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Today's featured Honda CX500 build has something a little special about it - forced induction. And no, not the factory kind - the bolt on kit kind. The brainpower behind this build is Chase Armstrong from Illinois, USA.
It's a little hard to see with a static photo but the turbocharger and wheels are powdercoated in Illusion Malbec such that they look different depending on how the light falls on them. The Turbo is a Garret GT15 (eBay US, eBay CA
, eBay UK
, eBay AU
).
The turbo is a draw-through setup - in other words the turbocharger is inbetween the engine and carburetor. The carburetor, incidentally, is a 38mm round slide Mikuni (eBay US, eBay CA
, eBay UK
, eBay AU
). The intake length is kept short to prevent the fuel mixture from freezing! The turbo gets it's oil feed from the front engine cover where the oil pressure switch sits and the return is gravity-driven into the dipstick hole. The only engine-internal changes Chase has made to this point have been valve adjustments and making modifications to the clutch; as he was building a bolt-on kit he wanted to see how much the stock engines could handle.
Chase says that the hardest part of the build by far was tuning the carburetor and manifolds to compliment each other so that it was a streetable build and enjoyable throughout the throttle curve.
The front forks/wheel are from a 2005 Buell XB12 (occasionally found on eBay US) and the headlight is from a Ducati Monster (eBay US
, eBay CA
, eBay UK
, eBay AU
).
Not just a show bike, Chase has had this build at the drag strip to assess and develop it's performance. It's not done yet, either - there's more work to be done on the aesthetics and he apparently has another motor in the works which has been beefed up so as to make even more power... stay tuned for an update!
For more inspirational Honda CX and GL builds see the main build list.
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