Counter Balance Motor

[onegreyghost]

I wonder if Gas Gas will ever offer the counter balanced motor again? They could supply cases that would accept the counter balance and leave it up to the customer to add the weight. The reason I bring this up is I have a ridding buddy that has a 2012 Gas Gas and has replaced the new engine with an 2004 that he had line bored and installed the gear and balancer. What a magic carpet ride, extremely smooth and with plenty of torque and abosolutley no vibration. Its like an electric motor. He can lay a quarter or washer on the from fender and rev the motor to redline and the quarter will never shake off form the fender not even move. I have never seen or ridden such a bike. I am thinking of doing the same thing to a 2013.

[Neil E.]

I agree with you. The counterbalancer would be great to have. Everyone has said they were a really smooth bike. Add a proper wide ratio gearbox and you'd have a super all-round bike. The reality is that most offroaders would rather save the weight, or are not bothered by vibration since they are busy bouncing over rough terrain. The counter balancer would make a super moto bike really nice to ride.

[Cruiser]

I know where you could find a really nice 97 250cc cb mill.. if your interested..

[GMP]

I doubt you will ever see that again from the factory. It was a cool motor though, and a handful of guys here have done the conversion over the years. Steve (Cruiser) still has his CB '97 250. The 300 quad motor was also counterbalanced. That would be nice in a bike. I heard from a dealer in the old days that one reason they canned it was because the CB bearings would fail under hard use, because they were up high in the cases and splash lube was marginal. They also spun at 2x crank speed. A high quality sealed bearing, or a ceramic(needs less oil) would be a good choice.

onegreyghost,

Thats more than just a CB mod to fit '04 cases in a '12. He had to have bored the swingarm pivot, and made a spacer for the motor mount. Nice, got any pics?

[Caravan Monster]

Going off topic, I'm working on a counterbalanced honda crm engine (2 stroke trailbike) at the moment



The balancer shaft sits low in this engine, so should get plenty of oil. However, it does sound like the needleroller on the ignition side of the cb shaft tended to wear without regular gearbox oil changes.

Did the CRM make it to other parts of the globe ? Another example of wacky Honda corporate policy, these bikes were at one time one of the most popular dirtbikes in the UK, but Honda refused to bring them in officially, so they all got here through the grey importers.

It'll be interesting to see how it rides for a 20 year old bike. It has a servo operated exhaust valve, which apparently gives it distinctive power characteristics.

It would be good if Gas Gas offered a counterbalanced option. In terms of competition bikes, the EC is versatile and strong, and would be even better to trail ride with fewer vibes

[Rick]

Don't know about the CRM, but a riding buddy of mine had a CRE 250....that was brought over here. If I remember correctly a guy on the east coast was importing them.......Hines....I think was his last name. Kevin????? Killer bike back in the late 90's.

[Caravan Monster]

The CRE 2 stroke bikes were built by HM and were modified CR motocrossers. In fact, it would appear they still make a honda 125 2 stroke of some sort. I think the honda David Knight is now riding is a HM, albeit a four stroke CRF derived one.

The CRM was Japan only, so far as I know. The model line culminated in the development of AR, which used pre- ignition to make a cleaner, torquey and more efficient motor. The development work was done around the EXP-2 Dakar bike, which did well.



The production trailbike looked like this. There are some homebuilt specials around, where the CRM motor was fitted to the superior CR / CRF rolling chassis



Then honda decided to give away all their two stroke business to Europe, and consequently stroker enthusiasts in the know are riding Gas Gas

[desertgasser300]

Those are some really cool bikes.

[Rick]

I remember seeing these in Japan when I was stationed there. This would have been in 1987 -89 time frame.

[Cruiser]

I still think a 97 ec250 engine would be a better start point.. just saying..