Posts
12476
Joined
8/16/2006
Location
Sacramento, CA
US
Fantasy
4231st
Edited Date/Time
2/6/2016 6:43pm
New, unstarted 79 CR250 "E" ignition engine I just picked up. 
Pics from the seller.
Apparently a family member of the seller bought it from a dealer, fins already broken, in the early 80s for a cart project, then shelved and never used it. I'm thinking it arrived at the dealer with shipping damage from Honda and they swapped it out or broke the bike down for parts.
You just never know when stuff turns up. There can't be a lot of it out there, but something always seem to pop up (90% going to Newmann usually). This should use up my score allotment for the next ten years.
Pics from the seller.
Apparently a family member of the seller bought it from a dealer, fins already broken, in the early 80s for a cart project, then shelved and never used it. I'm thinking it arrived at the dealer with shipping damage from Honda and they swapped it out or broke the bike down for parts.
You just never know when stuff turns up. There can't be a lot of it out there, but something always seem to pop up (90% going to Newmann usually). This should use up my score allotment for the next ten years.
Sorry I haven't replied to your email but my piece of shit not so smart phone is having issues with replies.
Wow awesome score Mike, are you going to put it on the fireplace mantel or on the coffee table?
The Shop
John
Gary, I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. Probably my usual rare NOS bit where you fret about actually using it (at which point not NOS) or fantasize about some super restoration that, given my pace at the one bike I'm trying to do, no way in hell is going to happen. So it'll probably stay in the box, I'll die, and they'll take it to Goodwill or dump it in the trash.
How many cool things have been toasted that way? I think display or some garage queen probably. Odds are better I don't use it and swap it for something else down the road.
But no way could I pass it up. It was completely "buy it because you'll never see that again." What's funny is that it had gone two cycles unsold on Ebay already and I was the only bidder in the third auction. Joe told me to take the gun I don't have.
I'm not sure I could have swung it right now if I had had to have it shipped, but since they were only a couple hours away in the central valley (literally on the farm) it made sense to just pick it up.
It's also weird because for years I had been collecting stuff here and there to build an engine from NOS parts. I had most of the majors ~ center cases, kicker, head, crank, complete clutch, OEM pistons, some transmission bits and access to the rest ~ but lacked a barrel and side case. The old chrome cylinders are gold, realized that it really didn't make sense and sold of the center cases and kicker (ouch on the latter) late last spring. Vintage collecting is weird. There's a NOS 79 cylinder listed on eBay now for more than I paid for the entire engine (still a fair bit though). Go figure. I'm think people just saw an engine with broken fins and a high shipping rate and skated by not realizing it was new. Like I said, my score quota is way overdrawn for probably the rest of my life.
Good story and a lot of truth in there.
I know the feeling when there is something out there that you don't really need but you can't possibly pass it up and let some other sucker have it so you buy it.
And I must agree you did the right thing as those are the prettiest production motors ever made--work of art.
If nothing else for now try to make some cool stand for it.
Some nice wood and make it a cool conversation piece for that dinner party......
Well, when a NOS CR250R engine has been listed on Ebay three times and not sold there has to be something weird going on. Just didn't want you to end up as someone's pet in a cage.
As far as where the engine came from, there was a list fifteen or so years ago of a bunch of complete engines in the Honda warehouse system. Also, Mark Holloway of Marks Swapmeet sold me the 77 CR125M NOS engine that came from a mini storage sale off/auction of all the inventory of a motorcycle mechanics school that never quite got off the ground. Honda had donated dozens of leftover engines.
The E ignition stuff is part of the CR250 lore, in part because the claimed Hangtown 79 Tripe’s bike was running that version, and also it got played up in the Fox manual. I don't know that any of it has really been sorted out. There is a discussion of it in the Fox Honda manual
The 78 models gave options for a A, B and C ignition, which utilized matched components (stator, flywheel and cdi) and gave you a crude sort of mapping option like you see in the map switch on some modern bikes . My recollection is that there was a rev limiter on the early ones, and then in 79 they release new models without rev limiters, represented as D, E, and F (could be the other way around on the rev limiter). I have never seen a D or F, but the E took on some sort of myth status as the one to have because that's what the factory used. You can see the Letter stamp on the CDI tab, flywheel, and on an external tab on the stator case at about 7 oclock. If there is no stamp on stator case it designates an '80 ignition, which is different and likely accounts for the taming down of the engine in 1980; I don't think the port timing on the barrels differs between 79 and 80, just that Honda went with a centerport barrel in 80 with the new twin downtube frame.
Of course, they went to watercooling in 81, and they must have had a fair few of the engines around, some of which got redirected to the short lived flat track program for short trackers (got a works clutch basket from someone who tore down an old short tracker) and the first atv's (albeit with different centercases). Pretty sure most of the Mugen 360 kits for the 80 bikes ended up on ATV's.
Logically, if it were out of a frame, it would have a serial#.
Replacement engines did not have numbers stamped in them as far as I can remember.
CR have bridged exhaust port
Pit Row
Me too, except it was a '78 Husky CR 250. Which was the biggest pile of a motocrosser I ever owned. With hind sight the Honda, the YZ and the KX were all great motorcycles in 1978. And would have been light years better than my Husky.
Very cool score on your new engine. Thanks for sharing.
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