Up Front

UP FRONT

Max and me

David Edwards

WELCOME BACK, MR. MAX, IT’S BEEN A long time coming, huh? Hard to believe it was 23 years ago that you first appeared on these pages.

Oh, you were quite the kid. V-Four engine taken from the Venture Royale touring bike, hopped up, of course. Styling inspired by Deuce Coupes and 427 Cobras. Best name in motorcycling. Ever.

At the dragstrip, only your brother FJ1100 was quicker, by a mere .02-second, though nothing could touch you when it came to the deep-down visceral feel of acceleration, especially when your V-Boost kicked in like an afterburner at 5700 rpm, allowing two carbs to pack each hungry cylinder.

“What sets the V-Max apart is how it goes fast, how it accelerates fiercely from any rpm, in any gear, at any speed,” we wrote. “It is always ready to vanish in a cloud of dust and a roar of exhaust, instantly leaving the scene as if it were the Roadrunner rocketing away from the Coyote.”

Pretty impressive flat-out past the radar gun, too, at 144 miles per hour. In 1985, only the Kawasaki GPz900 and Suzuki GSI 100E were faster, and then by just 1 measly mph.

You even took on one of the automotive world’s sacred benchmarks, the 0-100-0mph time turned in by a 427 Shelby Cobra in 1966. Back then the king of sports cars had accelerated from zero to 100 and then panic-braked down to a dead stop in 13.8 seconds. You dispatched that figure with ease, doing the same deed in just 12.35 ticks.

Former Tech Editor Steve Anderson (now with Buell) was in the saddle for those runs. “Starting the Max, you could tell it was different. It had a rumpetyrump idle that spoke to anyone who had spent time around hot V-Eights,” he remembered about the experience. “There wasn’t anything unrefined about it-no staggering or misfiring-just enough deep-throated syncopation to tell of long cam timings and high compression.”

Anderson also spearheaded one of CPFs most memorable cover stories from the Eighties, our “Takin’ it to the Nines,” in which we drag-modded a V-Max, Suzuki GSX-R1100 and Kawasaki Eliminator and headed for the late, great Baylands Raceway Park, about five feet above the waters of San Francisco Bay, blessed with cool, dense air and great traction. Rigging the Yamaha was pretty simple: engine internals untouched, competition Kerker 4-2-1 exhaust, Dynojet jetting kit, Kosman struts, wheelie bar and spoked wheels, the rear running an 8.5-inch Goodyear drag slick. Still streetable but looking like an old AA/Fuel Altered racer, and with hired gun Jay Gleason doing the honors, it ripped down the strip in 9.69 seconds, accompanied by the best sound any motorcycle has ever produced.

You and I have a little quarter-mile history, too, remember? I certainly do. It was at Carlsbad Raceway (sadly, like Baylands, now plowed under to make way for an industrial park), a Saturday grudge-match session, my first time on a dragstrip in anger. I was more than a little anxious, especially when my coach, ace throttle man Dale Walker, warned about wheelies. “Be careful,” he said. “That thing will want to jump up and hit you right in the family jewels.”

To my ever-lasting appreciation, you were easy on my ability to father offspring and I came away speaking in the same octave, with an 11.18-second/123mph timing slip for the scrapbook.

So now we come to Max 2.0, the updated version of your own bad self. I must admit, I was hoping for something more like “Mod Max,” the design study we commissioned for a Y2K re-do-chain drive, single-sided swingarm, UD fork, 500 pounds dry, “a cross between a VMax and a Ducati Monster, with a touch of Honda RC45 thrown in for good measure,” I wrote.

Still, no streetbike we’ve ever strapped to our dyno has made more horsepower or torque. Okay, thanks to some electronic buzzkill doohickey (not your idea, I’m sure), you’re nowhere near the quickest or the fastest anymore. But all your rumbly righteousness remains.

Right now, the performance aftermarket is hard at work on Max mods. Openedup exhaust systems will come first, they always do. Computer boffins, bless ’em, will set your ECU free. A wider rear rim and stickier tire will fit. Drop the suspension. Add a little spray of nitrous-oxide, mount a wheelie bar and forget “Takin’ it to the Nines.” How ’bout a “Date with the Eights?”

You up for that? □