Editing Kawasaki H2750A Mach IV

{{Infobox Motorcycle
|name             = [[Kawasaki]] H2750A Mach IV
|image            = [[File:Kawasaki-KH500-75--1.jpg|frameless|Kawasaki H2750A Mach IV]]
|aka              = 
|manufacturer     = Kawasaki
|parent_company   =
|production       = 1973
|model_year       =
|predecessor      =
|successor        =
|class            =
|engine           = Two stroke, transverse three cylinder
|bore_stroke      =
|compression      = 7.1:1
|top_speed        = 120 mph / 192 km/h
|power            =
|torque           =
|fuel_system      =
|ignition         = CDI
|spark_plug       =
|battery          = 12V-6AH
|transmission     = 5 Speed
|frame            = Tubular, double cradle
|suspension       =Front: Telescopic forks non adjustable <br>
Rear: Dual shocks preload adjustable
|brakes           =Front: Single 295mm disc <br>Rear: 203mm drum
|front_tire       = {{tire|8.25-19}} 
|rear_tire   	  = {{tire|4.00-18}} 
|rake_trail       =
|wheelbase        = 1410 mm / 55.4 in
|length           =
|width            =
|height           =
|seat_height      = 795 mm/ 31.25 in
|dry_weight       = 192 kg / 423.2 lbs
|wet_weight       =
|fuel_capacity    = 16.7 Litres / 4.4 US gal
|oil_capacity     =
|fuel_consumption =
|turning_radius   =
|related          =
|competition      =
}}

It could reach a top speed of 120 mph / 192 km/h.  

==Engine==
The engine was a Air cooled cooled Two stroke, transverse three cylinder. The engine featured a 7.1:1 [[compression ratio]].  

==Drive==
Power was moderated via the Wet, multi-plate.  

==Chassis==
It came with a 8.25-19 front [[tire]] and a 4.00-18 rear tire. Stopping was achieved via Single 295mm disc in the front and a 203mm drum in the rear. The front suspension was a  Telescopic forks non adjustable while the rear was equipped with a Dual shocks preload adjustable. The H2750A Mach IV was fitted with a 16.7 Litres / 4.4 US gal fuel tank. The bike weighed just 192 kg / 423.2 lbs. The wheelbase was 1410 mm / 55.4 in long.  
== Photos ==
[[File:Kawasaki-KH500-75--1.jpg|600px|Kawasaki H2750A Mach IV]]
[[File:Kawasaki-H2-750-Mach-IV-73.jpg|600px|Kawasaki H2750A Mach IV]]
[[File:Kawasaki-H2-750-73.jpg|600px|Kawasaki H2750A Mach IV]]
[[File:Kawasaki-H2-750-Mach-IV-73.jpg|600px|Kawasaki H2750A Mach IV]]

