Commando in Context.

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hobot said:
honda snowmobile and can also search their snow blowers. Fast snow mobiles turn their tracks into almost round orbitals.
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=les ... 31&bih=593

Commando in Context.
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Sorry, doesn't count. EVERYONE made little pissers back then, Chrysler automobile included. A 340cc? A 440cc? Never. sorry, game show buzzer.
 
from what I have found out the few probably less the a couple dozen were bought back and destroyed.
 
J.A.W. said:
Concours, I think you`ll find that Suzuki built the mills for Arctic Cat,including a mean 170hp 2T triple.
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Suzuki did indeed build Arctic Cats motors for a long time, including the 580cc one I had in my Pantera touring sled. It got a whopping 9 mpg under normal riding conditions on packed trails. Get off in the powder and things got much worse. Not really the ideal situation if you planned on actually trying to tour on it. Thats why I swore that if I ever got back into sleds again it wold be a four stroke. Better fuel milage and much more tractable useable power spread.
 
Matt, why did you delete the speed figures from those RZ 350 tests, you missed the 12.66sec 1/4 though, show me a stock Bonnie that will do that. The power to weight comparison is also revealing, an advantage enjoyed by the Commando, too.
 
Concours, how dare you refer to one of Mr Honda`s fine products as a "game show buzzer" L.O.L.
It may be a reason why they dont sell chainsaws though, eh?
 
J.A.W. said:
Matt, why did you delete the speed figures from those RZ 350 tests, you missed the 12.66sec 1/4 though, show me a stock Bonnie that will do that. The power to weight comparison is also revealing, an advantage enjoyed by the Commando, too.
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SHOW ME A STOCK RZ THAT WILL . and anyway , who but a school kid would GIVE A TOSS . Must be sympathetic vibration between the ears . :p
 
J.A.W. said:
Well spotted Hobot, thats the [li`l Honda] snow-jigger, wonder how many liability claims that thing caused, likely some, but not as many as Honda`s awful trike of the period..
Anyone recall the Yankee Z 500 2T twin enduro? maybe Russ saw one of them?
& Matt, your poor ol` pre-unit Bonnie did wheelstands under the whip/duress, not 'cause it was eager/insisting about it..
Concours, I think you`ll find that Suzuki built the mills for Arctic Cat,including a mean 170hp 2T triple.
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LOL, I won't "find".. (like all you armchair searchmeisters) I've wrenched my way through them. Including the Thundercat in all of it's iterations. It's been sunsetted, the Rotax TWIN blows it away now. I think YOU'LL find that KAWASAKI built the engines for Arctic Rat BEFORE they switched to Suzuki. Before that it was various North American lumps. :mrgreen:
 
MikeG said:
J.A.W. said:
Concours, I think you`ll find that Suzuki built the mills for Arctic Cat,including a mean 170hp 2T triple.
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Suzuki did indeed build Arctic Cats motors for a long time, including the 580cc one I had in my Pantera touring sled. It got a whopping 9 mpg under normal riding conditions on packed trails. Get off in the powder and things got much worse. Not really the ideal situation if you planned on actually trying to tour on it. Thats why I swore that if I ever got back into sleds again it wold be a four stroke. Better fuel milage and much more tractable useable power spread.
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Poppy cock. A wide torque band is a great thing on bikes with manual transmissions... but the marvelous CVT as used in ALL sleds continually adjusts and keeps the engine at it's tuned peak power RPM (8,0000 has shaken out as the place the belts are most efficient) Soooo the four stroke has NO ADVANTAGE in power ANYWHERE. Squeeze the throttle, the tach needle swings ONCE and it's at optimum engine speed in 1-2 seconds. The ONLY advantage the four stroke has in sleds is for dopes who aren't clever enough to start a two stroke without juicing the plugs.
 
J.A.W. said:
Concours, how dare you refer to one of Mr Honda`s fine products as a "game show buzzer" L.O.L.
It may be a reason why they dont sell chainsaws though, eh?
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In the sled world, we have a saying... "They're ALL GREAT when they run, THEY ALL SUCK when they're broke" :mrgreen:

Here's a blowed up Meow-Mixer towed by a POOlaris..
Commando in Context.
 
Here's my handiwork acheived at 120 MPH across Moosehead Lake in Maine. The bean counter's at Rotax sourced some substandard shit carb boots, which all leaked.

Commando in Context.


Commando in Context.


Commando in Context.
 
bill said:
from what I have found out the few probably less the a couple dozen were bought back and destroyed.
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I've visited dozens of snowmobile museums, never seen one. Has ANYONE? Hobot?
 
This post was written in reply to the begining of this thread ... I know nothing of snowmobiles ... and really prefer cross-country skis.

Tony Murphy was a contributing writer at one of the more popular cycle mags in the early 1970's. He was also a Professional AMA road racer. Whenever the mag. did a group test on a half dozen bikes, they ran over the same mountian course ... Mr. Murphy always had the lowest elapsed time of any of the riders, regardless of what he was riding. As pro racer, if a bike wouldn't go fast one way, you found a technique to get the best out of it. Basically technique and experiance will tell.

I like Nortons, they look good, sound good, and pull like a Mack truck out of corners. They suck going over perforated steel bridges or on a freshly gravelled road! A Harley will hardly even notice such things. One would be wise to consider that cycle magazines live on what the advertiser pays ... gun mags ditto ... the latest Really Big Boomer Magnum is so superior to the that old 7 mm from 1892 that we should ban it as being under powered! The 7 mm x 57 Mauser in question scared the heck out of the Yanks in Cuba, and led directly to the 30-03 & 30-06 and is still a world class cartridge.

Me thinks Norton got it mostly right with the Commando's basic design as a steet machine. Now we have the technology to fix most of the Factory's short-commings, like the headsteady for instance. From what little I know, the design engineer got it right the first time but the factory chose to skimp in production.
There is a very interesting post elsewhere about Rynolds tubing and Norton frame cracking when the Commando first came to North America.
Article on the Commando-frame-Ken Sprayson – involvement from Classic Bike, May 2002.

I guess in the end the truth is what we percieve it to be ...
 
Have you tried the Honda official museum Concours?, they might do a virtual tour, or more probably they will do the old 'Mission Impossible" & disavow all knowledge of that particular abortion.
Matt, my ride to work hack is an RZ 350, what do you ride, or are you just a google jockey these days..?
 
'Truth is what we perceive it to be"?, bad guess..like if you`re mixing up gunpowder, you`d better be following the correct formula/method or you might be percieving [momentarily] some practical difficulties with that outlook...
 
They used to say " its like the sliced white bread you buy at the supermarket , compared to the real stuff made by a Baker " .
 
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