Just a question to see whether or not it would be better to do a rebuild myself or have it done buy a reputable two stroke garage. What would be approx cost for a top end and/or full rebuild? Also I am based in victoria, australia so does anyone down here know of anywhere i could get such a job done, preferably a place with experience in two strokes.
thanks

I bought all the parts from tyga (www.tygaperformance.com), cost about $180 aus each cylinder, and I did it myself. if you take your time and follow the rebuild instructions (don't worry about the bottom end part) in the workshop section you should be fine. the most complicated thing i had done before that was removing the carburettor from my 600 hornet and cleaning it. You could get them from bcomponents who are a tyga dealer based in melbourne

If you go to a workshop, you'll be up for several hours labour, plus they'd probably buy the parts from a honda dealer and charge you markup on that too. I was going to be ripped off because there's not many strokers in sydney, and the local mech won't touch them, but there's a lot more in melbourne being learner legal and all, so they may not charge as much

These are very common questions, and the answers are always the same...

This Site exists solely to help you own, maintain, tune, and repair your Honda! Of all the modern 250 2-strokes, the NSR is by far the easiest to work on - it is effectively a GP motor, and can be stripped faster than an Escort parked in a back street in Liverpool!

There is a full strip-down and rebuild with photo's in the Workshop, and more than enough people on here willing to offer advice every step of the way. Maybe the first time you won't save a lot of cash, as you may need to spend money on tools, but a 2-stroke is all about maintenance, so they will only ever come in handy again in the future, and start saving you money!

Once you've had the motor in bits for the first time it's a slippery slope anyway! You'll be wanting to tweak and tune it, fit "go-faster" parts, and generally wonder what all the fuss was about in the first place. Rebuilding it yourself will also help you to understand how it all works, which in turn helps you understand how to look after it.

Parts for a top-end rebuild are going to be in the region of £150~200, plating of the barrels will be £100~150 each if needed, and the cost of labour depends on where you take it. Expect anything from £200 to £500 depending on the shops scruples!
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Top end is a piece of cake;

It took me for a first attempt around 1hr 40mins from arriving home (running on one cylinder having limped home from it seizing) to get the tools out, let it cool down a bit, make a tea and chuck another piston and barrel on and fire it up again, in the fading light outside on the road. This includes 10 mins spent swapping the studs over onto of the "new" (read secondhand) piston/barrel set as the HRC head conversion means one stud in the std barrel is too short and two are too long anyway. Then five mins reading on the workshop to check which way the piston clip should sit. I'd guess Andy or Steve can do a cylinder in way under an hour, in fact it took Steve more like 15 minutes to fit a barrel (to a semi stripped bike) and took me longer to change the battery (no really, it did).

The cost depends what you want to do;

If it's just tired or you're paranoid it about time to do it don't replate the cylinders for the sake of it if there is no cylinder damage, they don't wear out and replated cylinders are notorious for the chrome coming off if it siezes in the future. Do the rings by all means, do the pistons if they're worn outside of service limits butthis is not a nice sight to greet you and it's only one you see after a cylinder has been replated, it means your post seizure one hour rebuild just became an engine out, crank out job.

Do it yourself, not only will you save money and learn about your bike, any fear of it eating itself will completely vanish as you'll know how easy it is to fix.

Years of overly complex 4 strokes have taught us anything that lurks under the fairing is too complex to fiddle with, requires specialist tools, skills and years of hard earned knowledge.
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i spose ill give it a go. all i need is the motivation. the compression is 110 on the bottom cylinder and 115 on the top and im sure i wouldnt have much trouble re-doing these, but the bike has 23,000km on the clock and i don't quite know what the cranks like. im still not quite sure about the sound of the bottom end. i could leave it but it may blow up and cause more serious damage. Not so good when your on apprentice wages damn you mr howard! anyhow thanks for the advice

Tip Top advice from Mr. Fontyyy there I think. As the man said, just buy yourself some new rings etc. and get stuck in - you might want to consider doing the little end bearings while you're in there too? And taking the cylinders off will give you an opportunity to get an idea of the condition of the bottom end as well.

I still remember the immense satisfaction I got from doing my first stroker top end at the age of 13 - nearly 25 years ago with not much more than an adjustable spanner and an old screwdriver . It was an aircooled single so it was even easier than a 'modern' water cooled bike like the NSR (A yamaha FS1-E in fact), but the sense of pride and achievement when I fired it up were enormous. It wasn't long after that that I did my first bit of 'tuning' of course ...and not long after that that I was rebuilding the top end again.

Dive in. If you post up any queries along the way, the good folks here will help you out. I can't imagine that there are many of us that haven't rebuilt a number of stroker top ends. And some on here can prob' do an NSR in their sleep - not me tho'. Being an NSR newbie I'm yet to delve into an NSR's innards. I have to say though that the motor looks to be the easiest of all the 250 strokers to work on ( as Andy notes). It really is a delightfully uncluttered design (Wb sings praises of Honda shock! )

Be warned though. It will probably give you a taste for fiddlling and fettling stroker motors that may well take over your life.

Good luck with it

Wb [/i]