== Overview ==
Kawasaki H2A 750 Mach IV















Road Test Cycle 1974

For better and for worse, in every way that
counts, Kawasaki's 750 triple is a genuine post-mesozoic dinosaur: uniquely and
irrepressibly profligate, magnificently brutish, and irretrievably trapped in an
evolutionary cul-de-sac. Given the circumstances of its creation the Mach IV
could hardly have been anything else, as it assumed form when most of us still
believed that general incivility could be justified by straight-line performance
if the latter was somehow raised to sheer, eyeball-flattening proportions. We
were enchanted with muscle, and our enchantment prompted Kawasaki to attempt
building a Superbike to end all Superbikeswhich is a fair description of what
they did. The Mach IV made us turn toward a more balanced kind of performance,
and thus assured the future of machines like the exquisitely contrived Kawasaki
Z 1. But in doing that we may have moved where the big two-stroke triple cannot
follow, the ultimate performer in a world where people no longer worship just
performance.
There's a new Mach IV these days, and it has been
improved. But for all the change the improvements have worked in its fundamental
character they might as well have been giving tyrannosaurus rex a shot of
underarm deodorant and a flea collar. The problem here is that while the
improvements are subtle, the motorcycle is not. Fuel economy has been improved,
so you get a solid 26 mpg average instead of the original 23 mpg and the bike
still is very far from being a gas-miser. Thirsty it was and thirsty it remains.
New mufflers have kept the Mach IV within the statutory noise limits, but only
marginally at 86 dB(A) and may have something to do with both the slightly
reduced fuel consumption rate and a small reduction in performance. Yes, that's
right: the new Mach IV isn't quite as fast as the originalbut it still can
flatten your eyeballs, so you'd have to say it hasn't really changed in that
respect. either. When all's said and done, the Kawasaki Mach IV hasn't been
tamed or civilized at all.
At the heart of this motorcycle's obdurate
refusal to become truly housebroken is its engine, which has three biggish
cylinders all in a relatively wide-spaced row, crankpins spaced 120-degrees
apart and porting arranged to give power at speeds where plenty of it is
possible. There, has been a sufficiency of propaganda telling us that we get
smooth, evenly spaced power impulses from a two-stroke triple, and that much is
true. It also is true that the layout has a dynamic imbalance, a strong
teeter-tottering rocking couple that makes the in-line three a shakerthough not
quite as harsh as a vertical twin of the same displacement. So the Mach IV
vibrates a lot despite the addition of some bits of rubber in its engine mounts,
and it isn't ever going to be as smooth as its smaller three-cylinder brothers
because its pistons are bigger and move farther.
The porting? Sure, that could be reworked to
improve the Mach IV's willingness to plug along at 1500 rpm in 5th gear, and its
ability to make distance on a gallon of gasoline. But such reworking would give
you engine characteristics just like those of the water-cooled but otherwise
similar Suzuki GT-750characteristics totally out of keeping with the rest of
the Mach IV motorcycle. Port to your heart's content and the Kawasaki isn't
going to be magically transformed into a sweet-natured touring floater: all
you'd succeed in doing is making the beast turn sullen.
Sullen is the one thing Mach IV definitely is
not. Quieted and leaned-down as it is in its latest permutation the bike remains
a wheeled rocket. You won't get any big surge yanking the throttles open when
the revs are down, but let the tach needle swing past 4000 rpm and the
motorcycle turns into pure animal.
The Mach IV's brakes and tires always have been a
fair match for its acceleration: handling in the earlier models left some room
for improvement and that has been made, with a fix that doesn't strike us as
being overly imaginative but works well just the same. Kawasaki's engineers have
taken the easy way and simply lengthened the Mach IV's wheelbase, stretching it
from the original 55.5 inches to what our tape-measure says is 57.5 inches with
the rear axle centered in its adjustment slots. It was the easy answer, because
they did it by making the long swing-arm even longerthe reach from pivot-point
to axle now being 21.75 inches.
They had a perfect opportunity to use the
currently popular motocrosser's forward-mount shocks, but decided against the
novelty and added extensions on the frame's seat rails to move the spring/
damper units back with the wheel. They seem also to have stretched the seat a
couple of inches in length, which means there now is almost room on the perch
for three-up travel. Kawasaki would have done better to widen the seat a bit, as
it is high-crowned with padding on the firm side for motorcycle seats, and a
little too narrow for the average motorcyclist's seat.
On the other hand, if the new Mach IV's seat was
any wider it probably would have to be lowered before any but the tallest of
riders could straddle the bike without getting up on tip-toe. One of our test
riders has legs with a length in the 98th percentile for American males (by
actual measurement at the GM Tech Center. where it was suggested that a
motorcyclist also should have his head examined) and even this daddy-long-legs
verged on being too short at the fork for the Kawasaki triple. It gives you a
very long reach from seat to pavement.
Maybe the tall saddle is a reasonable price to
pay for one of the Mach IV's more attractive attributes, which is the unusual
amount of cornering clearance it has.
Three separate mufflers should get in each
other's way; those on the Kawasaki are high enough and tucked in closely enough
to the all but undraggable by any half-sane rider. In fact, not even the
resident Cycle berserker ever flopped the bike down so far as to mar the chrome
on the twin right-side pipes, though he did wear off most of the kick-stand
extension on the bike's opposite side.
You wouldn't have wanted to try anything fancy in
the way of corner-carving with the older Mach IV. While Kawasaki's 750 triple
has from the beginning been a miracle of cornering stability as compared with
the infamous center-hinged 500, it would at times do some, well, funny little
tricks just to keep you alert. There always was a sense of impending trouble
about the original 750's handling: a tendency to do a waver-verging-on-wobble in
middling fast corners; a vague, rubbery feeling that would discourage the
prudent rider from trying to use all the side-clearance and tire adhesion. Some
traces of that behavior are discernable even in the new long-wheelbase bike, but
at a much subdued level, and without the somewhat frightening undertones.
Unfortunately, though the latest Mach IV won't put a lot of energy into tickling
your scare gland neither will it oiler you much help in keeping itself aimed.
The front wheel tracks all right at higher speeds; it can't seem to make up its
mind in slower cornerssometimes falling into the curve and sometimes needing to
be pulled into position. There's definitely something for the man holding the
handlebars to do when the bike rounds your average street corner, and it's
seldom the same thing from one slow corner to the next. We think maybe this
uncertainty is linked to the combination of a high CG, long wheelbase and a
steering axis that is remarkably vertical in a bike having the Kawasaki's size
and speed. Our inclinometer shows the steering rake to be only 26.5-degrees and
that's about 2-degrees less than the big-bike normal.



