Honda CX500 Turbo

[Milan]

Anyone have one of these?
Or ridden one?

Reviews are mixed on it.
The talk about the turbo lag & hitting at 5K, seems similar to the RD's.

M

[pidjones]

There was one in the auction last year at Barber's. Had several boxes of what appeared to be NOS body parts with it. Wish I had stuck around for that. I hear that most things went very low (but I would have had to scramble to find someone to haul or store it for me).

[m in sc]

they are nothing like the rds. I would avoid those like the plague.

[Evans Ward]

The CX650 Turbo was said to be a much better bike and rarer than the CX500 Turbo. There was a nice CX650 Turbo at Barber this year FS in the lower swap meet for less than $4000. It looked turn key and was in nice rider condition. When the 500 Turbo first came out in '82, it was seen as a beautiful futuristic styling design. I've never ridden one but if you want a factory turbo bike, the Kawasaki GPz750 Turbo is the one to get.

[pidjones]

About an hour after commenting in this thread, a guy shows up and offers a CX500 Deluxe basket case for $40. No place to put itm so I had him unload it all next to the shed and covered the engine with a tarp. Whish I vould say No to these things. It has tbe head stock cut off and no front end. Don'even know if the engine will turn over.

[Evans Ward]

Hey.. the price was right!  Unfortunately, I don't have any friends like that. 

[sav0r (CL MotoTech)]

Put "turbo" in the name and I am in. It's a personality flaw for sure.

[Evans Ward]

Chris- I was there too for 40 years with Turbo 6 Buicks and ran methanol injection for about 20 of those years. I finally broke the habit 7 years ago with the sale of last one but just transitioned into the Modern Mopar HEMI SRT family. I'd love to go supercharged with this one but the disposable income isn't there for that large of a purchase. I did purchase a stealth black nitrous kit made just for the 6.1 HEMI as its on order. I've never played with NOS before but needed a little spice in my retired years. I'm just going to run a 100 HP shot on this wet kit.

I do sometimes miss the explosive rush when the boost climbs to 24 PSI and the explosiveness of being able to go WOT at 35 MPH and roast both tires in a cloud of smoke even with a posi rear!

Anyway- sorry to get off topic. 

Has anyone ridden a Honda CX500 Turbo that cares to give a ride report?

[IR8D8R]

 I rode one a few times. Friend of mine had a brand new one back in the 80's. He thought it was a rocket simply because it had a turbo. The only similarity with an RD performance-wise is the lack of low RPM torque until you get it on boost (or get the 2T into the power band). It is more sport-touring or freeway cruiser than road racer. I recall it being very smooth. Damn things weigh almost 600 lbs so it feels like a heavy lump until the turbo spins up. Like the rest of the CX500 line you either love them or hate them. The styling was very new and "modern" back then. My friend said the boost would come on somewhat unpredictably on a twisty road if you dropped gears and got on it. He was not a fast rider and I only rode it on city grid streets and briefly on a freeway. I did not ride it hard.

It was quicker than my stockish RD400 from 70 to 100 mph on boost. He could definitely gap me on the freeway. My impression was that it was a commuter bike for guys who wanted a gimmick. The Seca XJ650 turbo was more interesting to me but I've always been a Yamaha guy. I don't know if I've ever seen one of the turbo GPzs. A chain drive 750 turbo would have to be more exciting than a shaft CX500. Honda could have picked almost any other bike in their lineup to turbocharge and it would have been better. The CX is a very durable engine as far as I know so maybe that's why they used it.

IR8D8R

[m in sc]

i would guess at the time... the cx was water-cooled whereas the rest of their lineup, for the most part, wasn't, and that had some value to it i think to use as a turbo platform

Im firmly in the loathing of the cx's camp. they aren't bad per-say, but i hate them just the same.

[ajb]

I had a GL500 with that motor as a base. Super heavy as above, not for me. 

My father had an XJ650T from new.  It went fine, but wasn't a match for a GPz750, let alone the turbo version.

It was bought for motorway commuting as it had a lovely full fairing. Quite rare at the time.