Honda CB400 Super Four and CB-1: Everything you need to know

The earliest of these Hondas may be 36 years old, but they look great, offer modern practicality and reliability, with classic status, and the ability to work on them. We look at two of the finest…

Words by Matt Hull and Oli Hulme, with photography by Gary Chapman and Matt Hull

The original Honda CB400/4 is remembered fondly by many in the UK. As a mid-1970s mini superbike, it was reasonably fast, handled moderately well and looked cool as heck. Yet Honda’s glamorous sports middleweight originally had a brief life, if a happy one, lasting fewer than four years on the showroom floor before being dropped in favour of the faster, better-handling, better-braking, more economical and markedly duller 400 Superdream. The problem with the CB400/4 for Honda was that it cost about as much to make one as it did to build a CB550/4 using a similar platform.

And so the littlest four was gone, in Europe at least. Here, 400s were beginners’ machines, and the manufacturers wanted buyers to desire bigger, more expensive motorcycles.

However, the motorcycle licence system in Japan was changed at about this time, leading to 400cc bikes gaining popularity as they could be ridden on an ordinary motorcycle licence which was easier to obtain than a licence for a big bike.

As a result, from the early 1980s in Japan there was still a market for fast light-middleweights – and there were loads of models to pick from. Honda supplied a range of pocket rocket 400s, which were also sold in the UK, and with a new sporty naked inline-four, the CBR400R, which used an early version of the Honda VTEC system called Hyper VTEC. VTEC has changed dramatically over time, with this one a design with four valves per cylinder, where at lower revs, it limits the oil to a hydraulic tappet, meaning the cylinder runs with two valves per cylinder and above 6750rpm, all four valves operate. This helps torque and economy. The CBR400R was soon joined by the fully faired CBR400RR tri-arm sportsbike and the CBR400F with Honda’s ‘jelly mould’ fairing, mirroring the new CBR600F. The CBR400RR then became the ‘Baby Blade,’ a 400cc version of the famed 900 Fireblade.

The Honda CB-1

Although these race-rep sportsbikes were popular, there was still a market for a naked 400, and Honda filled this with the CB-1, also known as the NC27 – its Honda code.

Launched in March 1989, the CB-1 was a new kind of model from Honda. Although road racing was gaining popularity in Japan, and this had increased competition for the street rider’s Yen, Honda developed the CB-1 at a time when it felt there was a hole in the market to be filled while the other big three manufacturers were fighting for sales in the 400cc road sport category. The CB-1 was almost as fast as the faired sportsters, but  considerably cheaper. The naked café racer trim attracted many new buyers.

The stripped-back CB-1 showed off the round steel tube perimeter frame and the sophisticated-looking engine. This was a liquid-cooled, four-stroke, four-valve, inline four-cylinder DOHC unit with gear-driven cams, as Honda continued to try to a shake off a reputation for dubious cam chain operation. The engine was borrowed from the CBR400RR with minor adjustments for its more roadgoing surroundings, with more emphasis on lowering the power in the rev range and lowering the race-style gear ratios. It still boasted a maximum output of 55bhp, making it remarkably quick off the line, and redlined at 13,500rpm. The liquid-cooled engine turned out to be a bit of a looker and the CB-1 was 20% cheaper than the CBR400RR. The water-cooled cylinders were canted forward at 30 degrees, and the engine was used as a stressed member. The revvy engine needed a lot of ‘cog-swapping’ to keep it on song, and the engine noise was louder than the exhaust note – the exhaust system was all stainless steel and one-piece – a horror for those wanting to fit a louder can.

Quick and agile, the CB-1 was a short-distance steed with a skinny seat and a small petrol tank. The job of the bike was to transport the rider to where they wanted to go rapidly in style, with alloy side plates, clip-ons (until the last year) and truly superb Honda finish. It was popular with young riders who loved the thrills and looks, as well as older riders and commuters. Later, dispatch riders loved them for their agility and size, as well as the bulletproof reliability.

Unusually, the home-market targeted CB-1 was also made for export and shown to the public at a dealer meeting held in the US in 1988. There, it was known as the CB400F CB-1 and something of a hit. A Type 2 version soon followed, with higher bars replacing the clip-ons and a slightly bigger fuel tank to increase the range for touring. And then it was gone, having lasted one year less than the CB400/4.

Matt’s impressions of the CB-1 on the road

Gaining a full licence in the midst of the grey import era, 400s were everywhere. I had a Honda VFR400 NC31 in Smokin’ Joes colours, and a Bros 650 with its single-sided swingarm. My brother Dave had a Honda CB-1 as his first bike – and still has it.