Kawasaki was a pioneer in capacitor discharge
ignition systems for motorcycle engines, and that's what they're using to this
day on the Mach IVwith excellent results. For some reason known only to itself
the engine never would want to start on the first kick, but it seldom needed
more than two and didn't demand that they be especially vigorous. Perhaps it was
all due to the demand-type regulator in the fuel valve under the tank, which is
open only when the engine is running and automatically closes to prevent
crankcase flooding when the bike is parked for the night. In any case it was
very agreeable about starting on the second kick and would thereafter idle for
what seemed likely to continue for hours without a trace of plug fouling, which
is where the trick ignition system makes itself useful. It goes without saying
that the bike also may be idled along in traffic without any show of choking on
its accumulating oil.
It is good that the Mach IV will idle without
stalling, because you wouldn't want to restart the thing very often. Not that
the kick-start lever takes much muscle to spin the engine: the difficulty is
that the whole business is damnably awkWard. The lever is long and its cranked
end is very high in the air, moving even higher if you tilt the bike over
against its side stand for the starting operation, which will make the situation
even worse because the side prop is short, the tilt is extreme and you find
yourself almost kicking sideways. The alternative is to stand on the bike's
right side and kick with your left foot, but then the height of the lever is
such that you have to raise your kicking foot up to about belt level, holding it
out a couple of feet and kicking inward toward your opposite knee. You can do
your kicking from astride the Kawasaki, of course, but then the bike's
top-heaviness makes it want to fall over and you still have the problem of
raising your foot high enough to reach the crank. Oh yes, and you also have to
fold the right footpeg out of the way and then try to avoid getting it stuck up
your pant's leg while you do the rest of the routine.
Your problems with the kick-start lever are not
entirely ended when the engine is running, because once you're on the move,
whizzing along enjoying the way scenery hurries past, you will discover that the
kick lever's shank and your own are trying to occupy the same space at the same
time.
The lever nestles hard against the inside of your
calf if you like to ride with your knees against the tank, and if you don't keep
your knees against the tank the wind will keep forcing them apart. Kawasaki
should either put a curl in the kick lever to bring it in closer, or widen the
tank, which could increase the fuel capacity of this short-range motorcycle to
something a little more useful. The tank holds just over a hundred miles and in
some areas that's not enough.
Apart from the deficiencies already noted (the
footpegs that are ever so slightly too far forward) the Mach IV is now a fairly
comfortable road machine. The seats/pegs/handlebar relationship is good, if not
perfect (which may be an impossible goal, given the diversity in rider
configuration) and the famous series H2 engine vibration has been brought under
control at least to such extent that the bike is quite tolerably smooth if
you're content with a sedate, legal 55-mph cruising speed. The difficulty you
encounter in attempting to ride sedately is that all the urge built-in and there
for the asking often is too much to resist, and the bike doesn't want to let you
be restrained. At 55-60 mph you're using so little of the available power, and
applying so little throttle, that the cylinders don't scavenge decently. The
trickling breeze coming up through the transfer ports just won't clear away the
residual exhaust gases. So the Mach IV's engine bucks and stutters when you try
to ride conservatively, and the lash in the transmission engagement dogs
converts the engine raggedness into a most remarkable snatching and banging in
the drive chain. All of this is very annoying. However, it will give you
something to tell the policeman who grabs you for doing a gargle-free 65 mph and
the occasional clanging from the chain will remind you to pull the little knob
that then dribbles a shot of SAE30 oil down on the links and rollers.

