Kick ass honda v-twin

I of the strom · Post by **I of the strom** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 11:50 am

Nice bike, nice idea.

I have always hankered after a NTV type shafted engine in a Transalp type frame. If Honda had done this in the late 80'sand onwards I believe an awful lot of us would be riding around on them and many of the so called adventure bikes of the last few years would never have made it to market. Also, I wonder how many Beemer GS's would have been sold. Honda really missed a trick there and continue to do so.

Anybody out they with the ability to help create such a great bike let me know - don't tell the wife I'm considering this :whistle:

Tramp · Post by **Tramp** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 12:13 pm

Did not know I was being seriouus :blink:

johnzxr750 · Post by **johnzxr750** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:20 pm

I saw a 650ntv beach racer at weston a good while ago now.before i heard of sjaark lucaason i used to see a german couple come to the dragon every year after doing the elefant on a gsxr11 then same couple in a gsxr11 slingshot they had stickers from several places in africa and most of europe it was the first gsxr with knobblies i had ever seen.it was a bad year weather wise so i had built up a atc back axle onto a dt175 swingarm and then fitted it to my rd350lc then had quad knobblies and did the dragon on it bike could be change from bike to trike in around half an hour was good fun back then
Cheers j :silly:

dodursley · Post by **dodursley** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 3:49 pm

Honda kind of did it in the mid 80's with the XLV750

: hondaxlv750.jpg (92.03 KiB) Viewed 2385 times

mick-b · Post by **mick-b** » Sun Jan 20, 2013 4:03 pm

I of the strom wrote:Nice bike, nice idea.

I have always hankered after a NTV type shafted engine in a Transalp type frame. If Honda had done this in the late 80'sand onwards I believe an awful lot of us would be riding around on them and many of the so called adventure bikes of the last few years would never have made it to market. Also, I wonder how many Beemer GS's would have been sold. Honda really missed a trick there and continue to do so.

Anybody out they with the ability to help create such a great bike let me know - don't tell the wife I'm considering this :whistle:

Funny you should mention it but i have had similar thoughts before, and i just happen to have a 650 Deauville Swing arm with every thing minus the wheel thought about adapting it for my 700 t/a but not sure about how it attach on the engine :woohoo:

I of the strom · Post by **I of the strom** » Mon Jan 21, 2013 1:23 am

I believe the XLV was derived from a dakar bike Honda used to race but both ate drive shafts and rather than beef the shaft up Honda chose to fit the Transalp and Africa Twins with chains. You can understand the lightweight shaft being fitted for competition purposes but a little extra weight in favour of strength wouldn't have hurt on the 'alp or ' twin.

As for how to fit the swingarm to an engine; I'd always imagined having a 'alp rolling chassis and 'dropping' a NTV/Deauville type engine into it, adapting the rear end to suit. Shaft length or lengthening was my main concern as changing the rear of the frame would appear less of an issue compared to assuring appropriate wheel base geometry, assuming some off road capability in terms of wheel base, ground clearance and suspension travel was desirable.

Stuart123456789 · Post by **Stuart123456789** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 9:56 am

bond_yzf wrote:
V_King wrote:
bond_yzf wrote:That is an awesome looking bit of kit,what would be nice would be that twin built into a crf450/250f frame !! bit of fabrication but im sure it could be done
that africa twin engine weights a tone. if you want a lightweight twin in a crosser frame, aprilia makes one, called rxv
The rxv is a beautiful bike but difference being that at motor will outlast most of us were as the rxv wont every single person ive known thats had one has had no end of trouble with them,granted the 450 doesnt seem to be as bad as the 550 but i wouldnt touch one with a barge pole

Aprilia ended up giving me a full refund on my rxv 450 when I started banging on about the sales of goods act, not of merchantable quality etc, it broke down with 3 hrs on the engine, after three months and a further 12 hrs on the engine they accepted that the bike was unrepairable and paid me back,

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Crossrutted · Post by **Crossrutted** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 4:33 pm

Tramp wrote:
No problem getting parts for my Aprilia 550 yet, it's been raced & trailed without issue.

The poor rep comes the early bikes being badly assembled and lack of maintenance.
Given it's state of tune, not surprising it needs TLC.
Lots of urban myths about the V twin Aprilias - i don't care 'cos it sounds superb!

Anyway, back on topic - the Hondas do look nice - pity they didn't leave the factory looking like that!

raymo · Post by **raymo** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 5:54 pm

the XLV was never a Daker bike

It was a revolutionary bike made in two 4000 bike production runs in 1983 and 85 ( the bike in this thread is an 85 Rf model)

this allowed honda to use the casings for the RSX grass tracker that whipped the 750 Harley trackers for years, until they changed the rules to exclude them:-)

the casings are also the basis of the NSX Daker Engine that took Honda to 4 Daker firsts from 1986

both bikes were chain drive

45 degree V same bore & stroke as a 750 Harley but 90 degree offset crank pins so perfect primary balance,:-)

shame the innovations in the XLV were not carried into the Transalp:-
hydraulic tappets so no adjustment

air/oil rear shock so preload with a simple pump

air box integrated into top of frame so air intake right up hight near the head stock

oil filter on top of the right hand engine casing so very easy maintenance

3.5lt of oil with 2 of that in the frame via a huge oil-cooler

Air cooled:- simples

great bike , well ahead of its time and in every head to head test in mags of the 80s it beat the BMW 80G/S hands down

Mr Honda at his best

I of the strom · Post by **I of the strom** » Tue Feb 05, 2013 1:41 am

The late 80's Dakar bikes were, I believe called the NXR 750V and NXR 800V (both recording two wins a piece), and, the story back in the day was that Honda had experimented with a shaft drive derivative but it ate the shafts and, for that reason they didn't pursue shafts when it came to the tamer models - mores the pity as I feel they could have cleaned up.
I also believe that the XLV 750R also ate shafts but sadly I never got to own one so can't say from personal experience. This model was around from '82-3 to '86 whilst the NXR's were '86 to '89. Back then MCN did write about the XLV as being taken from a 'Dakar' bikes design (which I guess didn't see the light of day as in the early 80's Honda raced XR type singles) !

It all started with the excellent VT 500 (shaft) and ended with the chain driven Africa Twin 750's.