems available anymore are MAC non-performance systems; not too expensive, but little performance benefit.

Faults:

Mufflers rusted out.

Cam cover gasket leaked.

Torque lever bolt broke.

Tachometer seal leaks.

General Comments:

Handles nicely, jet through ins & outs of traffic.

Accelerates rapidly, lots of speed on tap.

Faults:

Blew engine of my CB900C at 68,000 miles because of engine cam bearing. Cost to fix the engine was more than the value of the bike.

Gas tank was too small.

Trouble starting it (especially in cold weather), if the bike sat for a few days or more. I remedied this by fabricating exterior battery posts, and then used a car battery and jumpers to start it the first time during the day. After that, it was okay. I suspect that the starting problem may have been that enough gas evaporated over time from the float bowls of the four carburetors, so that engine was initially starving for fuel.

General Comments:

The four cylinder engine was smooth and very powerful.

You could only go 120 miles before having to go on gas tank reserve. This was sometimes a problem on trips into remote areas.

Despite a few problems with this bike, I loved it. It was blindingly FAST, handled well, and the unique dual-range transmission made riding on twisty mountain roads a lot of fun. The low range of the transmission was very useful when riding steep hills in downtown areas, such as San Francisco or Seattle.

The brakes were FANTASTIC. It had dual discs on the front and single disc rear. When I first bought it, I damn near threw myself off the thing when I hit the brakes hard at high speed.

The shaft drive was wonderful and trouble free.

Relatively easy to do maintenance work on.

A fun, sporty bike for around town and nearby rural areas. If you're going to go on long road trips, get a Gold Wing.