Hopping up Honda’s pint-sized hooligan bike

If there’s anything we motorcycle riders are incapable of, its leaving a motorcycle in stock form.

A few years ago I became interested in the small Honda 125 line of motorcycles, and decided to buy myself a Honda Monkey. I took it to Daytona for Bike Week and had a great time riding that bike all around town. I could park the little motorbike anywhere. The only drawback was that I felt the pint-sized Monkey was a bit too slow. That same year I also attended the Smokey Mountain Small Bore Rally (SMSBR) in Tennessee for the first time.

A Monkey among Hawgs. In Daytona a few years ago.

As I rode around on my Honda Monkey, I could only top out at about 50 mph and maybe 40 mph uphill. This scared me when I had cars behind me. That same year I met Wayne Strickland of the “Speed Shop” who was doing DHM big bore conversions to the little 125cc machines. After talking with Wayne, I had him do a 149cc conversion to my Monkey. While I like the result and can easily do 65 mph now, I still feel like I’m winding out that little motor.

The variety of small bore bikes and incredible swaps just blew me away this year.

This year at the SMSBR I found a lot of people were doing a swap with the Honda CB300R engine into the most popular of the 125 Hondas, the Grom. I was camped at the rally next to a guy who had done three of these conversions, and he explained to me the how and why of what he had done. These included the modifying of the frame to allow for the stock 300 intake, to the upgrade of the suspension, and 13 inch wheels.

He let me test ride one of his 300cc Groms, and WOW, what great performance!

There are many companies supplying parts and services to do a “Grom Swap” these days- Grom Swap the World, Steady Garage, and Speedy GromZalez,  just to name a few.

The raffle winner of a Ninja 400/Grom Swap.

There are other engines being swapped into the Honda Grom, such as the Kawasaki 400 and even larger (even an FZ-09 if you can believe it), yet I can’t help but think you could get into a handling problem with too big an engine in so small a bike.

Hey, I suppose there’s no limit to what you can do with enough money and imagination!

Over the last few years the SMSBR has grown tremendously, with over 1500 bikes this year ripping up the Smokey Mountains and the “Tail of the Dragon”. Everywhere we went the riders were waving, smiling, “talking shop and swaps” and just having a good time.

Mike Boyd

“Grom Swap” video coming soon here. Stay tuned…