Neighbor had this CX500 in his shop and I happened to eyeball it.  Every time he's at my place he's eyeballing this 18hp oversized lawn mower I have.  The bike needed some TREMENDOUS carb cleaning, and cleaning in general, and the mower needed a bracket welded up for the electric clutch to work right.  I figured it was a good trade.

I don't look forward to ever having to tear the maggot apart again!  The backbone of the frame is so close to the motor that the carburetors BARELY fit.  A real pain in the ass getting them out.  Oh and I can't wait to get some other forks...28mm forks!!!

get pic mak. get pics , oh and btw hows the lil harley comin along?

not going to have pics until sunday...pc doesn't have a usb port...stupid old pc...

The harley's crank seals are blown...just going to put it up on ebay.  I've got too many other projects, anyway...and now that the TL's gone I need to dedicate some time to making the maggot a road bike.

The CX500 has the horizontally opposed V-twin, like Moto Guzzis, right?  Strange bikes, but probably a lot of fun to have apart, post pics and keep us updated.

no horizontally opposed engines are boxers...these are transverse v-twins.  crazy bit is the twisted heads.  it's a push-rod engine with a chain driven cam haha

CX500's are hot    The guys two doors down has two, although one's in a Silverwing (GL) guise.  Some transit operator I met through random encounter has one in pieces... 

the manifold boots got f%&ked when I took the carbs off but all I had to do to make it run was squirt some fuel into the manifolds.  Fired right up.  She's also like a crazy-light juice draw...I bet I could run the bike on a scooter battery...

so...after duct-taping the carburetors to the bike she runs rather nicely.  with luck honda still sells the manifolds.

Where do you find these things? The maggot is a highly sought after modern classic over here. I found one about 10 years ago in a neighbours shed and sold it on almost immediately and turned a good profit. I would buy another one tomorrow if I could find one. The early ones had a major flaw in the camchain tensioner design and the cylinders are integral with the block which makes reboring almost impossible.

Loads of info here http://www.elsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cx500/history/

seen it.  I can't tell which year my bike is but the jubs aren't cast into the motor.

I just find them "about".  I found this one because I went to help the neighbor with his little 80cc four-wheeler (problems with idle and running waaayyyyy lean...truned out the guy he bought it from told him to premix the poor little four-stroke...).  While in his shop I happened to glance over my shoulder and bam...there was a maggot under a bunch of garbage.

The real question is why do I keep finding these things under a bunch of garbage...?

Mak?
Look again at the block. Any hard-core maggot-fan will confirm what I said about the cylinder bores being part of the engine casing, its also mentioned in the link I posted and the wikipeadia entry for the CX5. It was due to this design that lot of them ended up in the breakers yards when the bores wore beyond limits or were damaged due to head gasket failure and water entry. They can be rebored but not in the usual way, its involved and expensive and it means a full engine stripdown to do it. Back then the costs involved often outweighed the value of the bike so owners just scrapped them off and bought another one. These days the maggot has a big following and is a very popular modern classic. Honda discontinued all the major engine parts a long time ago and if you have an engine with servicable bores believe me its worth a lot to a maggot-fan.

I have a lot of material on the CX, its one of my all time fave` bikes. If you post a colour pic and the engine number I might be able to tell you the year/model from the info I have here. Assuming the differences between the Euro and USA spec bikes are not too great.

Someone in raleigh was advertising a 650/500 combo that he had chopped. Wanted some like 5,000 for it. I cant for the life of me get to like it. I would ahve routed the carbs outside like guzzi did instead of stuff them in the middle.
Cool.
Srinath.

Sesh?
I believe the Honda engineers twisted the pots and put the carbs where they are cos the riders had nowhere to "put their knees" 

Quote from: sledge on March 30, 2007, 04:18:29 AM
Sesh?
I believe the Honda engineers twisted the pots and put the carbs where they are cos the riders had nowhere to "put their knees" 

Yes prolly but guzzi's dont interfere with your knees ... I guess they are a bit larger ... but that didn't stop harley ... carbs and air filter ... hit your right knee ...
Cool.
Srinath.

Despite looking similar there are a lot of differences between the CX5 and the Moto Guzzi 350 and 500 V twins. Main one being the V angle, 80deg for the CX and 90 for the Guzzi, this means the cylinders are slanted higher up on the CX. Honda designed the engine with the gearbox below the crank line to save space and reduce its overall length. The Guzzis have the crank and gearbox input shaft in line like a RWD car. Result is the Honda engine sits high up in the frame hence the need to move the carbs inboard and provide knee room.

Ok Guzzi has the history and heritige but personaly I would climb over a stack of them to get my hands on another maggot. This link tells the story of a guy who did a total nut and bolt rebuild......not sure about the paint scheme though.

http://www.elsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cx500/hannover/

Maybe I should do that same blast and powdercoat thing to the 1/3rd GS I have ... easy at this point in its life I should say ... but I assemble it and its screwed if I have to.
heck ... I'll prolly weld up all the openings they have left in the welds ... tons of gaps where it takes in water and rusts ... shut.
Cool..
Srinath.

ok so the duct tape didn't hold up to fuel very well...ended up making a makeshift boot from line hose (basically radiator hose).  Now have a good connection between the carbs and manifolds on both sides now and, hopefully, my new manifolds will be here tomorrow.

Rode the bike around and it rides and shifts great...except going to second.  She likes to pop back down into nuetral every now and then.  It's unsettling how "flimsy" these forks are...it's amazing how much difference those 43mm forks on my TL make.  I'll be picking up an F2 front end to slap on her later.  Hondas are great in that respect...just about any front end from any generation will slap right on to any other bike.  It'll just be an issue of building an axle that will mount my super badass comstar wheel to the CBR forks...oh and I need to find 5-lug floating rotors to bolt up.  I wanted to use GS rotors but the lug pattern is just a hair big.

I'm having a couple issues, though:

Primarily, she's slow on decel and idle speed is inconsistent.  She'll idle at 1000rpm like she's supposed to, but when I rev it up a bit she comes back kinda slow and stops around 2000~2500rpm.  If I play with the idle control knob any she drops right back down.

I need to find K&N's that fit the carbs and figure out the jetting for open filter and exhaust.