CB77 Superhawk Build

jsharpphoto

Coast to Coast
I figured now that I'm at the point where i'm actually working on the bike (i've had it since october), I might as well start a project thread. I got this from a friend for next to nothing, with a title. It was "almost" running, meaning that it had been running and then suddenly became "not running" when he tried to customize it.

I'm going to clean it up, trim a lot of fat, and get it drivable. My initial thought was to do whatever possible to get it to do the ton. Honda said the bike would do 99 from the factory. We shall see.

Here's the bike on day one.
 

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So far i've removed the rear fender and tail light assembly, I swapped some dime city club mans instead of the very narrow drag bars, and started working on a new seat. There have been several recent superhawk builds to get some attention, most notably the raw metal one on Pipeburn last year. There have been things about that and other builds that i've liked, but none of them really nailed it for me.

A common trend in restomodding these bikes is removing the iconic components of the superhawk, most often the chrome tank panels. I'm keeping those. There is a "spine" on the tank that goes front to back, that I'm carrying on to the seat design.

I made a mold of the rear of the tank, and then made a new seat hump from that mold. I know that's nothing new, but it seemed to be the best way of continuing that spine and matching the curvature of the tank. It needs a lot of cleanup, sure, but this photo was taken just minutes after pulling it out of the mold, i haven't even cleaned the wax off of it yet.
 

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the original owner (not the previous owner) put the pod filters on it. I can't decide if i'm going to keep them, or the original filters and wrap them with K&N foam. I've heard that these bikes run better with the stock filters.

so far, i've purchased the emgo dunstall mufflers and a 520 chain conversion kit and new sprockets that are better suited to my speed goals.
 
I'm not sure why my photos are appearing upside down or rotated like that. They appear correctly if you click on them to view them full size. I may be lazy, but i'm not THAT lazy.

Tonight i removed the stock mufflers (which are kind of valuable) and i'll put the dunstall replicas on this weekend. I still can't make up my mind about the air filters. I put the side covers back on and it looked kind of silly since i'm not running a rear fender, the side covers don't really cover the whole area, and it's a bit sloppy.
 
I need some advice on my seat design. I built the seat pan to fit appropriately on the frame rails, which it does nicely. Since then, i've decided to remount the side covers after realizing the pods will be awful for performance. I took a picture of the top down view, does it bother anyone else that the air box is wider than the seat?

I can't decide if it looks stupid, or I just FEEL stupid for not anticipating this. If the consensus is that it looks bad, I will widen the seat pan in the appropriate area so it is the same width as the tank, which should be close enough to the width of the air box that it's not noticeable.

I also want to extend the side covers back to the frame brace, and connect them in the back to create the inner fender since i'm not running the stock rear fender.
 

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If you're going to extend the side covers back you should just make new ones and tuck them in. Do like you did with the tank and use the original side covers as a mold. Then either keep the originals in case you decide to go back with them or sell them to a superhawk guy. By the way, superhawks are rad looking bikes straight from the factory.
 
It's OK to keep stock side covers. they look nice. Slight overhang - not a problem. They do on many bikes.

Pods are OK too, but use good pods if you have to go that way. Aftermarket/replica filters are available though.
 
clem said:
superhawks are rad looking bikes straight from the factory.

i agree with you, like 97%. There are several things that I think are iconic about them, specifically the tank and the tilted motor. I'm trying to keep as much of the identity of the bike intact, just changing the ergonomics of it a bit. I'm running clubmans instead of the stock flat drag bars, and i swapped out the seat, and i'm moving the pegs to the rear of three stock positions. How cool is it that Honda thought about making foot controls with adjustable placement? why didn't they keep that on the later bikes.
 
teazer said:
It's OK to keep stock side covers. they look nice. Slight overhang - not a problem. They do on many bikes.

I might end up making molds if i'm going to extend them back to the frame brace, i haven't decided yet. My side covers aren't in great shape, nor is my rear fender, so I wouldn't have a moral problem hacking them up and rewelding them.
 
I absolutely love that bike, and if I lived within 100 miles of a track I would build exactly that, but I would feel quite lame riding that beautiful racer in city traffic.

I will pick your brain when it comes to tuning, for sure. Back to the comment about replica air filters... Teazer, rank these in order of best performance:

Replica air filters with the stock paper
Replica air filters wrapped with UNI foam
Red UNI filters
Real K&N pod or the oval pod filters?

If I'm going to run the side covers, I don't really care how it looks.
 
Thanks. Best filter AFAIK is replica of stock.

I found theses but the price is a bit er high... http://www.apexcycle.com/cb77-007.htm

Try Honda305.com There are some very knowledgeable people over there
 
teazer said:
Try Honda305.com There are some very knowledgeable people over there

Some of them have been very helpful. A surprising number of them have been pretty rude to me since I'm not doing a nut-and-bolt restoration on it. Purists are hard to please, so I don't even try.
 
I forgot to mention that :-( There are a couple that seem to be very terse, but are OK when you get to know them. It's like anywhere, it takes a while to get to know people and to work out how to work with them.
 
I'm sure it's the same with any "scene". They see a new guy come around and say he's going to destroy what they think is perfect, they are bound to meet that with resistance.
 
Run velocity stacks on the carbs, Hondas slash cut meagaphones from their kit and get a megacycle cam. These three engine mods (plus the KYB 5 speed trans) allowed us to reach a top speed of 110mph on Brainerd's 1 mile long straightaway in the 70's. Slow on acceleration but really good top end when you let it breathe. You'll get your 100mph easy! Love that bike!!
 
CYB 5 speed trans breaks at around 42hp. Fortunately the NOVA one does not. On the street be wary of full race cams. When I raced that bike, we tried every available cam from Norris, Wade, HRC and eventually Megacycle. On the street a mild cam helps and a 350 kit does more than anything to perk up the motor. It all costs though.

Avoid open megs - they are painfully noisy and are illegal at most tracks now, so they are way the wrong side of usable on the street. Back in the day one of the magazines did some tests and a fairly stock bike was fastest with stock OEM mufflers.

For the street a stock motor is a good place to start. With enough cash you can reach around 130MPH. For 90k you can buy one that's even faster :)

Kemp, good to get another perspective from a CB77 rider/racer
 
I'm going to run a pretty stock setup, with the acception of the emgo pipes. I have to sell the OEM pipes to fund the rest of the build. I'm going to cross the gears in the tranny, and I'll be running a 520 chain conversion and some overall weight-loss. It should be a fun bike on the street and short trips on the highway.

I live in Dallas, which is 3 hours from the closest town worth riding to. I'm not the type of person that wants to ride 3 hours WOT on a small bike. So that means this bike won't leave the Dallas-ft worth area, an in town quick bike. Quick, not fast.
 
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