Honda XR 125 to 150 minimum

[aezakmi12]

Hello,

I have a Honda XR 2005 23k miles. I want to buy a used or new (if its cheap) engine that is stronger generally than 125cc one. I thought about getting the bike to 200cc, but which engine will fit? I can buy anything above 150cc if 200cc are too big.

Also what else would be there to replace because of the engine change?

Please HELP and thanks for HELP ;]

[el_oso]

firstly why? buy a new bike that has a stronger engine.

to answer your question, you'll need the proper license first off. Need to get the extended MOT thing done as it's had an engine change. You'll need some carbs that fit the new engine and maybe some electrics that tells things when to spark etc etc.
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Duke 390
Previous: '05 XR125L | '96 XJ600S Diversion |'05 Suzuki GSXR1000 | '05 Honda CBR125-R | '97 YZF 600R Thundercat | '11 Honda CBR250
Car: Jeep Wrangler 4.0L

[aezakmi12]

will i need a licence for that or just CBT is enough ?

[Ste]

Your CBT allows you to ride a 125, anything bigger and you need a full license.

[CaNsA]

[aezakmi12]

ok thanks, but please tell me what engine bigger than 125cc will fit in honda XR 125 and what else I would need to add together with the engine so all works fine?
anyone know?

[Ste]

[aezakmi12]

i will have a bigger engine than 125cc but it will be registered as 125cc... PLEASE help ;]

[stevew]

[DRZ4Hunned]

[stevo as b4]

I can't blame him at all to be honest. It's just some kids think it's easy to swap in different engines and that everything is plug and play these days!

let's talk 17yr olds with a few quid to spend, who have done their test on say a nice shiny Yam YZF125R with all the trick looks and nice spec. Now said kid is stuck with 14.6bhp for 2long years now until another lot of tests can be taken on a totally different bigger machine that the rider will not have, just to get spoon fed the A2 47bhp license for another 2years?

It makes little and next to no sense for such a rider to keep jumping through these ever more expensive hoops for just a bit more freedom at a time in little controlled steps that Europe says he or she can have. Fuck all that they might well be thinking.

Ok well back to kid with his shiny nearly new and well looked after YZF125R. say he wants to look after it because for now it's pride and joy (the best thing he can legally have) and he'd like to keep a good re-sale value for when he gets the next/bigger bike.

But what if this kid is either skilled with the spanners and home maintenance, or has the cash to look after the bike and treat it, and pay for good quality work to be done unlike most first generation 125cc 17yr olds.

Now he might hear of a 170/180/200 whatever it is big bore tuning kit for the type of motor he has. Lets say he can afford such a kit and all the ancillaries, cams/injectors, ECU, exhaust etc etc. And lets assume even more that the conversion kit is of a high quality and that the original engine can take it, or that there are strengthened internals available to make sure it can.

Now this flash 125 owner suddenly has say a 20-22bhp 170-200cc bike that was all professionally built and set up, and he can get more fun and smiles out of his well maintained flashy 125 (well that's what it says on the fairings) for 2years and enjoy a better bike that in some cases can handle the extra power with ease like many well specced sporty 125's can with big brakes, good suspension and over sized tyre's for the bike's needs.

Hell in some cases, such a tuned machine might allow the said person to think you know what? This is ok, it's better that it was as std and I can live with this a few more years. In fact I can live with it quite happily until I am old enough and or have the cash to do DAS and get a big bike that I really want. And even to think you know what? I can happily stick two finger's up to the Brussels licensing shit and all the hoops they want me to jump through for progressively bigger and better bikes, by staying on this one until I can take the training and tests for any damn bike I like.

I'm not saying I agree with the legal implications if said rider keeps bike registered and insured as a std 125 with no mods, but I do like the cheating of the system that says you will face 2years of 14.6bhp because the anti bike licensing legislation says you will.

[stevew]

[G]

Why not sell it and get a 125 2 stroke?

Appropriate models will make more power than a 250cc trail 4 stroke and you'll still have an insurance certificate for a 125cc - along with less obvious 'modifications'.

[stevo as b4]

G I know you would say that, but I also think that in 2015 your advice of due tempi machinery is over 10years too late?

You can't get new or nearly new, or hell even well looked after sporty 2strokes in most cases now, and if you could find a nice looked after and well maintained one, it would cost you too much due to rarity. Your get a 2smoke advice assumes all 17yr olds with a few quid can go out and buy a nice immaculate well sorted 10year old stroker and be done with it. My issues with this are:

1, There just ain't enough of these clean tidy, mature owner looked after 2strokes to go around so that everyone can have one.

2, You are into paying nostalgia prices for some of them now, and the best or most trick ones, or the very last ones will be over priced for the amount of bike they offer.

3, If say you want a 125cc bike to last you four years from age 17-21, then that's a big ask of many two strokes if you do say 5-8k miles a year or more? You can only re-build fast highly strung two strokes so many times, before things like bearing housings, and crank pins etc start to wear.

4, You might want a bike that could do better speed than a 15bhp four stroke 125, but one that would still last 20'000miles or more without pissing around with engine re-builds etc?

[G]

When I've looked fairly recently there's been plenty of options in decent nick.
Luckily a lot of people don't want a 2 stroke and would prefer a heavy Chinese 4 stroke with questionable parts.

