From our Old Bike Archives – Issue 90 – first published in 2020.
Story: Peter Whitaker. • Photos: Peter Whitaker, Sue Scaysbrook, John Ford.
At the opening of their massive state-of-the-art factory in late 1981, Yamaha impulsively declared its intention to become the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer. This was no Pearl Harbour, allowing the big red #1 plenty of time to prepare for the attack. ‘Yamaha wo tsubusu!’ was Honda’s decidedly aggressive response. A rather blunt threat loosely interpreted as “We will crush, squash, slaughter, butcher Yamaha!” Or possibly all four!
Over the following eighteen months Honda introduced 113 new models spanning 26 engine capacities in 4 configurations. Literally turning over its entire product line twice while re-shaping the entire motorcycling world with a range of bright, shiny, innovative new models; including the Honda VT250F, the world’s first 90 degree, quarter litre four stroke V-Twin.
By all accounts this machine was a considerably more rider friendly sports commuter than the Yamaha RD250 R(LC). Yet on the track, the race-proven Yamaha ruled. So when Dudley Lister and Glenn Willing were considering a machine to contest the 1983 Metzeler 250 Production Championship the VT250 was dismissed. Especially when the late mail from Japan was that the new V3 powered MVX250F, Honda’s first ever two-stroke road bike, was more than a match for the Yamaha.
That NSW distributor Bennett Honda had no plans to import the MVX to Australia was immaterial. Willing’s principal sponsor Funtasia Toys had the money, and joint sponsor, Kingfish Customs and Cargo, had the bike on a jet out of Tokyo before anyone could think twice. With barely a day to spare the MVX was un-crated in Chivo’s Tyre Emporium where, after a stealthy squirt around the back streets of Holroyd, it was on the way to its world competition debut at Sydney’s Oran Park.
As expected, the well-sorted Yamahas dominated the podium and it was largely overlooked that Willing, a ‘C’ Grade rider, on a bike he’d never ridden in anger, defied the damp track to finish fifth. Then, on a drying track, went one better in his second race. This performance did not pass unnoticed by Honda Racing Team’s Campbell Ferris, who finished several positions behind Willing on what was now a totally out-gunned Honda VT250.
According to Ferris, Bennett Honda’s first MVX was specially airfreighted to Sydney at great cost to prepare for the Easter Carnival at Bathurst. “Including freight my bike cost more than a CB1100R,” says Ferris. “But it was here in time for testing”. This proved fortuitous, allowing the team to select a high profile Metzeler, in effect the same as taking a tooth off the rear sprocket; a significant advantage down Conrod Straight.
Using every inch of the track, and then some according to 18-year-old Bathurst rookie Willing, nine time Bathurst veteran 34-year-old Ferris grabbed a decisive lead on the opening lap. And while Willing took more than a second off the lap record in his chase, it was a delighted Ferris who took the chequer. And Honda’s first win in the 250 Production Class at Mount Panorama since 1964 when Terry Dennehy took a Honda CB72 to victory. At the risk of cannibalising sales of the best-selling VT250, Bennett Honda had little option but to begin ADR compliance obligations for the MVX250.
Ferris validated his Mount Panorama result when he faced a squadron of 22 brand new Yamaha RZ250 LCs backed by an equal number of RD250s at Round Two of the Metzeler Championship. Fellow MVX riders Glenn Willing and Rod Cox suffered mishaps on the warm-up lap before Ferris almost suffered a similar fate shortly after the start. Quickly remounting, Ferris worked his way back to fourth place and some valuable points. In race two he proved far more circumspect to take the win while Glenn Willing managed to crack the top ten.
Ferris was out of action for the fourth and final round of the Championship so Bennett Honda offered the ride to Tony Gill, but due to his late entry Gill was forced to start 45th on a packed grid of 48 riders. Gill managed to climb through the swarm of Yamaha RZ250s to finish 16th in the first five-lapper and 14th in the second; a clear indication that had he been able to start based on his practice times, a podium was almost assured.
“I had a great time” says Gill. “And can now claim to have been a semi-works rider for a day”. When offered the chance to purchase the Bathurst winner along with sufficient documentation to register the machine, Gill didn’t think twice. Later he was able to obtain a ‘domestic’ accessories kit which included a fake exhaust pipe for the non-existent fourth cylinder to balance the appearance of the MVX from the rear.
Released in Japan to celebrate the NS500, Honda’s very short lived V3 Grand Prix racer, the MVX250F found a ready market with the boy racer set though less than 150 units were exported to Australia, some of which may have gone on to New Zealand.
