Those pics of Yamaha's new sport quad looked very interesting, if they're real. Word is that Honda has been seen testing a new sport quad. If the rumor mill can be believed it is said that Honda
has been testing a 500cc 2 stroke. Either this is true or the guy who thought he saw this was sucking too many fumes at the back of the pack!

 

Could it be the engine for this machine is using a derivative of the engine described at the following URL.

www.motorcycle.com/mo/mchonda/exp2_tech.html

 

It does seem off'ly quite over there at big red.

 

yea maybe its the cr500 engine in a all new 250r style frame. that would be sweet.

 

It would be nice, but I doubt that it would happen. But anything is possible.

 

It could have also been somebody with a CR500 powered TRX250R... I think that one of the mags was doing a test on such a machine in Cali.

 

I agree a 500cc 2-stroke would be to good to be true.

In the Honda forum their is a post from someone who has a buddy in the U.S. Navy and was stationed in Tokyo, Japan early this year. It just so happened that he was there during the Tokyo Motorcycle show. He reported seeing a 650EX. He also said that it had an aluminum perimeter frame, and the engine appreared to be a XR650R engine.

In my opinion it would make sense that Honda would be developing a 650EX to compete with Bombardier's DS650 and Yamaha's new sport ATV (which to me looks like the 660cc, DOHC, 5-valve, liquid cooled, Gensis motor that they make the German motorcycle manufacturer MZ).

In its current state a CR500 engine would vibrate too much, and would have to have a counter-balancer to minimize the vibration, like the original TRX250R's have. The tooling costs would be much. A new set of die-cast tooling for the case halves alone would not pay for themselves on such a small production run.

This is why I think it is more likely we will see a big bore 4-stroke from the Big Red company.

I hope Honda proves my wrong.

Just my opinions,
John

 

If honda is working on a new sport 500 ,2 stroke is must be a marvel. the reason for the lack of 2 strokes is the emissions on these machines.

 

i dont get it they still make 2-stroke dirt bikes so why not quads????

 

Yes, but even the dirtbikes are slowly turning to 4 strokes. The YZ426F is a good example. Along with the soon to be released bike from Cannondale that has the same 400 engine that the FX400 has. That bike is also going to compete with 2 stroke 250's.