Nostalgia prices only seem to be being offered by dreamers for particularly shiny options.

If we're talking something like a DT125 (Currently 18 on ebay compared to 15 XR125s) given a decent service and looked after I'd expect it'd last just fine.

Compared to the option of bodging a different engine into the not-amazing XR chassis, it definitely seems by far the better one to me - presuming OP is <19 years old, at least.

[Teflon-Mike]

Ultimate answer is, that with enough determination, you could fit just about ANY engine you want into an XR125 chassis.... there's folk that have stuffed GGXR1100 engines into Pit-Bikes.. if you want to get completely 'daft'... all you need is a welder and a a bit of know-how.... question is WHY would you want to?

The Honda XR125 is a CG125 utility-commuter in 'off-road' overalls, and a marketing 'con-trick', when they slapped the legendary 'Competition-Only' XR badge on it! ....

Honda's original knobly-shod 'Street-Scrambler' was a variant of the CB125S, over-head-cam single, dating to the early 1970's, called the SL125, and it made almost 13bhp. That evolved into the On-Off-Road XL125, in the late '70's, still with the reasonably powerful OHC engine, and spawned a competition trials version, the TL125, which got a bit of HRC intervention and some exotic materials to get the weight down on a par with rival two-strokes.

They did a similar thig with the 250 single, that got offered as the CB250RS road-bike, the XL250 'trail' bike, and the TLR125 competition trials; but in a bid to keep 4-strokes in the game in racing competition HRC got thier hands on that, and the 500, to create the XR series for 'Enduro', which at one point I recall they wouldn't sell you, unless you showed them a competition licence, as they didn't actually meet the C&U regs to be sold as a 'road-bike'; buyers had to buy them as a competition machine, then self-register them for the road as a 'special'!!

Hence the 'con' when they stick such a 'name' onto what is basically cost-cutting exercise on the already 'cheap' CG125...

But, point is, the XR125 is what it is; a low-cost 'dirt-bike-style' utility commuter, with low-power and low maintenance push-rod single engine... if you don't want a low-power, low-cost, low-maintenance, dirt-bike style commuter.... DON'T BUY ONE!!!

Sure you can bore out the CG engine, and in fact Honda did, to make the CG150 sold in Brazil and Asian markets... that has spawned some of the 'big-bore' kits and larger displacement push-rod single engines used in some pit-bikes and quads and stuff from China...

BUT... they are still low-power-low-cost, low maintenance engines, and the very BEST of them, as far as power goes, don't make much more power than you can have on a Learner-Licence... they just have more space in the cylinder, that you aren't!

Honda CL125 'City-Fly'.. Honda's sort of factory-motard 125, with a 'nod' at the original 1970's 'Street-Scrambler', did at least get the XL125's more powerful over-head-cam engine; and with 13bhp that is a good 30% more than the XR was endowed with, without breaching Learner-Licence regs in any way. Also got slightly better chassis bits, I believe, and they aren't exactly expensive or sort-after... but, one of MANY motorcycles, that are still 125cc and have more power than an XR125 does.....

WHY re re-inventing the wheel, when there is one in the shop window for sale, probably for less money than the bits you'd have to buy to try make your own?

If you want to try cheat the system, and have more than you are allowed on your licence.. well, why be hung for a lamb as a sheep; as G says, go buy a two-stroke, that could have 20-odd HP and a 125 badge on the side, or buy a 500 ad change the badges and number-plate... its all just as illegal! (And a damn site easier).

Only other reason for trying to fit a big engine to an XR125, would be a 'Salvage exercise' 'cos the one that's in it be buggered..

Begging the suggestion, where would a replacement engine come from, and answer, probably from another buggered bike... which begs further question; why take engine from buggered bike, and try graft it into a bike with buggered engine it don't belong in, why not just 'fix' the buggered bike it DOES belong in... Or fix buggered engine in un-buggered bike.... likely to be less 'hassle' in the long run, trying to match electrical systems and exhausts and carbs and 'stuff' that were ever designed to be bolted together... all you have to do is follow the instructions i the Haynes manual... unlike trying to build a Pit-bike round a GSXR1100 engine, where you have to make it all up as you go along....
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[stevo as b4]

My only issue is that say a decent minded 17yr old completes a CBT and then does the right thing and passes his A1? test on a 125cc <15bhp bike, so that he don't need silly L-plates and is fully licensed up and out gaining road experience daily on his nice smart 125cc bike.

Where is the Carrot or the reward for passing the test and doing the right thing? Sure the test training and passing a test gives you a higher level of road qualification than winging it on CBT's for ever more, but apart from losing the L-plates, what do you get back out of it for all the cost of the training and test fee's etc. A bit cheaper insurance granted, but shouldn't there be more than that?

If you pass a test and have the right attitude to want to be fully licensed etc, then to me that could mean you are a bit more competent and sensible?

Why is there no reward in terms of being able to have a bit more bike for the 2years until age 19 if you do everything right? Is a forced 14.6bhp for two years a really good move, and does it make for better riders later, or just turn off more people from biking or working up to dream bike etc.

If the best you can hope for after 2careful years of 14.6bhp bikes is a license for another 2years of 47bhp bikes (with a strict power/weight limit) then it does seem somewhat unfair to me that a decent and sensible person needs to do 3lots of tests and wait over 4years of riding bikes to get onto the bikes they really want?