Hey everyone my name is Tim I finally purchased a bike today that was my dream bike in highschool. It is a 1983 V45 Interceptor.....Yeah I know I am a little old, maybe a lot old. It is in pretty good shape needs some intense cleaning but most of all a nice bike. I look forward to picking the brains of those here who have more eperience than I ...That would be anyone who has owned on of these for at least 24 hours.
I have owned 2- 1983 VF750F/ V45 Interceptors and a 1984 also..My first 83 died at 53,000 miles ( oil pump quit at high speed).. The V45 ceptor was/is a great bike with two drawback's and that is it uses elcheapo Honda cam chain tensioners and they had the issue of lack of oil for the cams that would eventually cause the cams to become pitted /scored. There is a oil mod to fix the problem which still might be available . Honda 1983 VF750F 86hp at the crank / 46lbs of torque. Dry weight 487lbs/ curb weight 536lbs. Here is an info page http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~john/vfr/specs/
Hi Tim, There's a ton of info about the old ones out there. The cam oiling problem is perhaps the biggest potential problem I've read about. At low RPMs, the oiling system simply doesn't provide enogh flow to adequately lubricate the camshafts. I good number of those bikes were brought back do the dealer in the day and had new cams installed. The replacement cams were made of harder alloy and were less prone to wear. Kind of a half-assed fix, really, but a lot of these bikes managed to rack up a lot of miles in spite of this design flaw. There is a gentleman in NC, Dave Dodge, who continues to make oil mod kits for the early V4s. He is considered THE early V4 guru by many. I don't have any affiliation or personal dealings with him, but everyone I've spoken to who has dealt with him gives him rave reviews. For now, I'm not worrying about the cams on my old Sabre. It's a starter bike and runs very well but will never be worth much money, so the mod would be kind of wasted money. Your 'Ceptor, OTOH, is probably your "baby" and is a far rarer and historically more significant bike. I'd definitely look into getting an oil mod. In the meantime try to avoid prolonged operation at low RPMs. The consensus is that above 3500 or so, there IS adequate oil supply to the cams. I personally run full synthetic oil in both my bikes. I don't want to start an oil thread, but full synthetics supposedly cling to metal better and may actually provide better lube action even when there isn't really enough oil being delivered. Here are some links about the oiling problem and older V4s in general: http://www.sabmag.org/Sabre-Magna%20FAQ%20v2.htm http://www.home.earthlink.net/~wrenchtwister/V4hist.html Dave Dodge's contact info (His site isn't fully up but the email and phone #s are good.) Have fun with your new 'Ceptor! Tim