The CB-1 benefits from Honda’s glory days. Quality of the paint, finish, and design is everywhere. The bike is too small for me, yet the riding position is perfect. Ergonomics are a lesson in, erm, ergonomics and only the km speedo with cheap stickers lets it down. Clutch is heavier than one would get nowadays on a 400, but like the throttle and gearchange are beautiful to use. And while the brakes only have a single disc up front, the power is perfect for the bike, power available, and typical rider. Don’t forget also that Japanese market bikes like this were set up for lighter riders and the Japanese market prefers softer suspension.

The retuned CBR engine is a revvy thing, sounding almost like a 125 as you pull away, such is the speed you go through the gears. Gearing it up front and back slows the acceleration but makes it sound more ‘grown up,’ as well as cruising more comfortably. The ride is superb. If you want to poodle to work, you can, though that revvy nature goads you into having a little more fun. But, unlike a 600 or larger, it is still at sane speeds, within most owners’ abilities. Cornering is effortless, and as long as you don’t try playing hard with bigger boys, you have a blast. Long distances are less fun but just wear earplugs and find some twisties instead of main roads.

It’s also a great bike for shorter riders, like several of the 1990s 400s. But don’t be fooled – the weight isn’t much less than a 600 thanks to the steel frame and quality, about 185kg wet. One secret: if you can still get hold of a kph-to-mph speedo converter, it fools the bike into allowing you through the 112mph Japan restriction to about 125…

It is great to work on, with no fairing. Several parts are interchangeable with similar aged Hondas, and it has a centrestand. Tyre sizes are not so common, but available. The front is a 110/70 17, while the rear is a 140/70 17, with no real alternatives for those wheels. Otherwise, all common parts like servicing, tired rear shock, fork seals and the like are easily available from the likes of wemoto.com. And as mentioned earlier, putting a fruity silencer on means hacksawing the original system. Overall, these are great bikes for a great price and from a great era.

SPECIFICATION: Honda CB-1

ENGINE: 399cc four-stroke DOHC 16V inline-four BORE/STROKE: 55mm/42mm CARBURATION: 4x32mm CV carbs COMPRESSION: 11.5:1 TRANSMISSION: Six-speed gearbox IGNITION: CDI FRONT WHEEL: 110/70-17 REAR WHEEL: 140/60-17 FRONT SUSPENSION: 41mm forks REAR SUSPENSION: Linear rear shock FRONT BRAKE: Single 310mmdisc two-pot caliper REAR BRAKE: Single 240mm disc  SEAT HEIGHT: 775mm WHEELBASE: 1370mm WET WEIGHT: 183kg FUEL TANK: 2.9 gallons POWER: 55bhp @ 10,000rpm TOP SPEED: 125mph (derestricted)

The CB400 Super Four

Although the CB-1’s life was a short one, the engineers and designers at Honda were firmly wedded to the concept of a fast 400 with a high-performance engine and excellent sports riding characteristics. They believed the demand for these road sports 400s would remain high. Meanwhile, more commercially focused voices in the company recognised that many young people were attracted instead to the naked sports category.

In 1992, Honda capitalised on the experience gained with the CB-1 to launch a new naked sportsbike. The brains behind the concept called it Project Big-1. It was designed to be a smaller version of the company’s latest plan for a naked one-litre superbike, the CB1000 Super Four, that was already under development and encompassed what they believed a next-generation naked road sports model should be like. The new 400 was named the CB400 Super Four and became one of the most successful motorcycles ever made by Honda, staying in production for 30 years.

The Honda designers decided that just making a bike that could be the best at turning, moving and stopping was not enough. The new bike had to look stunning, feel related to Honda’s heritage, but also use the best in current tech. The immediate choice for an engine was an update of the existing four used in the CB-1. There were changes, however, sitting the engine back up again, and changing carburation and porting, making it more manageable in the low- to midranges frequently used in urban riding while being more powerful at higher engine speeds. There was a buffed cylinder head and crankcase cover, and cooling fins were added too, though many minor changes were made throughout the years.

A four-into-one stainless steel exhaust system was still there, but with a megaphone-style silencer. There was a conventional steel spine frame, with dual, piggy-back Showa shocks and a couple of discs on the front.

