Honda Spree and Elite 50 Forums

Hello from England. I have just bought a 1986 Honda Vision (NB50M) and read this thread with some interest. Mine is in a fairly sorry state, it's been through a few scrapes and not really looked after. I'll post a new thread but wanted to say hello here as I have some common interests to GSX1400 in France. I have 3 other bikes, Cagiva Navigator, Cagiva 750 Elefant and a 1976 Z900. I bought the scoot for a runabout while I'm out camping.

Well hello England!

I got paid by the insurance for the "incident" at the mall. 450Ôé¼ if I recall well.
Now I've got to find the time to leave TT at the garage for repairs. Estimated 10/15 days cause the paint's got to dry and everthing.

Almost 10000 kilometers. I'm soon going to change the rear tire. They're still the original ones from 1986!
The drive belt too is still original. I wonder if I should change it preventivly?

In the meanwhile, I took my Suzuki out of the garage for a ride. First time in almost 3 years...


I still looks new since 2003 that I bought it.

It's almost warm here in England so will get my Cagiva Navigator out for a picture along with the Vision soon. Did you by any chance take pictures of the old / new variator ramp plates side by side?

Not at home at the moment. I do have these on my hard disc. I'll post them later this week.

Unrestricted ramp plate :


Restricted one :



The restricted one is flat. The belt will not be able to go up as high as with the unrestricted one. So the engine will rev a lot with the speed blocked at 45 km/h...

The pipe is restricted too...

dre grease that thing !!

It has been cleaned. Was like that when opened for the first time (scoot had 875 km on the odo when I bought it...sort of time capsule).

Many thanks for posting the pictures. Looks like there's quite a difference between the 2 ramp plates? I'll take mine apart some time in the next few days and see if it's similar to your original. I remember reading your posts from a while back about the ramp plate another member had sent to you and how it was more sensitive to revs / top speed, is it the same as the one in the picture?
I've checked my exhaust and there's no washer, after 30+ years there's every chance it could have been taken out by a previous owner.

Curiosity got the better of me today and it was nice to be outside with some sunshine so I took the variator off. Mine looks to be unrestricted, so it's still a bit of a mystery how they restrict the UK versions to 30mph.

IMO the washer in the exhaust is what limits the power output.
The speed is more likely to be restricted by letting the revs go up without them getting the most out of the gearing.
If you only took the washer out, you would get better BHP but the speed wouldn't go up too much as the tranny would be spinning without reason.
If you only changed the ramp plate, you could get some MPH more, but I doubt the engine would handle the speed greatly at the slightest up-hill, choked by the washer.

I see something interesting : your ramp plate is engraved UK, mine was F (France) and the one I got from the US is stamped A (America?).

I think the main jet is changed too. Can't recall what is should be in unrestricted versions. Someone?

There is also the down-pipe before the silencer : one model is progressivly bigger entering the silencer (see pictures of my scoot in close ups earlier in this topic), another one is skinny from the start up to the silencer.

Then, there is the air inlet on the air-box : some have one of the two holes obstructed.

In France, the mopeds are restricted to 45 km/h.
Mine was restricted by the down pipe (washer), has the big down pipe, and the flat ramp plate. It DID ride up to 45 km/h per the speedometer.
The air inlet was the 2 entry hole model, the main jet is slightly smaller than what was found on US models (non restricted versions) but I don't recall the number of this jet.

Seems like different restrictions were applied depending on export markets in order to restrict the mopeds to 45 km/h or around 30 mph.

What's the speed yours can obtain?

Yeah, the exhaust washer will certainly reduce power and probably the revs, if you add that to a flat ramp plate you'll get speed restrictions. On mine there may have been a washer and perhaps even a flatter ramp plate at one time. The exhaust pipe does get a bit wider near the silencer too.
2 things that are worn on mine are the rollers which all have flat areas and the belt which is at it's service limit, these will reduce the gearing so I'll replace them. The rollers are quite heavy at 10g so I wonder if they've been added at some point. After that, it's the final drive ratio which I don't really want to mess with just yet.
I've only ridden the scoot once on the road, that was for it's MOT roadworthiness test a couple of weeks ago. When I bought it, the speedo didn't work as the drive was broken. I replaced the brake shoe carrier with one from another scooter, so don't know if the speedo gearing is correct but I get a max speed of about 27 mph according to the speedo, and it does feel about right. When I get some new parts, I'll use my phone GPS to see how fast it actually goes.

27 is the speed of a restricted version.
No washer in the down pipe, no flat ramp plate ; where is it restricted to be so slow???

Engine compression says what? How many miles on the odo?

You may want to check rear gear ratio. On slower version these are sometimes a taller ratio than they need to be.

Yeah, the final drive gear ratio is a distinct possibility. I've ordered new rollers & a drive belt, so will report back when they're fitted. I can probably get a few more rpm from cleaning out the carbon, but the engine seemed to be revving freely enough when I was out a few days ago.
As for how many miles? Your guess is as good as mine about how many times it's been past 9999 in 30+ years!

Just checked my final drive ratio, it looks to be a little over 12:1. That is just over 12 turns of the clutch to 1 turn of the rear wheel. According to the NB 50 manual I downloaded it would normally be 11.097:1 Maybe this lower gearing is taking away some of the top speed.
The NB50 manual is the closest I can find for my scoot with just a couple of differences, notably the oil pump which is not regulated by cable on my scoot.