Upgrade to enjoy this feature!
Vital MX fantasy is free to play, but Premium users receive great benefits. Premium benefits include:
- View and download rider stats
- Pick trends
- Create a private league
- And more!
Only $10 for all 2026 SX, MX, and SMX series.
Not to sound all sappy but one of the things I enjoy most, about this build, is being able to share it with my fellow Moto enthusiasts.
So I am honestly grateful and happy you all are enjoying it as much as me! And feel lucky I can do this build and share 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Still some cool updates to come... 😁
The black coating on the HRC steel shift levers is done by Passivation. It is a process that creates a thin top layer that is non-reactive to the elements such as water and air. However, it wears off really quickly from your boots.. as fast as cheap paint if not faster, so my guess is that HRC just used it to keep the parts from rusting on the shelf. Coatings were not as advanced as today. The Dow coating used on the HRC clutch covers also wears off quickly and I believe it is just to keep the magnesium cover from reacting with the elements.
Good catch on the "101" length. However, the HRC foot pegs come in different offsets, so if you are right, we would have to assume it is relative to a zero offset foot peg, I suppose.
mike
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
Free shipping: VITALMX
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
That would seem silly if true because that steel shift lever is so darn heavy compared to the OEM part.
This first generation is basically a higher quality version (billet body, Kashima coatings, etc...) of the OEM unit.
Disassembled
Internally I notice these differences from the OEM unit:
Piston a different shape and shim surface faced
Shaft seal head is screwed in vs held in by a circlip. Also a different design.
I have not taken apart the adjuster. Need to order some OEM o-rings for the rebuild. Hopefully they'll fit.
My understanding is that both can be used to create a black coating, but the Parkerizing is much more durable. Black passivation is just the creation of a black oxide coating. This wears off really quickly which is also the case with the HRC shift levers.
mike
The switch at the moment is just for looks. It's not hooked up to anything but fully capable to be used in the future once I find the appropriate ECU (either HRC or maybe a GET).
Actual HRC switch on the 2015 Honda HRC MXGP bike
My bike and HRC replica
In 2016 Tim Gajser rode for a HRC satellite team, Team Gariboldi. Although this team wasn't the official HRC MXGP team at the time, Tim's bike was a full works machine. He eventually went on to win the MX1 Championship.
Since Team Gariboldi wasn't the official HRC team, they used a number of different parts compared to the HRC bikes. Exhaust being one of them (Yoshimura vs FMF on the HRC bikes) and radiators made by Febur.
Febur is an Italian company (Gariboldi an Italian based team) and is mostly known in the street bike world.
Tim Gasjer 2016 CRF450RW at the USGP showing the Febur radiator
One notable feature of all the HRC works bike's (2013-2016),when it comes to the radiators, is the routing of the bottom crossover hose. The CRF450R OEM bike has the crossover hose going OVER the exhaust header while the works bikes have the hose going UNDER the exhaust. This is a very important detail when building an accurate HRC replica bike. So I was very happy getting a set of these radiators!
My Febur HRC spec radiators
A challenge in using these radiators was finding the appropriate crossover hose since the routing is different than OEM. The OEM spec CV4 hose would not work. Finding the appropriate HRC hose was not happening so I had to resort to using something that would just work! And it had to be a blue CV4 hose to make matters more difficult.
After a lot of Google image searching (just trying find a CRF that had a hose of similar shape and length, stock) and little luck. I came across a blue set of CV4 hoses for a 2009 CRF450R on eBay. The crossover hose isn't perfect but when mounted up it looks just fine.
I previously had a set of Fluidyne radiators mounted on the bike. The Febur set is overall an higher quality set of radiators. It's hard to show in pictures but the Febur cooling fin area is just way more higher quality. Also the Fluidyne radiators are way thicker in comparison to the Febur. Probably more suited for off-road type riding than motocross.
The Febur set also have built in reinforcements. Nice!
Febur vs Fluidyne
The only issue I ran into was the Febur radiator tubing was a slightly larger diameter than OEM. This made sliding on the OEM spec CV4 hoses a challenge. But in the end it worked out... I will keep my fingers crossed that I can get a set of blue HRC Samco hoses. Or have a set made to the correct spec as some of you have suggested.
A little titanium bling to top it off 😁👍
I still have some pretty cool parts on the way... updates to follow my friends!
That said, Corné from Vintagehonda.nl made some beautiful CNC billet aluminum carriers and I knew it would be a great addition to my bike.
Beautiful work Corné!
Just adds a real nice finishing touch to the rear wheel. In this picture you can also see the HRC rear rotor bolts (with their tiny bolt heads) and the HRC wheel spacers (with the unique "gold" color). The HRC rear hub anodizing is amazing... such a nice red.
Another cool piece acquired from vintagehonda.nl A HRC titanium kickstarter bolt to match the HRC titanium kickstart knuckle. Always loved how this particular bolt looked on the factory bikes. Happy to get one!
A Works SHOWA BFRC shock
I honestly gave up hope in getting this shock awhile ago. So in the meantime I was lucky in finding the "traditional" Works SHOWA shock. A beautiful piece in itself! But this Showa BFRC is just another level of awesomeness! Plus it's the type of shock the HRC MXGP bikes used (more on that shortly) and the type of bike I'm trying to replicate.
Beauty and The Beast
The Showa BFRC has gone through a couple of versions (body style) and revisions (main adjuster style) over the years for Honda. I would call my shock version 1.2
Will post more about this shock and the versions later.
Pit Row
Any updated full bike pics to share?
Since the body design, near the upper shock mount area, is significantly larger than the OEM design. The OEM bolt and nut will not work. Basically the OEM design has the bolt with rectangular shaped head slide in from the right side of the shock. And then a traditional nut on the other side.
This is not possible with this shock. The body doesn't provide enough clearance for the bolt. So the bolt has to come in from the other side.
From the pictures above, you can see that a traditional nut will not work. So I'll have to get a "triangle" shaped nut made. Which is exactly what the factory HRC teams used. Yeah... I can't claim I came up with the solution haha.
If you zoom in on the picture (This is Tim Gajser's 2016 HRC bike. You can also see he's using the last/latest version of the BFRC shock) you can see the triangle shaped nut used by HRC.
Well that's issue number one of three with this shock getting it mounted. The other two involves the clevis design and the fitment of the side panels (none of these are real challenges). I'll post more on that soon.
mike
Vey unlikely the springs are titanium since as much as builders would like to lighten the valve train to prevent "valve float" with more aggressive cam profiles, titanium is not a good material for valve springs. The valve retainers, keepers are likely titanium and perhaps even the valves themselves might even be titanium (would be interested to know that!). Titanium is also not a good idea for the lifters unless you can prevent the titanium riding on the cam lobe. Titanium galls too easily and would destroy the cam lobe unless you can prevent metal to metal contact. I wonder if DLC coating would be enough to prevent that for at least one race day. I don't know.
You do not want the intake polished as the machine marks help with atomization, but interesting they did not polish the exhaust port as that can help with exhaust flow.
All my 4-stroke knowledge comes from building race car engines, although I believe much of it should apply to these engines. Would be interesting to learn if anything is different.
mike
Post a reply to: 2016 HRC Team Honda CRF450RW