EVERYBODY KNOWS THE HONDA CBX IS fast. But after a while, maybe you tell yourself a bedtime story: You've adapted to the way the CBX flattens jowls and unfurls fingers during acceleration. Try climbing off your stock 24-valver and getting on an American Turbo- Pak turbocharged CBX, and you'll be dealt a new sensation-alarm. Even for those used to the straight-line G-forces that today's one-liter Superbikes can generate, the ATP Honda is breathtaking. Utilizing "street" muffler baffles and eight-pounds-per-square-inch intake manifold boost, the six-cylinder will unquestionably put you over backwards in first, second or third gear; and depending on your riding ability, the bike can hustle down the quarter-mile in 10 seconds and rush past the timing clocks at over 140 miles per hour - with stock tires, gear ratios, handlebars and shock absorbers. Pee Wee Gleason, American Turbo-Pak's competition rider, took the CBX for a practice run down Orange County International Raceway's drag strip in 10.23 seconds at 146.10 miles per hour; Cycle's tester managed to make a 10.73-second, 138.88 mph warm-up effort. Considering that Honda's original CBX handily knocked the high- performance world right off its axis, the American Turbo-Pak version may seem like a solution to a problem nobody had. Many riders find it impossible to use a stock CBX to its full potential; they won't need a turbo that runs up to 30 mph, faster in the quarter. Obviously, nobody needs a turbocharged Honda six. Only the most aggressive techno-philes are likely to own stock CBXs, and adding an ATP kit to one simply proves one, two or three points: you race a CBX; you're an incurable hardware junkie; you have something to prove.
