Kawasaki Triples Club

Who ever said triples were gas guzzlers were wrong!

My H2c, 90 mile round trip to Darley Moor couple of weeks ago and a short trip today, total 123 miles, 10.3 litres.
I make that 54.3 mpg - and I wasn't hanging about, too much

Can anyone beat that? :smt023

nah, my best is 45 mpg

Gary T

nope my best was 5.5 liter per 100 kilometers

My H2C will do 45 on run.

If i'm lucky my speacial will do 45 miles to a tank !!!!
But its very rapped over those 45 miles with mega grin factor :smt023 :smt023 :smt023

Had this conversation in the pub over the weekend. Some people knew to the fraction of a gallon what their bike used, somewhat unsurprisingly they were both BMW owners.

Myself and one other have never concerned ourselves about MPG, we just rag the tits off em till they need filling then fill em up and rag em again. All i know is roughly what all my bikes do to a tankfull but i've no idea how much the tanks hold.

husson73 wrote:nope my best was 5.5 liter per 100 kilometers

About 51.7mpg in English I think.

1950 miles, H2c, Suffolk to spa, 4 laps round the track, down to the Z1 rally in Germany then home, 43.8 mpg :smt023

Nope, can't beat that figure.(As an average)

But, I spent 2850 miles, (well documented incidentally), a mixture of running on the level , uphill (to the extent of almost 10000 feet above sea level), downhill, some flat-out running, some town work, some in glorious sunshine, some in fog, pissing rain, +/- temperatures. In one trip over a 12 day period. (I have documentation to support this).

Total Average=41 mpg.

Best figure=52.4 mpg (Motorway cruising @75 m.p.h)

If you can exercise a modicum of control over your throttle hand, they can be, er, 'frugal' !!!?

But still leave a healthy dose of performance in reserve!

Be wary of some claims as I have known people who have managed to increase their mpg because they incorrectly use 5 litres per gallon instead of 4.54 in their calculating

Best ever was nearly 90mpg on a H2 I was on super light throttle, head on tank and didn't go over 50 MPH (I had run out of petrol in the mountains in Tennessee) - Average riding, without trying :

Dispelling the Myth


Historically, Kawasaki Triples have been the butt of everyone?s jokes about fuel economy, everything from being ?Petrol Cooled? to having to plan a route purely by the petrol stations to stop at. Having owned and ridden several hundred of these machines I know that there are good ones and bad ones, each and every bike will have different figures depending on rider, riders ability, road conditions and tuning of the engine. Anyone would scoff at the 1972 H2 Owners handbook that claims 45 MPG at 50 MPH and 85 MPG at 30MPH! Having been in circumstances on a H2 where lack of fuel forced me to borrow a pint of petrol (using a Sprite bottle found at the side of the road) and limp at 30MPH to the next fuel station I can confirm that I did in fact achieve around 80 MPG!

Further proof can be added on a recent trip to the U.S. My pals Andy and Carl came along and we decided to ride from Traverse City Michigan up to the Mackinaw Bridge at the border of Michigans Upper Peninsular. I had bought 3 bikes for resale in England all were in super nice original condition. All three bikes had not run in 20+ years but with a carb clean only they were all up and running, I didn?t remove and gap the plugs, check the timing or any other tuning we just jumped on them and rode off in the glorious sunshine up the coastline of Lake Michigan towards Mackinaw.
We filled up to the brim before we left and there were no restrictions in riding we just rode around 40 ? 60 MPH, popped the occasional wheelie, drag raced away from lights and egged each other on to sprint into the lead. Some 40 miles into the 100 mile trip it dawned on me that this is pretty typical riding and I wondered just what miles to the gallon the bikes were all getting? On arriving in Mackinaw I suggested that we all fill up together, the American gallon is slightly smaller than the U.K. Gallon so the following figures have been converted to U.K. Gallons :

Rick Brett (13 stone) : 1972 H2, 109 miles / 1.74 Gallons = 62.64 MPG

Andy Robbo (11.5 Stone) : 1976 KH500, 109 miles / 1.96 Gallons = 55.61 MPG

Carlos Fandango (15.5 Stone) 1974 H1e, 111 miles / 2.76 Gallons = 40.2 MPG

Considering that none of us were even trying to get good fuel economy I think the figures are pretty darned impressive and certainly dispel all of the jokes about standard Kawasaki Triples being fuel guzzlers!


Rick Brett[/font].
.

.

.

Come on Guys We are talking H2,

Do you lot really get off talking about maximum fuel economy on one of the most talked about and yes historical masterpieces the legend of our time or are you like me! i wring the nuts out of my H2 almost every mile and am proud to announce the lowest figure for a standard H2 72 of around 19 miles to the gallon, i will probably never see much of a higher figure because i will die trying to achieve i travel around 2300 miles a year on this beast every mile is epic and living the dream.

Sorry I'm in me mid 50's and lost the thread there for a moment?

Ps ask Rick if you think i am joking?

Regards H2 Tim.

H2 Tim wrote:Come on Guys We are talking H2,

Do you lot really get off talking about maximum fuel economy on one of the most talked about and yes historical masterpieces the legend of our time or are you like me! i wring the nuts out of my H2 almost every mile and am proud to announce the lowest figure for a standard H2 72 of around 19 miles to the gallon, i will probably never see much of a higher figure because i will die trying to achieve i travel around 2300 miles a year on this beast every mile is epic and living the dream.

Sorry I'm in me mid 50's and lost the thread there for a moment?

Ps ask Rick if you think i am joking?

Regards H2 Tim.

I ring the neck out of mine, but the bike is well set up, re profiled heads, rebuilt crank, 34mm carbs with new internals and leo/nev pipes

the worst I have got is 25 mpg

I too love the performance of my H2

:smt023

oh fuel economy is important as work is a 40 mile round trip, filling up everyday would soon piss me off and bankrupt me

Gary T

Reading those figures looks like I'll get about 10 mpg.
Or did Carlos lie about his weight??

fnuseless wrote:Reading those figures looks like I'll get about 10 mpg.
Or did Carlos lie about his weight??

10 sounds about right!

Hi Gary,

Ok i can see your reasoning and yer bike sounds sweet with all of that TLC and careful tuning, a picture here for me and those who have not seen it would be great,

Oh and by the way your help and supply of those copper base gaskets for my H2 were the Dogs Bollocks, you have to abide by the rules for annealing copper which all is very easy when you are a blacksmith like me? but seriously they are brill.

I have blasted some 500 miles since fitting them and guess what, not a weep or a peep, happy days i am spreading the good word "Go Copper"

Regards H2 Tim




:smt023

+1 :smt023

Tim it's Gary Clarke with the copper base gaskets

my h2 is nothing special to look at, it's been to many a triples rally both here and abroad

but if you insist, it now has an oil pump cover



Gary T

Are they all yours Gary?

Mitsui Spy wrote:Are they all yours Gary?

it's a few yrs old now, the 2nd bike in Eman now has, and the last 500 at the back has also been sold, but yes they are all mine, i do need to do a up to date picture

Gary T

Hi Gary,

Sweet mary Jesus "bloody lovely" thank you for the picture and good sport,

What is the story on the H1A in the background?

My best H2 Tim.