CTX1300 My First Thoughts

I think the market says it all really, why are they being sold off at discount?
I know we all think we know better than Honda, Harley etc, but why oh why was it ever a good idea to lose 30 bhp from this gigantic lump of bike. This bike retails for £15000 in the UK, with tall screen and box 16000.
In case you are wondering they don't sell and only appear as low mileage demonstrators at 6 months old for £10000.
I will have to try and get a ride but then of course, the panniers are smaller too.
I wonder if a lot of the internal mods were necessary to make it more externally pleasing. Exhausts etc.
Either I'm confused or Honda are?
Upt'North.

Horsepower...I won't say it's a meaningless number, but it's not as important as torque. People buy horsepower, but they drive torque. I don't care if they lost HP, as long as the torque is good, that's was throws you back in the seat when you get on it from a stop. One thing I don't like so much about the ST 1300 is that it doesn't want to pull well around 2-3k It will, but it feels like it's lugging. I don't recall the 11 being that way, but it's been a while.

It doesn't surprise me that the CTX13 doesn't sell well. The Vstrom 1000 didn't sell near as well as the 650, and the VTX18 was outsold and then replaced by the VTX13. A little surprising in light of the american "bigger is better" mindset.

If you recall the NightHawk 750 - it was one of the most researched bikes before it was built. Lots of focus groups and market research. It sold well enough for them to make it for over 10 years, but mostly because it was cheap to make. Or how about the VT700? Americans begged Honda to bring it over, then didn't buy it. I know I was looking forward to getting one, but then saw the price. For just a little more, I could have the ST1300..

Upt' North said:

...why oh why was it ever a good idea to lose 30 bhp from this gigantic lump of bike.

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You cannot have an engine capable of making gobs of torque at the low end and lots of horsepower at the top. Horsepower and torque have a mathematical relationship that forces one to suffer if you design for the other.

At any rate, unless you spend a lot of your time riding at speeds well above the ton, horsepower doesn't matter.

Wahrsuul said:

One thing I don't like so much about the ST 1300 is that it doesn't want to pull well around 2-3k It will, but it feels like it's lugging.

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As it should. You're asking the engine to move a lot of weight in a range where it doesn't make torque. The engine in the ST isn't built to be used like a V-twin cruiser; get to know a dyno chart and you'll be able to get a lot more out of it.

--Mark

Upt' North said:

I think the market says it all really, why are they being sold off at discount?......
Either I'm confused or Honda are?
Upt'North.

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Honda's scale of production often is greater than demand, like the ST's every year since 2006.

Blrfl said:

You cannot have an engine capable of making gobs of torque at the low end and lots of horsepower at the top. Horsepower and torque have a mathematical relationship that forces one to suffer if you design for the other.

At any rate, unless you spend a lot of your time riding at speeds well above the ton, horsepower doesn't matter.



As it should. You're asking the engine to move a lot of weight in a range where it doesn't make torque. The engine in the ST isn't built to be used like a V-twin cruiser; get to know a dyno chart and you'll be able to get a lot more out of it.

--Mark

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So I suppose you'll be buying a 40 bhp motorcycle with loads of torque sometime soon? That's for two up touring of course.
And are you saying that a 13 in standard guise wouldn't make the right sort of power and torque for a CTX?
Baloney comes to mind, either that or everybody else who hasn't rushed out to buy a CTX is stupid too!
I'll except your views although they are obviously wrong.
By the way re dynos, I operated one for years after rebuilding Cummins diesels so I know a little about torque; although obviously not as much as you.
We all have our limitations.
Upt'North.

Blrfl said:

You cannot have an engine capable of making gobs of torque at the low end and lots of horsepower at the top. Horsepower and torque have a mathematical relationship that forces one to suffer if you design for the other.

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Say what?
:bsflag:

Not that the first half of the statement is completely incorrect, engine design is always advancing, but what helps one often hurts the other. Now the second half is complete horse hockey. There is no mathematical equation. Every engine is different, torque and HP are measured and reported separate for a reason.

Since mentioning torque. The CTX does pull really well between 2000 and 4500 rpm and a little beyond. That's why my comment in another post about some owners of the CTX not waiting as long in the rpm range to shift. The ST1300 must rev higher to see the benefit of any higher torque or HP. The CTX doesn't. As an example, I almost never see 4000 rpm or higher since I almost never ride over 75 mph (city police tend to frown on that in town). Most of the time I'm at 2500 or 3000 rpm and running strongly at that (45-55 mph) and in 5th gear.

BTW also- the saddlebags on the ST1100, ST1300 AND CTX1300 are all the same size at 35 liters but all are different shape resulting in varying ability to pack stuff.

T_C said:

......There is no mathematical equation. Every engine is different, torque and HP are measured and reported separate for a reason.

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This might help with understanding Blrfl comment.

Upt' North said:

So I suppose you'll be buying a 40 bhp motorcycle with loads of torque sometime soon?

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Geeze where did you pull that out of?

Honda made the call. It could have made an ST that looks like a CTX by using the standard engine. But it were appealing to a difference kind of riding so felt a different kind of power curve would be appropriate. The standard ST engine wouldn't meet that expectation. The CTX isn't and wasn't meant to be a sport-tourer and doesn't need an engine tuned to sport-touring.

T_C said:

Not that the first half of the statement is completely incorrect, engine design is always advancing, but what helps one often hurts the other. Now the second half is complete horse hockey. There is no mathematical equation.

