Honda CB 450 T

[Eurodave]

Heres some pix of what I did to my CB450 a wee while ago

[Mr Merde]

Very nice job


Mr

[Eurodave]

Why, thankyou sir , FYI I made the fibreglass tank & seat, designed the pipe patterns then got them mandrel bent & made the alloy 'beauty plates' .The swingarm is now 3" longer, I added another front disc , got the wheels rechromed/respoked, polished a lot of the alloy bits at home & resprayed it too

[Mr Merde]

Why, thankyou sir , FYI I made the fibreglass tank & seat, designed the pipe patterns then got them mandrel bent & made the alloy 'beauty plates' .The swingarm is now 3" longer, I added another front disc , got the wheels rechromed/respoked & sprayed it too

Reminds me so much of the US dirt trackers of the late 70's. Is this what you intended? If so IMHO you have suceeded.


Mr

[Eurodave]

Yep, that was the idea, I originally wanted to do this to an XS650 Yamaha, but the CB came up 1st at a very good price

[jimbo]

Know of any going for sale anywhere then?

I am getting what I wanted from this thread,


information and ideas.

Mate of mine may be flicking a rough SR soon.Will pm you if it happens

[Motu]

Even got the K70's,they were a favorite flattrack tyre in the '70's.

[Paul in NZ]

Heres some pix of what I did to my CB450 a wee while ago

Niiiccceee Dave..

Mines more complete but buggered anyway. Have you had the engine apart?

Paul N (ps the LM2 seats holding up OK btw - managed the long SI trip and Vicki is still talking to me)

[xwhatsit]

Heres some pix of what I did to my CB450 a wee while ago

Faaaark that's nice. Love your work. Is that road legal?

[moko]

450/500 motor has an unusual torsion spring set-up rather than the usual springs.All the parts of the valve set-up are individually matched and if you mix them up you'll get in all kinds of trouble.Motor should rev to 12,000 in standard trim for short bursts without exploding but the 500s were pretty notorious for being badly thrown together and they dont seem to last anything like as well as the 450,including the motor.General opinion of the bike press here was that stretching it to 500 was too much,whenever a bike mag runs a "worst ever bike" feature the old 500T is always in there along with the XS250 Yam and the other "usual suspects".
Think for what you're looking at doing I'd be considering something like a GPZ500 motor,you're already 10 bhp up on the Honda without touching it in bog standard form and the whole project will be a lot simpler,more info available,easier parts availability e.t.c.You could spend a lot of time and effort just getting your old Honda up to stock Kawa performance.If you were just looking at a bit of fun then what the hell,you'd have fun whatever you ran and however quickly you got it to go but if you're serious about that record then you dont really want to start with something so out-dated.The original Balck Bomber was an amazing bike in it's day but that day has gone and bikes have moved on tremendously.As a historic racer or to renovate yes but I'd want something a whole lot more modern if speed and reliability is essential.

[pete376403]

How about a Triumph Daytona - they are nothing special as motors go but there is a shitload of hot up bits and information to make them go. They would prolly be a lot more expensive than the Honda.

OR if you were to consider a 500 single - current speedway motors are powerful. lightweight and physically pretty strong

[Paul in NZ]

How about a Triumph Daytona - they are nothing special as motors go but there is a shitload of hot up bits and information to make them go. They would prolly be a lot more expensive than the Honda.

OR if you were to consider a 500 single - current speedway motors are powerful. lightweight and physically pretty strong

True - but Honda 450's can be found for nothing and Daytonas cost a fortune. Besides, the 450's a cool looking engine and it's not about going really fast, it's about looking like it may have gone fast... once...

[Eurodave]

Have you had the engine apart?

Not yet, still need to rewire everything, so havnt fired it up yet, has got good compressions though

[Eurodave]

Faaaark that's nice. Love your work. Is that road legal?

Not quite legal yet, still a little bit of finishing work to do, but soon.......

[nudemetalz]

I've got those "Cycle World Road Tests" books which in the Hinda one has about 3 road tests on the then new 450's.
The very first ones that came out were 360 degree cranks but were very quickly changed to 180 degree cranks (ala GPz500).

I'm happy to photocopy/lend these articles as they describe the 450 motor in great detail.
Nice looking machine if you got one and restored to mint.