GP’s Classic Steel #53- 1981 CR125R Elsinore

For this week’s GP’s Classic Steel we are going to take a look back at Honda’s first 125 water-pumper, the 1981 CR125R Elsinore.

For this week’s GP’s Classic Steel we are going to take a look back at Honda’s first 125 water-pumper, the 1981 CR125R Elsinore.

 

In 1981, this thing looked like something straight out of Honda’s skunk works department. It bristled with high tech features and “works” swagger. Unfortunately, it also weighed as much as a dump truck and ran like someone put the piston in backwards.

Honda’s adventure in the eighth-liter division started in 1974, with the introduction of their first two-stroke 125, the CR125M Elsinore. The new Honda ring-ding was a revelation at the time and set new standards for small-bore performance. After this auspicious beginning, however, Honda proceeded to squander its lead with a series of retread 125 offerings. While Honda rested on its laurels, Suzuki pounced.  The new RM’s were faster, superior handling and far better suspended than the old-tech Elsinore’s and quickly became the top dog in the 125 class. By the end of the seventies, the red tide had become a yellow wave, as Suzuki’s dominated starting lines from coast to coast.

As Honda’s first attempt at a production liquid-cooled machine, the ’81 CR still needed to have a few bugs worked out. One look at the motor and you can see that the water pump appears to have been an afterthought that was grafted on to the side of the old air-cooled cases. At the time, Honda claimed a 20% reduction in power loss late in a race due to the addition of liquid cooling.

In 1979, Honda finally ditched its geriatric CR125M chassis and spec’d an all-new small-bore racer. Unfortunately, the new CR125 “R” turned out to be a bitter disappointment. It certainly looked the part, with its fire red engine and long travel suspension. On the track, however, its anemic motor, bizarre 23” wheel and dismal suspension made it the dog of the 125 class.

Honda’s new rear suspension design was dubbed “Pro-Link” (for progressive linkage), and featured a single rear shock mated to a set of rising rate linkage arms and a massive alloy swingarm. It was similar in theory to the Suzuki Full-Floater, but less complex. In the end, Honda’s design proved less expensive to manufacture and better at lowering mass than the competition’s.  After several years of experimentation, the basic Pro-Link design has become the de facto configuration for modern single shock rear suspension.

For 1980, Honda came out with a much improved 125. The ’80 CR featured a rocket motor, improved suspension and an industry standard 21” front wheel. It went from bottom of the class, to 125 contender, and brought many riders back into the Honda fold. This was nothing, however, compared to what Honda had on tap for 1981. With the decade of bell-bottoms and free love in the rearview mirror, Big Red marched into the eighties locked and loaded with an arsenal of high tech motocross hardware sure to win the hearts and minds of teenagers everywhere.

In 1980, Honda had the best 125 engine on the track. In ’81, they had…this. Honda’s new water-pumper was a colossal disappointment. It had none of the ’80 model’s barky low-to-mid power and made all of its meager horses way up high in the curve. The only way to ride it was to leave the throttle pegged and keep slamming in the gears. Pros could make it work, but novices spent all day bogging from gear to gear. Not fun, and not fast.

For 1981, Honda threw the kitchen sink at their motocross program. All three big bikes were new from the ground up and featured radically different designs from their predecessors (the exception being the CR450R which had no predecessor). Gone were the dual shocks and air-cooled motors (on the 125 and 250), replaced with works style monoshocks and high tech water-pumpers. Beefy frames, racy styling and works bike cachet all promised blazing performance from the new Elsinore’s. Unfortunately, those were promises the bikes could not keep.

Call me crazy, but I think MXA should just ditch the whole orange helmet thing and go back to this sweet quadruple logo V-neck design. Sano…

The motor on the ’81 Elsinore was a new from the ground up design. It featured a 55.5mm by 50.7mm bore and stroke displacing a total of 123cc’s. The new motor did away with the ’80 model’s lightweight chrome bore in favor of a heavier, but re-borable iron liner (perhaps in a concession to fears over the exorbitant cost of new liquid cooled cylinders). The water-cooled mill featured two small radiators mounted to the front of the small gas tank and held just over a quart of coolant. Feeding the fire engine red power plant was an all-new 35mm Keihin round slide carburetor flowing through a cylinder reed-valve. This was still a few years before the advent of the ATAC and its variable exhaust valve cousins, so the Elsinore made due without any powerband widening trickery (and it showed).

For ’81, Honda made the switch from longtime partner Showa to Kayaba for its fork supplier. The new 38mm KYB legs punched out 11.5 inches of travel and offered air and oil adjustability. Although similar in design to the excellent Kayaba units found on the competition, poor set up hindered their performance and relegated them to third behind the YZ and RM in ’81.