The unusual design, with the outer two horizontal cylinders facing forward and the middle cylinder on the vertical, suffered more than the common two-stroke vibrations and Honda’s solution was to beef up the middle connecting rod as a counterweight. Apparently this reduced the vibrations but, according to reports, led to failures of the vertical conrod.
This was mostly unsubstantiated rumour according to Tony Gill. “My bike has only done 8,000km but my mate who purchased the other Bennett bike had no mechanical problems until he threw his MVX down the road. And I’ve since managed to pick up a spare engine that’s in good order.”
When Bennett Honda finally got around to listing the MVX in their 1983 line up, it was, at $3,000, a full $600 more than the VT250, which was already more expensive than its main competitors. The marketing people were anxious to portray it as the kid brother to Freddie Spencer’s RS500 V3 GP bike, but although it was certainly a V3, the 250 was nothing like the 500. For a start, the MVX250 has the outer cylinders sitting horizontally, with the centre cylinder vertical at an angle of 90º. On the 500 it’s the centre cylinder that lies flat, with the outer pair vertical, and the angle is 112º. The MVX has a built-up crankshaft running on four ball main bearings, with needle roller big end and little end bearings. For reasons of balance, the centre cylinder has a heavier conrod with a larger little end, and the flywheels are a mixture of 9mm and 15mm widths.
The engine breathes through three 20mm flat-slide Keihin carbs, with reed valves between the carbs and barrels. The gear cluster, all six ratios, came straight from the VT250. The MVX also sported a twin cradle frame that looked similar to the VT250, sharing features such as the 16 inch front wheel, air-sprung Pro Link rear end, air-assisted front forks and the odd looking ‘Ventilated’ front disc.
The MVX was short-lived, never quite living down a reputation for vibration which was more noticeable as a road bike than in racing. Not unexpectedly, the ‘Ventilated’ front brake was prone to overheating, particularly under race conditions, and for the subsequent NSR250 – a 90º V-twin reed valve two stroke – reverted to conventional twin discs.
One for the road
The MVX shown here belongs to Michael Krywinski, who was a dab hand in the hurly burley of the 250 Production Class, but not when the MVX was around. “My era was the early ‘nineties, and the class was full of blokes of the calibre of Troy Bayliss, Mat Mladin, Gary McCoy, Kevin Curtain and lots of others who were really fast. I raced at Bathurst at Easter 1992 and Easter 1993 when the bikes ran on the 12 Hour Car Race program – the first time as a C Grader and the second in B Grade. Unfortunately I got involved in someone else’s accident and was lucky to not hurt myself seriously, but the bike was a mess. Another off at Eastern Creek convinced me I’d had enough of forking out money, and not being able to work through injury was not on so I gave it away.”
But although Michael’s racing days were over he never lost his enthusiasm for the 250 Production class, and the bikes that made it up over many decades. “The Suzuki RGV250 was the bike to have in the ‘nineties, and the KR-1S Kawasaki was good too. Then along came the Aprilia RS250 and everyone wanted that, but many of Mladin’s lap records on the Suzuki stayed in place for years.” It was this admiration for the category that produced so many champions that led Michael to buy a Honda MVX250.
“You could say the MVX was an impulse buy from eBay for $2800 that came from Victoria. I had the bike transported to me in the Blue Mountains, an hour from Sydney. However, when the bike arrived it wasn’t in any condition to ride. I was only just able to start it, with one cylinder not firing. The motor had to be rebuilt. It wasn’t until I started taking the bike apart I realised the seat rails on the frame had been welded about 30cm back from the tail, which meant it had been flipped or crashed. Looking at the bike from behind, the frame was twisted and the rear mudguard wasn’t straight with the back wheel. After this discovery I didn’t want this frame anymore, so I packed the bike away in the garage until I was able to find a new frame.
“About 18 months later I finally found another MVX at Gosford Motorcycle Wreckers for $700. Although it was only the frame, motor, wheels and exhaust, it just happened that these were the spare parts I needed. I used the frame, exhaust baffles and the wiring harness off this bike, and had the frame, bikini fairing and front mudguard painted. When I started to take the motor apart to see what parts I needed to buy or replace, I began to realise that locating, buying or ordering parts for an MVX was almost impossible. I was able to get pistons, but I couldn’t get rings or head gaskets. Then a motor came up on eBay, no one else had placed a bid on it, so I was able to get it for $180. I got a mate to pick it up from Yamba, and he brought it down for me on his way to Thredbo. The engine started straight away, however I was having trouble with the carbies and I couldn’t stop fuel from coming out of the overflow. I took them to an expert, back and fourth a few times, but no matter what we did, we couldn’t stop them leaking. I had two more banks of carbies, one set from the original motor and one set from the motor I bought from Yamba. So I took the floats from one of these sets, and I just put them straight in and they worked a treat, and I haven’t touched them since.
