The first week of November meant that Honda has finally released their CRF450R to the enthusiasts press. They held their intro at Racetown, a track in the high desert that is an excellent combination of the outdoor, speed, good jumps and swoopy turns. Here’s a quick look at the new machine, the changes and a bite sized eval.
Travis Bright worked on his "scrubs" during the CRF450 Intro at Racetown. Last year Honda completely shelved their original and quite successful CRF450 in favor of a newer, fuel-injected with a totally revamped chassis and suspension pieces. It turned out to be a love-hate machine where the abrupt power and quirky handling offended many loyal red racers. For 2010 Honda made changes to the CRF's Fuel Injection mapping and small changes to the KYB suspension to help make the bike user-friendlier. The biggest of the changes went into the shock, which has all-new valving that let the shock settle, track better and resist the stinkbug mode that the ’09 exhibited when entering corners. Looks wise the engine appears identical, the big mods went straight to the ECU (electronic control unit) with a new baseline setting that targeted off/on throttle control. The '09 Honda was also a quirky starter so Honda re-engineered the auto decompression system by revising the decomp pin shape and decompressor weight/spring. These changes proved to be flat excellent and the new CRF 450 starts nearly effortlessly. DB's Adam Booth felt that the new 450 was a big improvement mainly due to the new character of the power, and balanced suspension.
On the track the new machine looks identical to the ’09, but whoa, the small changes to the ECU baseline settings completely changed the character of the power. Now it flows out smoothly, and then erupts with a wallop that made every rider smile in appreciation. We give the power and big fat thumbs up! With the handling side, our first impression is a more balanced feel; with less butt high tendencies that equaled a seesaw feel to last years scoot. It tracks with a more planted gait, but the odd ’push’ in the turns is still a trait, though its softened and easier to deal with. We’ll spend some quality time dialing in the suspension balance, honing in the bikes tracking while looking to enhance the stability. The bottom line is that with small focus changes, the new CRF450 is a substantially improved machine. You won’t be seeing the 2010 Honda CRF450R at the dealerships until February. The retail price is $8,099, $500 more than the '09's original MSRP. Our own Ron Lawson attempted to hold off Team Honda's Andrew Short. Ah, he failed miserably.
Andrew, flipping it sideways for Adam Campbell's Canon.
Boothy, launching the CRF off one of Racetown's jump zones. ••• On Thursday we pointed it Glen Helen and spent the day with Yamaha and tested their new Fuel Injection tuning device. Unlike the Honda design that requires a PC and a battery to charge the fuel injection- the Yamaha Power Tuner plugs in an easy to locate module and in mere seconds you can alter the mapping on your machine. We worked with Yamaha and came up with 5 good maps (you have to physically install them into the Tuner) that we saved on the device. Our Adam Curve (softer initially, mirrors stock after 1/4 throttle) really lightened up the intense “immediacy” of the YZ’s power character. A full boost setting actually enhanced roll-on, softened the middle and gave more on top with the end result being a “freed up” feel (actually we really liked this setting!). Yamaha has come up with a soft setting (for hard pack-blue groove tracks), a hit setting (sand tracks) and the great news is that in less time than it takes to unwrap a Subway foot long, you can completely mold and shape the power on your YZ450. In the near future we’ll post the actual settings, and work on new ones that will make the machine more palatable-tractable and fun. The Power Tuner is slated to sell for around 300 bucks and is a great tool for the serious rider who can alter the demeanor of his machine to fit the conditions that surround the racetrack.