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Beg pardon, but there is. One mechanical horsepower is defined as enough power to to pull 550 pound-feet per second. That definition is in terms of torque, and some math distills it down to a function of torque and rotational speed:


You'll notice that dividing RPM by 5,252 means that at any speed below 5,252 RPM, horsepower is going to come up as a fraction or torque. That makes it impossible to make more horsepower than torque below 5,252 RPM or more torque than horsepower above it. At exactly 5,252 RPM, they're exactly the same. Do a Google image search for "dyno chart" and you'll see lots of examples where every last one of them follows those rules.

Internal combustion engines designed for low-end torque tend not to make nearly as much at the high end, and the math makes it impossible to make a lot of horespower at high revs under those conditions. Cruiser riders tend to prefer a more-relaxed engine than we do, and the engine in the CTX was re-tuned to make torque that improves rideability in the rev ranges those customers prefer. That's why the horsepower number on is lower than it is on the ST. Retune the engine so it makes torque up high like a sport bike and the math encourages lots of horsepower, but because the torque peak isn't anywhere near the pokier RPMs, it's not going to get up and go from a stop. Honda could have changed the gear ratios in the transmission and rear end to take better advantage of that, but maybe the project didn't have the budget for it.

The only way you can get a combination of off-the-line fun and top speed is to use something that makes torque everywhere. The only technology we have right now that can do that is electric motors, which is what makes Teslas a hoot to drive.

Every engine is different, torque and HP are measured and reported separate for a reason.

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I hate to tell you this, but that's not right, either. The dynamometer at the tuning shop measures exactly one thing: torque. Horsepower is calculated and reported because the two figures are of interest to people tuning engines for different things.

--Mark

rjs987 said:

Since mentioning torque. The CTX does pull really well between 2000 and 4500 rpm and a little beyond. That's why my comment in another post about some owners of the CTX not waiting as long in the rpm range to shift. The ST1300 must rev higher to see the benefit of any higher torque or HP. The CTX doesn't. As an example, I almost never see 4000 rpm or higher since I almost never ride over 75 mph (city police tend to frown on that in town). Most of the time I'm at 2500 or 3000 rpm and running strongly at that (45-55 mph) and in 5th gear.

BTW also- the saddlebags on the ST1100, ST1300 AND CTX1300 are all the same size at 35 liters but all are different shape resulting in varying ability to pack stuff.

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+1 on everything RJS987 says.

Blrfl said:

Beg pardon, but there is. One mechanical horsepower is defined as enough power to to pull 550 pound-feet per second.

--Mark

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Well... my apologies. Learn something new every day, never too old.

Horsepower - How fast you hit the wall

Torque - how much of the wall you take with you.

I usually defined it as :
Torque makes the change, horespower keeps it going.

I'll jump in here with my own example of torque and horsepower

I had a Suzuki Boulevard 650 which produces 37 foot-pounds of torque at 3400 RPM's. Horsepower: 31.

The ST1300 produces 86 foot-pounds at 6500 RPM's. Horsepower: 117. I don't know how much torque it produces at 3400 RPM's, but I suspect it's actually similar to the Suzuki.

Since the Suzuki weighs much less, if I cracked the throttle just off idle (with the clutch fully engage), it accelerated FASTER than the ST1300, but only briefly before a shift was needed at which point the ST would blow it away. In fact, it was so fast, that for a few moments, I felt like it was a much bigger engine.

Of course, if I feathered the clutch on the ST to keep the revs up (for example, over 3500 RPM's) the ST was faster.

Around town, the Suzuki had the preferable kind of power. On the highway or anything above 35 mph, I prefer the ST's kind of power.

So, it's not just about power, it's also about the KIND of power... i.e. where in the RPM range the torque is produced.

ddemair said:

Since the Suzuki weighs much less, if I cracked the throttle just off idle (with the clutch fully engage), it accelerated FASTER than the ST1300, but only briefly before a shift was needed at which point the ST would blow it away. In fact, it was so fast, that for a few moments, I felt like it was a much bigger engine.

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That's a really important point, too, because the weight you're pulling and the shape of the torque curve at the rear wheel have a big impact on what turning the go-fast knob does.

You can accelerate a pretty long time on the ST without upshifting because it keeps making torque until fairly high in the rev range. You might be doing your first gear change while the guy on the twin with a low-RPM torque peak has already paused twice for shifts and is probably heading for a third.

--Mark

ddemair said:

I had a Suzuki Boulevard 650 which produces 37 foot-pounds of torque at 3400 RPM's. Horsepower: 31.

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Just curious.

Did your 650 Suzuki really deliver 31 hp at 3400 RPM?

To produce 31 hp, it would have to develop about 48 ft-lbs at 3400 RPM, not 37.

48 ft-lbs is just about the Max Torque developed by the Boulevard M50 (800 cc).

ddemair said:

So, it's not just about power, it's also about the KIND of power... i.e. where in the RPM range the torque is produced.

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Which is pretty much the whole reason behind the CTX as opposed to the ST1300 in the restart place. This point was missed by many when the CTX came out.

CTX owners have said this time and again and Mark makes it pretty clear in his HP/torque explanation. So it's down to what it always should be— buy the bike that suits your riding style and preferences. Using the wrong tool for the job then blaming it is not useful.

MidLife said:

Did your 650 Suzuki really deliver 31 hp at 3400 RPM?

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I can't say for sure, I was just going by the published numbers. I also don't know at what RPM it supposedly produced 31 HP.

ST Gui said:

Using the wrong tool for the job then blaming it is not useful.

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Sniglet: Blithwapping (v) - using any tool other than a hammer as a hammer.