Life

The RC30, by virtue of it's purpose in life as a homologation special, is an uncompromising machine. Even with this in mind I have a couple of bones to pick with the decision makers at Honda. All of these things can be rectified, and on many machines these problems have been corrected.

To RC30 owners these subjects are common knowledge.

Due to the engine configuration and the extremely tight packaging the temperatures in and around the engine are high. Even when riding with proper clothing your right leg gets toasty. With the engine solidly mounted to the frame the frame gets very hot.

The heat is really apparent during street riding. The best way to cool it down is not to shut it off and wait, but to get the speed up above 45 to 50 mph so the radiators can do their thing. The upper radiator has two fans on it but the switch contacts much too late, about at the point where your leg starts smoldering. You could easily wire the fan's power supply in parallel through a switch to take some control of that.

Suggested Solution:   Big radiators. Other things help like improving the fans and their set point and running water (with wetting and corrosion inhibiting agents). This is not a cheap or easy fix. HRC upper rads do not have a tap for the thermostat bleed and have a connection for a bulb type temp gauge that you may or may not need. I like electric gauges myself. HRC rads also do not have brackets for fans, you'll have to add them yourself.

Wrapping the exhaust headers in ceramic heat resistant tape also helps. I did this on my project bike and it is a noticeable improvement.

The petcock knob design and location is by someone getting even with someone, but I don't know the exact reasoning behind such revenge. The knob is difficult to reach and can make street riding interesting if you run low on fuel. I always fill up before I ride it. If I have to switch it to reserve I can do it with my right hand easier than my left even though it is on the left side of the bike. This can be most disconcerting with traffic. Avoid it if you at all can. Possessing some virtues of a contortionist will go a long way here.

Suggested Solution:   The only logical solution is to have an orthopaedic surgeon install two more evenly spaced elbows on your left arm directly below the existing elbow.

The crimp in the exhaust collector. Somebody had to decide in favor of this visual and performance atrocity. He should have been sent down the road talking to his lunchbox. Who knows, maybe he was. I once purchased a pretty nice collector/muffler assembly at a good price because the guy said it was damaged. The uninformed would insist it was crushed as he did. I can live with it just because it is hard to see, but will never fully understand it. There were a lot of aftermarket exhaust systems sold to fix this. This crimp is in the collector part of the muffler unit. It is on the rear cylinders explaining why the rear cylinders run leaner jetting. There is no excuse for this madness.

Suggested Solutions:

1. New Exhaust such as a Ladybird or Termignoni. The only two who still make them.
   
2. Some kind of used race exhaust (HRC, Micron, Kerker, Hindle, etc. etc.) but watch for bent, leaky, crushed or otherwise damaged junk. Some were junk when they were new. Most stuff on eBay is garbage. I'd rather build one than repair some mangled piece of junk.
   
3. Have the offending kink removed by replacing it with a properly formed tube.
   
4. Leave it alone. Runs doesn't it. Who do you think you are anyways!
   

The infamous wheels sizes. See the page about this ever popular topic here.