“Now my MVX was finally ready for rego. I got a blue slip and headed to the motor registry, however, where I came across another hurdle. The motor registry informed me that the engine number had been reported as stolen, so now I need to go to the police station to sort this out. The officer that helped me was a top bloke, he was able to find half a surname with the first two letters missing off an old report. He said he would get back to me when he found something, and he did that night. He was able to get hold of the bloke it was stolen from in 1985. It was recovered and he was paid out, but it appeared this incident was not cleared from the stolen records by the police or insurance company. We never found out which insurance company it was. So then I had to get an affidavit from the bloke who owned the bike when it was stolen. I also had to get one from the bloke I bought it off. It took a month to get all the documents together, but the police would not give me a letter to say the engine had been cleared from stolen registry, because none of the officers wanted to be held personally responsible. Once I got to the registry they called the police and they were told that the engine has been cleared. Luckily, in the end I was finally able to get my MVX registered.
“Of course, this wasn’t the last issue that I would come across. While getting it registered they couldn’t find the model number MVX 250F (mc09) so it has just been registered as a Honda motorcycle. The motor registry was saying it was a grey import. I’ve had it registered for a couple of years now and love riding it. It gets a lot of attention at bike haunts. The spare parts I’ve got left/collected since starting this project are rolling frame, two motors which spin freely, exhaust that will need some repairing, dash, front guard, harness and a box of bits. It’s not completely finished, it still needs a seat latch and a front brake master assembly. The brakes work fine but it’s just the threaded boss that the mirror screws into.
A quick squirt
I met Michael at the picturesque Hawkesbury Lookout on the road that runs between Richmond and Springwood. It’s a great spot for photography, with the lakes surrounding Penrith way down in the valley below. It’s also a glorious stretch of road, in fact it was a car and motorcycle hill climb back in the early ‘fifties. “Why don’t you take it for a squirt?,” Michael said, so I did. This is not the place to get flat on the tank, more a series of linked hairpins, and on weekends like this one, carrying plenty of traffic. Nonetheless, it was a great opportunity to try the little jigger, which chimes into life at the slightest prod on the kickstarter – as it probably did from the ‘dead engine’ start at the 1983 Bathurst 250 Production Race when the pair of Ferris and Willing streaked away from the field.
First gear is tall, but it’s more the fact that the engine needs plenty of revs before it comes alive that makes my take off fairly leisurely. But once you start snicking through the gears and keeping the tacho needle well into the “3 o’clock” position that you appreciate how sweet this engine is. In my short ride, I never got near the 10,500 red line, and felt none of the vibration commonly associated with this model, but out on the open road that could change. It feels light, and it is – just 138kg – so flicking it through the swerves and curves of the Hawkesbury Hill was sheer delight, provided I could find a gap between the SUVs. But I can well imagine the exhilaration that Campbell Ferris and Glenn Willing must have felt on that day at Bathurst in 1983 as they scorched up Mountain Straight for the first of their five laps, leaving the previously all-conquering LC Yamahas in a haze of blue smoke.
Honda MVX250F Specifications
ENGINE: 900 V3 water cooled two-stroke
CAPACITY: 249cc
BORE & STROKE: 47mm x 48mm
COMPRESSION RATIO: 0:1
POWER: 49hp at 9,000 rpm
TORQUE: 31.3 Nm at 8,500 rpm
OIL SYSTEM: Oil Injection.
CARBURETION: 3 x 20mm square slide Keihin
AIR FILTER: Oiled Polyurethane Foam
IGNITION: Transistorised Battery/Coil
STARTING: Kick
CLUTCH: Wet Multiplate
TRANSMISSION: Gear primary drive. Six speed constant mesh.
WHEELBASE: 1370mm
TANK CAPACITY: 17 litres
TYRES: Front: 100/90 V16. Rear: 110/80 V18
BRAKES: Front: Single enclosed ventilated disc 235mm diameter, twin piston caliper. Rear: 160mm drum
FRAME: Steel tubular full cradle.
SUSPENSION: Front: Telescopic forks with coil springs and air assistance 135mm travel. Rear: Swinging arm with Pro Link Air Preload.
SEAT HEIGHT: 780mm
CURB WEIGHT: 138kg (dry)
TOP SPEED: 171km