The styling was unusual as the CB400 Super Four did not hark back to previous models. Instead, the designers produced something that had classic lines, but with an entirely new look, making a bike that was part sensible, part street-sleeper cool that came  with enough useable power to make it possible to do almost anything on the street. Think they got it right? Have a look at the Hornet 600 we got in ’98 and it’s almost identical…

There were regular revamps and special models, but it may be that the most significant was a Honda factory special version built for Japan’s training schools fitted with beefed-up frames, crash bars, extra riding lights and less sophisticated suspension, and the machines were slightly detuned – the result being that if you passed your training on a Honda CB400 Super Four, you went out and bought one.

There were sportier versions too, including more powerful and refined Version R, with a small nose fairing and black and aluminium four-into-one exhaust, and the Version S, which was largely the same as the R, but without the fairing. Paint schemes changed sometimes in line with latest versions of the CB1000, while some followed older lines, with varying levels of success, including replica CBX550 schemes, and some years the 400 aped the old CB900F stripes. The most successful were those that either looked like the latest CB1000 or the restrained single-colour early models.
The bikes got VTEC valve gear in 1999, with the final MK III version seeing the VTEC only operating in sixth gear. Fuel injection arrived in 2007.

A version with a half fairing was introduced in 2005. Such refinements had not been deemed necessary until then, as bikes under 400cc had been banned from using Japanese motorways two-up. A change in this law made two-up touring on a CB400 Super Four feasible. Production continued until 2022, giving the model an impressive lifespan.

The grey import hits the UK

It did not take long for rival manufacturers to cotton on to the demand for naked 400s among Japanese youth, Suzuki creating the original sporty Bandit, a 60bhp rocket ship which resulted in the birth of the whole long-running Bandit range. They raided their own heritage for the slightly less powerful 400 Katana, while Yamaha was a little more staid with the XJR400, a pocket-sized version of the XJR1200 that arrived later, and Kawasaki built the 62bhp ZRX400, a homage to the early 1980s KZ1000R Eddie Lawson replica which ultimately inspired the ZRX1100.

None of these 400s arrived in the UK or the rest of Europe officially in Japanese home-market spec, though the first Bandit to arrive in UK was a Europeanised 400. This was because of European market power limits. In the early 1990s, newly qualified riders in many European countries were limited to lower power machines, and as a 400 was entry level, there was no point in importing the sportier models.

But some British entrepreneurs did spot the desire for these Japanese market models. There was already a healthy trade in bikes coming into the UK from the USA and Canada, and those dealers saw supply opportunities in the Far East too. Japanese vehicle rules and regulations, plus the fashion of having a new bike, meant that virtually unused 400s would become available very cheaply to any risk-taking importer who would fill containers with them. Old shops in unfashionable and run-down parts of British towns and cities were filled with shiny and desirable 400s which would sit in dealerships alongside obscure US custom variants. Being smaller, insurance bills were lower, and the smaller bikes were popular with younger riders. The grey import scene even spawned its own magazine, Grey Bike.

The explosion of shops was a brief one, and many came and went in the blink of an eye, but some survived. You can still find dealers in industrial units and sheds in obscure locations, with small stocks of largely unused pocket superbikes begging to be taken out and thrashed.

Oli takes the CB400 Super Four on the road

Back in 2002, I paid £1000 for a grey import Suzuki Bandit 400. The grey import bubble has largely burst by then, but that did not mean there was anything wrong with the bikes – it was just easier to buy official imports and to get spares for them at the time. The Bandit weighed next to nothing and was ridiculously fast. It also ate tyres at a frightening rate. My pre-teen kids loved riding pillion on it, but my best beloved was less keen on motorway journeys from rural Gloucestershire down the M4 into the fleshpots of Bristol, clinging on while sitting on the back on the tiny seat, so I swapped it for a more sensible 1977 BMW R100/7. It was slower, drank less fuel, easier to get bits for, and did not have quite such an appetite for rubber.

The Bandit was one of my favourite ever bikes, and I was looking forward to having a blast on Honda’s rival, the CB400 Super Four, and seeing if it would match up my memories of 400cc fun and games.

Compared to the Suzuki, the CB400 Super Four being tested here is a restrained yet still attractive machine, eschewing the overly flashy look of its rival. The stylistic excesses of the 1980s have given way to something much classier. It does not try to be anything it isn’t or to hark back to the past. For the rider, it is the right size and isn’t overly complex, while managing to feel sophisticated at the same time.

