The Bold Four: A 1976 Honda CB500F café racer from Brazil

Primarily based in Caxias do Sul, a city in Brazil’s hilly Serra Gaúcha area, Caffeine Custom is quick changing into a daily on these pages. They celebrated their tenth anniversary final 12 months, and wished to have fun in model with a particular customized construct. The celebs aligned when a buyer approached them to create a slick Honda CB500F café racer for brief rides and occasions.

“The shopper wished a Honda 4 that maintained some unique elements, such because the mechanical elements and the tank,” says store boss Bruno Costa. “However additionally they wished a extra trendy, aggressive design.”

The Honda 4 they selected was a 1974 Honda CB500F—a veritable pillar of the café racer world. The non-running bike arrived on the Caffeine Customized workshop in such a sorry state that the store had their work minimize out for them. The primary job was to take away all of the non-original elements and extract the engine from the body so the intensive rebuild may start.

With the engine out, the subframe was shortened and the remainder of the body was denuded of any superfluous bracketry. As soon as the body was handled with a recent black powder coat, the entrance finish from a contemporary Honda CBR500R was fitted, after which lowered for a extra aggressive stance.

A Honda NC700 donated its forged wheels to the challenge, which had been painted a lustrous darkish gold (as is correct when utilizing alloy wheels on a basic café racer). The brand new wheels allowed the fitment of wider Metzeler rubber. There’s a 120/90R17 up entrance and a suitably chunky 160/70R17 out again.

For the reason that rear wheel was a lot wider than the unique, it took painstaking effort to each widen and lengthen the unique swingarm, redesign the rear hub, offset the sprockets, and modify the shock mounts. If that wasn’t sufficient work already, they then tailored the NC700’s brakes to convey the bike into the twenty first century. With a brand new set of adjustable rear shocks, the body was a curler.

Caffeine Customized then turned to the bodywork. Because the shopper had requested an aggressive neo-classic model, the crew fabricated a brand new entrance fender, headlight shroud, tail unit, and aspect covers. The OEM gas tank was painted heat satin gray and adorned with customized aluminum-engraved badges.

The tank flows effortlessly into the tail unit, which incorporates a black leather-based seat and customized taillights that individuals have likened to these on a Ford Mustang (though Bruno tells us that was not his intent).

The entrance nacelle encapsulates an LED headlight, and is molded round a small speedometer from Drag Specialties that’s set into the higher fork clamp. Low-slung clip-on bars are kitted with minimal buttons, Motogadget bar-end flip indicators, and Rizoma grips, rounding out the easy cockpit.

The aspect covers are purely aesthetic—created to fill the void below the seat with a light-weight and sporty design. They tie the customized bodywork collectively in a cohesive method we might often count on from a significant producer.

The 1974 Honda CB500F engine was totally rebuilt utilizing as many unique elements as attainable. Bruno describes discovering unique carburetor elements as significantly difficult—one thing that almost all previous bike nerds have skilled firsthand. The engine was rebuilt to its unique spec, with the one improve being a Dyna digital ignition, and a recent wiring loom with a Motogadget mind.

The engine and carbs had been painted with a high-temp ceramic paint, with selection particulars buffed again for a little bit of distinction. A set of chrome steel four-into-one Delkevic headers was matched to a customized muffler to create a soundtrack akin to a swarm of indignant android bees.

When the bike was delivered to the shopper, Caffeine Customs had poured over 800 hours of labor into the construct, and it reveals. They nailed the transient, making a café racer that’s worthy of its nickname; ‘The Daring 4.’