Where the old tech ’80 model had barked out a hard-hitting and fun-to-ride blast of power, the new tech ’81 delivered an uninspired and lethargic spread of ponies. Low-end was basically a bottomless pit of bog, followed by a buzzy and listless mid-range and a mediocre top-end hook. What little power it had, was focused entirely in the upper rev range. In order to make competitive speed on the track, it was necessary to keep the throttle pinned and constantly row the six-speed gearbox. While experts could make its narrow and top-end focused spread of thrust work, novices were left chasing its elusive sweet spot. In the horsepower wars, only the air-cooled Kawasaki was less potent than the disappointing Honda.

The Pro-Link rear on the ’81 CR125R worked better than on its larger siblings, but was still not up to unseating the Suzuki Full-Floater as top dog in the 125 class. It was plush on small impacts, but too soft for serious motocross work.

For ’81, the real big news for Honda was the first production implementation of their works single shock rear suspension system. The new “Pro-Link” rear suspension mated a single Showa shock to a set of linkages and a beefy alloy swingarm. The idea behind the Pro-Link was to provide a more progressive (the “Pro” in Pro-Link) damping curve than standard dual shock arrangements provided. The system of linkages was designed to allow a soft and compliant ride on small bumps, while still providing good bottoming resistance on large hits. It was a similar theory to the Kawasaki ‘s Uni-TraK and Suzuki’s Full-Floater, but different in execution.

In ’81, all the manufacturers used very different configurations for their liquid cooling systems. Of the three used, the Honda’s small twin radiators were the closest in configuration to what we still see today. Today’s systems are mounted lower and have a higher capacity, but are otherwise very much the same as what debuted in ’81.

In terms of performance, the Pro-Link offered the second best 125 suspension in ’81. It was too soft for fast guys, but did an admirable job of smoothing out the chop. Without an increase in spring rate, the sensation of overly soft action never totally went away, but it was certainly raceable in stock trim. The Pro-Link outperformed the Kawasaki Uni-Trak and Yamaha Monocross, but lost out to the omnipotent Suzuki Full-Floater in the final rankings.

 

While the CR250R and CR450R got the high tech dual-leading shoe binders and beefy 41mm forks, the lowly 125 made due with smaller 38mm legs and an old-fashioned single action drum in ’81. This was indicative of the general second-class treatment 125’s received in an era where 500’s were king.

In the fork department, Honda made quite a change in ’81. Up until that point, Honda had always used Showa as the source for their front suspension components (as a part owner in Showa, it was little wonder Honda used them as a suspension supplier). For ’81, Big Red jumped ship to suspension competitor Kayaba, in search of better performance. For years, Honda had been the brunt of scathing suspension reviews, while Suzuki and Yamaha soaked up the lion’s share of suspension victories. With the switch to Kayaba, long time Honda owners hoped to finally have a decent set of silverware on the CR.

Unfortunately for the Honda faithful, the switch to KYB did nothing for the performance of the littlest CR. The new forks worked only modestly better than the old Showa’s had, and still trailed all but the Kawasaki in performance. They were too-soft for serious motocross work and gave the bike a wallowing feel in corners. If you added oil or air pressure to the forks to fight bottoming, then they became harsh and punishing. They lagged behind both the Yamaha and Suzuki in the ranking and only beat out the dismal Kawasaki.

 

What in heaven’s name were they thinking?

Certainly doing the CR’s performance no favors was its portly weight. At 222 pounds, the ’81 CR125R weighed closer to a full size 250 than a typical lightweight 125. The switch to liquid cooling and a monoshock packed on several unwanted pounds to the little Honda and left it at a significant disadvantage to its 125 competition. It weighed a good 20 pounds more than the lightest bikes in the class and felt every bit of it. That added pork only compounded the lack of horsepower and made a slow bike feel downright anemic. Worst of all, all the added beef packed into the chassis added up to no more durability than the competition. Cracked frames and swingarms were a common occurrence in ’81 and more than a few bikes suffered expensive DNF’s.  Overall, the new water-cooled motor was reliable, but the chassis and suspension were problematic at best.

While the ’81 CR125R was a technological tour de force on paper, it was a disappointment on the track. Its motor was slow, its suspension was languid and its chassis was overweight; the ’81 Elsinore was rife with problems. Its $1525 price tag bought you a lot of good ideas, but little else. While ‘81 was a tough year for Honda fans, by ’83 they would produce the best 125 in motocross.

In 1981, Honda shot for the moon, but ended up well short of the mark. The high tech Elsinore was as cutting edge in design as any bike available in ’81. It used the latest innovations and wrapped it all in racy red bodywork that practically screamed performance.  It was a bike full of good ideas, but poorly executed. It was slow, overweight and unreliable. This failure, however, would be the impetus for one of the most dominant periods in Honda’s history. Within two years, the CR would stand atop the 125 rankings and begin a dynasty that would define small bore performance for nearly two decades.