1982 Honda FT500 Cruel Sport Hellride

[irk miller]

One of the bikes I brought back from Mid-Ohio was this titled FT500. JustinLonghorn and I are developing a semi-annual tradition of horse trading, with this year’s trade being the FT for a titled 76 GL1000 roller. I think we both did alright, though I think Justin should’ve brought a spare set of wheels and kept the Henry Abes the GL I brought had. He sold the GL at Mid-O with the HA wheels.

After 4 years of looking for the right deal on an FT500, I think I have my ride.

After a purple power soak and hose down, the bike cleaned up reasonably well. It leaned up against a building for a while under an eave, which preserved it a bit, but also encouraged much lichen growth.

So far, it seems mechanically sound. Brakes are frozen and need rebuilt if I want to keep them. The motor has 155psi compression and the starter and gear work flawlessly. Next up is a test for spark.


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[canyoncarver]

Re: 1982 Honda FT500 Cruel Sport Track Hellride

Track?

 

[JustinLonghorn]

Re: 1982 Honda FT500 Cruel Sport Track Hellride

Agreed about the HA wheels, man. For sure.

 

[irk miller]

Re: 1982 Honda FT500 Cruel Sport Track Hellride

We have a runner. Popped an FCR38 on it and it fired up after a few tries. I can’t consistently get the starter solenoid to engage the starter, so I need to look into that.


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[irk miller]

Re: 1982 Honda FT500 Cruel Sport Track Hellride

It's lean and pops, so obviously nowhere near tune, but I think this is enough to prove it's a good runner. And it's straight header, since the pipes literally rusted in half between the header and muffler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HGiEaxC9C8

 

[Pete12]

Good score, very nice, I can see a tracker coming up here.

 

[irk miller]

Maybe too much effort just for an FCR, but I cut out the inside of the frame tube and welded in a curved slice to fill the hole so I could make room for the throttle linkage...

Once I’m confident in the setup, I’ll weld the bracing back in, if necessary.


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[CCRider]

Awesome!!!

 

[spotty]

that carb is totally un-necessary and over the top...keep it up

 

[ridesolo]

Following along. I'll be interested to see how this works out for you, I had one just like this several years ago, The beast was an absolute bear to get started. Once running it got down the road pretty well and was fun to ride. When I left AK it stayed w/ a friend who was going to sell it for me but it was stolen. (Hope they couldn't get it started. ) When I left there I had a three rail trailer and four bikes. the FT is the one that got left behind, largely because if the difficulty getting it to start. Of course now I wish I had left the untitled CB350 instead Oh youth...

 

[Kanticoy]

This project is hosed now. You’ve cut the frame and it’s ruined.

 

[ex119x]

I have built a bunch of these over the past 30+ years. I have some parts laying around if you need something, I may have it. I have a complete front end and wheels, for sure.

Here is my current one. It has a VF750F front end, CBR600F2 wheels and CB700SC shocks (I use these shocks on most of my singles, as they are longer than stock, have adjustable damping, stiffer springs and are cheap on e-bay) My motor on this one is stock with the no name pipe and a VM38.

 

[irk miller]

I have built a bunch of these over the past 30+ years. I have some parts laying around if you need something, I may have it. I have a complete front end and wheels, for sure.

Here is my current one. It has a VF750F front end, CBR600F2 wheels and CB700SC shocks (I use these shocks on most of my singles, as they are longer than stock, have adjustable damping, stiffer springs and are cheap on e-bay) My motor on this one is stock with the no name pipe and a VM38.

Very cool! Hoping the FCR38 works well enough, considering stock is a VB39

 

[ex119x]

Very cool! Hoping the FCR38 works well enough, considering stock is a VB39

I think it will work fine, once you get a decent pipe on there. I had a 38 flat slide on mine before the VM, but some of the rules for some of the race orgs don't allow flat slides and I had the vm sitting around. The Jemco flattrack pipe I had on one of my bikes seemed to make the best power. I think I am going to try to make a headpipe from an XR600 fit and try to run up pipes.

I am thinking about sticking my stock carb on my ironhead sportster to replace the Bendix that is on there.

 

[irk miller]

Now that it’s “winter” in Georgia, I have three projects I’m focusing on. The XS650, a rebuild of my XR200 engine, and this FT500. With talk of a bunch of us joining the Ozarks ride, I plan to build this FT500 with that in mind. This is the last pic before stuff really starts to get taken apart...

 

[Rider52]

The FT will be perfect in the Ozarks!

 

[irk miller]

This is about as far is it goes down. I’ll cut a few thinks off tho.

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[Maritime]

Signing up, Like it so far!

 

[paddyshepherd]

I'll be following this one too. I'm in the UK building an FT500 engined CB250RS cafe racer. So interested to see what you'll be doing to the motor.

So far, I'm using a Dellorto PHM40 round slide carb and will be getting a custom header made - aftermarket availability for the FT over here is non-existent here now. I'm also installing a Wiseco 92mm 10.5:1 piston and converting to kick start with decompression. Finishing off with bigger intake and exhaust valves and a good port job.

As for your starter issues, the motor is probably goosed. They were really inferior and failed early on these. I'd strongly recommend a kick conversion with decompression lever. It's relatively easy to do, you'll need to split the cases if you want to use the stock kick-start return spring though. You can do it without and use an external return spring like old british bikes, but not exactly ideal. Kick assembly can come from any XL/XR 250 engine within 1979 and 1983 I believe. Other years may fit but you'd need to cross reference part numbers to be sure.

 

[irk miller]

I'll be following this one too. I'm in the UK building an FT500 engined CB250RS cafe racer. So interested to see what you'll be doing to the motor.

So far, I'm using a Dellorto PHM40 round slide carb and will be getting a custom header made - aftermarket availability for the FT over here is non-existent here now. I'm also installing a Wiseco 92mm 10.5:1 piston and converting to kick start with decompression. Finishing off with bigger intake and exhaust valves and a good port job.

As for your starter issues, the motor is probably goosed. They were really inferior and failed early on these. I'd strongly recommend a kick conversion with decompression lever. It's relatively easy to do, you'll need to split the cases if you want to use the stock kick-start return spring though. You can do it without and use an external return spring like old british bikes, but not exactly ideal. Kick assembly can come from any XL/XR 250 engine within 1979 and 1983 I believe. Other years may fit but you'd need to cross reference part numbers to be sure.

I appreciate the feedback, but I got it started. Issues were in the wiring and solenoid. The starter itself turns it over just fine. Not sure if you saw the post back there, but I'm running an Keihin FCR38. Took some slight frame modifications, but works very well. FCR's pop up on Ebay pretty cheap all the time in the US.