The chain oiler knob is half-hidden in the shadow
of the Kawasaki's left side-cover, that triangular pan with the glittering "750
MACH IV" inscribed in chromed numbers and lettered decals. Pay close attention
to the panels' fastenings before you try taking them off to get at the battery
or oil reservoirs. Many bikes have their panels secured just by prongs held in
rubber grommets, which is what you see looking down at the tops of those on the
triple. But then, stooping a hit lower, you'll also see a security bolt,
inserted through a metal tab that will get bent if you grab the panel and haul
away.
A couple of feet forward from the chain-oiler
knob is another knob and it adjusts the Mach IV's steering damper. You can have
a lot of fun experimenting with different adjustments: we couldn't tell if one
setting was better than another, as the motorcycle behaved itself whatever we
did. Still, it's nice to see something on a bike that's as neatly thought-out as
Kawasaki's horizontal shock absorber. Hydraulic steering dampers are always
better than those that rely on friction discs; Kawasaki has been especially
clever in compensating for internal volume changes and external adjustments by
running the damper rod all the way through the damper body.
As a matter of fact, you can have a lot of fun
with several of the Mach IV's featuresparticular emphasis being on the
machine's performance. The big Kawasaki triple may use too much gasoline in
getting where you want it to go, but it will get there faster than any other
production vehicle on the road. Even when you aren't using the performance you
can ride around with an inner smirk, knowing that the bike under you is the
undisputed King of the tire-lighters. It may be a king who's a little out of
touch with the times; it rules for all of that. So the vibration blurs the rear
view in its mirrors, you can steady them by squeezing hard on the handlebar
gripsand if you use the performance you'll be doing plenty of grip-squeezing in
any case. You can luxuriate in the sheer, bountiful speed of the Mach IV, and
enjoy its good points, one of which is a transmission that breathes a little
life into the old wheeze about "shifting like a hot knife cutting butter." The
old 750's transmission shifted like the gear housing was full of gravel; the new
model sounds like the gravel is still there and maybe a pound of broken glass
tossed in for company, but it shifts perfectly. (Now if only they had fixed the
shift pattern to move neutral from its last-stop-down position to the more
convenient and conventional slot between first and second.)
In all probability Kawasaki hasn't bothered to
change the steering head angle, or fix the shift pattern, or do anything beyond
detail improvement because they know it isn't going to matter. Federal
regulation of noise and emissions and all manner of things the bureaucrat's mind
can conceive loom just over Capitol Hill and that will kill off the Mach IV even
if its own unruly nature would not. In time all the great Superbikes will have
to go, pulled under by five mph bumpers and catalytic afterburners. Kawasaki's
Mach IV, being the most super of all the Super-bikes, will simply be the first
to fall. And then someday, when we have super bikes but no Superbikesif you
grasp the differencewe'll remember the big triple, all its character flaws and
single, shining virtue, and it truly will seem very remote, truly a relic of the
past. Those who experience what the Mach IV still can offer will remember it
fondly. The others? They'll see nothing but old dinosaur bones, forgetting that
both the mesozoic thunder lizard and Kawasaki's thunderous Mach IV really were
pretty good ideas at the time.


Source Cycle 1974




{|  class="wikitable"
|- 
!Make Model
|Kawasaki H2 750 Mach IV
|- 
!Year
|1973
|- 
!Engine Type
|Two stroke, transverse three cylinder
|- 
!Displacement
|748 cc / 45.6 cu-in
|- 
!Bore X Stroke
|71 х 63 mm
|- 
!Cooling System
|Air cooled
|- 
!Compression
|7.1:1
|- 
!Lubrication
|Oil injection
|- 
!Induction
|3 x 30mm Mikuni VM30SC carburetors
|- 
!Ignition
|CDI
|- 
!Battery
|12V-6AH
|- 
!Starting
|Kick
|- 
!Max Power
|74 hp / 55.1 kW @ 6800 rpm
|- 
!Max Torque
|77.4 Nm / 7.9 kgf-m @ 6500 rpm
|- 
!Clutch
|Wet, multi-plate
|- 
!Transmission
|5 Speed
|- 
!Final Drive
|Chain
|- 
!Gear Ratio
|1st 12.75:1 2nd 8.64:1 3rd 6.53:1 4th 5.42:1 5th 4.76:1
|- 
!Frame
|Tubular, double cradle
|- 
!Front Suspension
|Telescopic forks non adjustable
|- 
!Rear Suspension
|Dual shocks preload adjustable
|- 
!Front Brakes
|Single 295mm disc
|- 
!Rear Brakes
|203mm drum
|- 
!Front Tire
|8.25-19
|- 
!Rear Tire
|4.00-18
|- 
!Wheelbase
|1410 mm / 55.4 in
|- 
!Seat Height
|795 mm/ 31.25 in
|- 
!Ground Clearance
|183 mm / 7.2 in.
|- 
!Dry Weight
|192 kg / 423.2 lbs
|- 
!Fuel Capacity
|16.7 Litres / 4.4 US gal
|- 
!Braking 30 Mph - 0
|33 ft
|- 
!Braking 60 Mph - 0
|111.7 ft.
|- 
!Acceleration 0-30 Mph
|2.9 sec.
|- 
!Acceleration 0-60 Mph
|5.0 sec.
|- 
!Standing ¼ Mile
|12.3 sec / 105 mph / 168 km/h
|- 
!Top Speed
|120 mph / 192 km/h

|}

[[Category:Kawasaki motorcycles]]