Honda Crf450r

HONDA CRF450R

Long-Term Wrap-Up

GIVING ALL IT's GOT

BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD, our long-term 2003 Honda CRF450R is ticking like a clock-and that isn’t a description of the noises coming from its engine! After a costly oversight and resultant meltdown in the 24 Hours of Glen Helen, we decided to rebuild it as though we were going to race it again.

Sparing no expense on parts, we replaced the crank, cylinder, piston, rings, valves and anything to do with the camchain, did all the labor ourselves and surprisingly came out only $1400 lighter in the wallet.

We could have patched it up with just a piston and rings, but why cheap out on a bike that is still kickin’ in every other area?

So, how did we end up with a brandnew, year-old dirt bike? Forty hours into its long-term life, our

“I’m 38 years old, have owned a lot of bikes and get to ride everything out there. The CRF is the best overall bike I’ve ever ridden. Period.” -Blair Gardner, Marietta, Ohio

CRF did a one-off stint as a supermoto machine (oh, what fun!), after which it was subjected to weekly motocross practice days and the occasional weekend race. Not to mention a steady diet of off-road GPs, including the 6, 12 and 24 Hours of

Glen Helen. Come the latter, we threw in a new clutch, switched to Dunlop D739 tires with heavy-duty MX tubes and installed a 48-tooth rear sprocket for a higher top speed. We recommend this gearing for any type of fast MX or GP work, especially when running a White Brothers Carbon Pro Race Series pipe ($896), which is the only pipe we’ve tried that we like better than the stocker. We swapped back to the stock pipe for the longer races, because the WB pipe wasn’t designed to last that long. But neither is the stocker if it’s left loose and gets smashed up, like ours did during the 12-Hour! We found a replacement on eBay for $25. As for the 24-Hour, everything went well until around midnight, when the team mechanic went to sleep. In retrospect, we believe the coolant level got low and the motor to run hot, finishing off the rest of the coolant. Watch that impeller-shaft seal! The motor then started to eat oil, and when it started to make bad noises, we parked it. We got it restarted to cross the finish line and collect our finishers’ pins, but we didn’t deserve them.

Back home, we tore the engine apart to reveal that although there wasn’t much oil left in it, the only severely damaged parts were the camchain tensioner, piston and rings. Though everything got really hot (the sparkplug cap actually melted!), the Honda HP4 engine oil did its job and protected the running surfaces of critical parts such as cam lobes, bigand small-end bearings and valve guides. It was messy, but it wasn’t as bad as we’d feared.

Quotes from the logbook

Corey 3 I found the Honda to

be a great machine. With a green sticker and a little less moto-focused gearbox, I could see a CRF derivative replacing my mighty KTIVI520 E/XC. All in all, an amazing motorcycle.

JimmyLe love everything about this bike except changing the air filter. I still haven’t figured out how to do that without getting dirt in the intake boot.

Brian CattersonThe Glen Helen 6Hour went great with the exception of me getting a flat front tire in the first hour, which cost our team two laps that we never regained. Aside from that, the CRF was flawless.

Fortunately, working on the CRF is a breeze. Everything is pretty easy to get to, in or out, save putting the engine back in the frame; that’s a bit tricky. And it fired right up when we were finished, running just like it did before we ruined it. Most likely it was time for a rebuild anyway; our 24-Hour fiasco just forced the issue.

Some CRF owners we spoke to had issues with their spokes coming loose, which seemed to stem from letting them get way too loose once and never getting the wheel true again. Others complained that first gear was a bit too tall, but this mostly came from trail riders. The CRF was never designed as a trailbike, so we can’t criticize it for that; we’d just recommend lower gearing. Or waiting for the forthcoming CRF450X.

As for aftermarket parts, we liked Stomp traction pads for their added grip on the frame rails and airbox covers, and managed the whole year with a set of FMF 909 aluminum handlebars. We chose Acerbis replacement plastic for our beat-up stock stuff, White Brothers graphics and Rally II handguards to protect our hands and levers. But we really liked the ACN Machining handguard clamps that securely hold the guards in place with plenty of room for the cables.

Aside from us being a bit neglectful (read: dumb) when it came time to check the oil level during an endurance race, our CRF was everything we wanted it to be and more. It’s totally competitive with current MX bikes, and feels pretty tight considering what it’s been through. And that’s been a lot! E3

$6299