The CB400 Super Four was only sold officially in Japan, Australasia, and some other Far East markets. Japanese market bikes are sometimes considered small compared to those built for Europe and the Americas, but Australian testers expressed surprise that compared to rivals, the new Honda fitted Aussie riders well. It was popular in Australia and New Zealand as it could be ridden by learner riders in those countries.
My first impression of the CB400 Super Four was that this was going to be ‘competent’ motorcycle. This might sound like damning with faint praise, and it doesn’t have drop-dead lines, but there is something street-sleeper stylish about it. It has three-spoke alloy wheels with floating discs and twin four-pot calipers on the front, which seem like they will be more than adequate, especially compared to the appalling brakes on the original 1970s CB400/4. There is a new £300 set of YSS piggy-back shocks, replacing the original Showa items, conventional Showa forks (later models had adjustable preload), and a rather neat factory 4-1 stainless exhaust. Clocks were as good as those on any Honda, and it came with a proper fuel gauge rather than a warning light and an aftermarket gear indicator. The paint was better than average and had lasted well on a 40,000-mile bike with multiple British owners. That figure suggests an annual usage of less than 2000 miles a year and the bike looked like it had hardly ever been out in the rain. The seat was unblemished and it is noticeable that almost everything on it was finished better than on the UK-market models of the same period.

Some motorcycles inspire confidence from the off: the Super Four is one of those machines. When you sit on it, it seems like it fits you. Everything is in proportion, and it seems it would fit almost anyone. It is perfectly proportioned, and balanced enough to move about easily, while feeling substantial enough to inspire confidence in the ride to come. With the stock exhaust, it is quiet, and burbles into life in a respectable fashion.

The gearbox is as brilliant as most from Honda, and the clutch could be operated with one finger. Slipping away from the Oxford Classic Motorcycles showroom, it coped superbly with the potholed local roads, and the wheels failed to squirm as I headed out onto a road covered in mud, loose gravel and damp leaves. Rather more rapidly and unfussily than expected, it whistles up to the speed limit. Once onto the back roads, I am away. With Matt snapping away from a lay-by, there is a good deal of back-and-forth riding and turning around in gateways, which can occasionally be a bind, but the Honda is a dream to flick about. My normal behaviour on a strange bike is to ‘thruppenny bit’ it through the corners at first, but this little beastie is as immediately confidence-inspiring as it is ‘chuckable’ fun. It is one of those machines I didn’t want to take back. Take home, perhaps, but not back. I imagine you could even tour on it. Maybe not two-up with a stack of luggage, but it is effortless to ride solo.

I’m still astonished at the asking price. £1995? For this much motorcycle? One with an MoT and packed with ready-for-the-road fun? You can barely buy a half-decent CB400 Superdream for that. I imagine it might be a little thirsty, and tyres might cost a few quid, but you’ll get to use all of the tread. Wemoto’s website offers new Bridgestone rubber for £240 a set. It uses common spark plugs, even if there are four of them, and that’ll be £25. It is £120 for chain and sprockets, and it uses conventional Semi-Synthetic 10-40 oil. Change that every 1000 miles or so and it feels like the engine should go on for ever. Whether as a winter hack or for summer fun, there are very few arguments against keeping one in the shed for back road nonsense. Honda’s original SOHC four may be universally loved despite its faults. But for motorcycling in the real world, if asked to choose between a CB400/4 and a Super Four, the 1990s bike is the one I would go for.

Thanks to Charlie at Oxford Classic Motorcycles for letting us play with the Super Four. At time of going to press, it is still available, listed at £2000. And if you visit and decide it is not what you fancy, he is sure to have something you do like: www.oxfordclassicmotorcycles.co.uk.

SPECIFICATION: Honda CB400 Super Four NC31

ENGINE: 399cc four-stroke DOHC 16V four BORE/STROKE: 55mm/42mm CARBURATION: Four 32mm carbs COMPRESSION: 11.3:1 TRANSMISSION: Six-speed gearbox IGNITION: CDI FRONT WHEEL: 110/80-18 REAR WHEEL: 140/70-17 FRONT SUSPENSION: 41mm forks REAR SUSPENSION: Pro Link monoshock FRONT BRAKE: 2x296mm discs 2x four-pot calipers REAR BRAKE: Single 240mm disc  SEAT HEIGHT: 29.7in/755mm WHEELBASE: 56in (1410mm) WET WEIGHT: 440lb (200kg) FUEL TANK: 3.25 gallons POWER: 55bhp TOP SPEED: 115mph

BOXOUT

Owners’ Club

Honda Owners’ Club

www.hoc.org.uk

Parts

Wemoto holds substantial stocks of parts for the CB-1 and Super Four

www.wemoto.com

David Silver Spares also has many parts for all years of both bikes

www.davidsilverspares.co.uk