Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Hello, I have been lurking on this site for a while with an interest in a new hobby with my soon to be 15 year old son. I thought that running around town, or on vacations on scooters might be a fun thing for us to do. I have always admired the Spree's from way back but never persued the interest. I noticed parts are still available online although the resale used parts seem fairly expensive. I than noticed Taz's big bore kits on Ebay, the thought of modding them really peaked my interest. I have read many others say to just upgrade to new motors but I figure we will only ride these scooters together, so we won't know any better of what we are missing. I started watching for Spree's on Craigs list.

I found a guy selling 2 1986 Spree's. The red one was in great shape, the black one was a dirty, greasy, broken, mess. This picture was taken after the first day of cleaning them up.



I want to make the 2 Spree's look identical so I started searching for a set of red plastic to replace the black. I found a local parts resaler who had a set and a few other pieces that I needed for the black one. I got the parts and ordered 2 big bore kits from Taz. I hacked the rear panel to fit the intake and cut off the rear of the front fender for a different look. I also ordered some die cut stickers to cover up the rattle can paint on the cut side panel. I now have spent the last 3 weekends working in the garage making the black Spree into a Stage 3, Big Bore, Red Spree.



It will be a shame to hack up the nice plastic on the original red Spree, oh well...



This project has been fun, but I am ready for a break from all the wrenching. I will tear into the red one soon and will update.

Looking really good !!!

That side panel looks sweet with the carb showin

Taz

Thanks guys, I spent alot of time wondering what I was going to do with that left side panel. I didn't think that the carb and intake would fit under the cover. The right side panel on the other side is in pretty rough shape.. I rubbed it out and used touch up paint.

I guess I am going to keep the stock exhaust and keep it quiet. I would like to come up with some sort of heat shield for it. I thought about tracing out the stock cover on some aluminum stock and than polishing it.



Thanks for the offer graphite but I think I will hang onto the nice panel myself.

looks grate ...
hope you tell us what your top speed is when you get then out on the road .
swimmingfree
ps
i would make mine faster then the kids,,,

in4results


i'm about to put the same kit on mine. just need to cut the head, and finish porting

I have been working since the last post on the original red Spree. I completely tore the thing down and cleaned it. I installed the three stages and finished putting it back together tonight. I still need to get the Michigan moped registration stickers so I haven't rode them yet . I have spent every weekend since January working on these scooters. I just need to fill the gear box's and fill the gas tanks with premix.

motormike wrote:Now that's a sticker....WWW.HONDASPREE.NET.......who would have ever thunk......

eagerly awaiting mine.

Are you still using stock cutch springs? .. I wonder how much the stock pipe hurts the performance of the kit. Nice builds

daddyrat wrote:I guess I am going to keep the stock exhaust and keep it quiet. I would like to come up with some sort of heat shield for it. I thought about tracing out the stock cover on some aluminum stock and than polishing it.

just a thought on the heat shield; is there enough plastic material to fit on top of your aluminum stock?
You'd have matching paint. (or was this a bad idea? unsure of what heat tolerance those same plastics will be able to take when it's that close to the exhaust ).

Pineapplegti wrote:Are you still using stock cutch springs? .. I wonder how much the stock pipe hurts the performance of the kit. Nice builds

Thanks Pineapple, I am using the stock clutch springs, I guess I didn't even think about them. I can imagine that the stock pipes are terrible for performance. I generally pipe everything I own but pay the price with noise, usually out in the woods though. Anyway, I am not sure how my little town is going to accept these bikes running around, the quieter the better for now.

I read somewhere that Taz had been working on a expansion chamber pipe to release. That would be tempting.

Dio89Elite wrote:

daddyrat wrote:I guess I am going to keep the stock exhaust and keep it quiet. I would like to come up with some sort of heat shield for it. I thought about tracing out the stock cover on some aluminum stock and than polishing it.

just a thought on the heat shield; is there enough plastic material to fit on top of your aluminum stock?
You'd have matching paint. (or was this a bad idea? unsure of what heat tolerance those same plastics will be able to take when it's that close to the exhaust ).

Thanks Dio89Elite, I guess what I had in mind was to make a "shiny" heat shield for the stock exhaust. I found a piece of aluminum in my garage that I could make 2 shields out of. A little bit of polishing and it could almost look like chrome.

Those look very nice.

taz