DBC's NHX110(LEAD, Elite), C125 SuperCub, CT125/Trail125, Z125 Monkey Journey

**Update 10/25/20: sold second NHX110 to another guy I know. I'm gonna change the thread title to reflect my ongoing lifestyle of using small bikes as transportation. Now that I have a C125 SuperCub this will be a continuation with that. Starting on pg.64 post #1265 of this thread. Actually I'm gonna add the CT125/Trail125 and Monkey on this thread too and make it into my Honda Mini Moto thread.

***Update 1/25/20: sold the first NHX110 last summer to a friend, it had 76k+ miles and still running strong. Now on my second NHX110.

****Update 7/28/17: as of now have over 61,000 miles. So far there have been three problems. Well four, five and six are user error.

1st is wires rubbing bare causing shorts, various check engine light comes up. Originally happened at about 15,000 miles and started happening again around 50,000 miles. Since there were multiple points of rubbing bare I replaced the whole sub wire engine harness.

2nd is fuel pump. It started to have a power loss pulse around 58,000 miles. At first it would be intermittent then as it got worst it would happen after about an hour of riding. This only happened with WOT...basically it was worn out and getting worse.

3rd is leaking head gastket, happened just below 50,000 miles causing overheating. It started only happening on really hot days and serveral hours of ridding and went for months without showing again. Then over the course of about 10,000 miles it started more often till it would do it even in cold weather and within an hour of riding.

4th was a leaking crank seal on the variator side. This was cause mainly by me over filling the motor oil. As pressure builds up with over fill it has to go somewhere so out the seal it went. It was a very slow leak.

5th was a accelerated worn spark plug cap. This was cause by a zip tie at the middle of the spark plug wire that broke. That was wear and tear but the next part was cause by me by not replacing the zip tie. It cause the plug wire to move/wiggle/vibrate more so prematurely worn the cap and plug end. Solved by replacing the zip tie and new cap and plug.

6th was broken exhaust, happened twice, and strip mounting threads. First time was cause by me forgetting to tighten up the mounting bolts so they vibrated loose a little then the treads got mangled from all the bouncing, had to drill out and rethread to larger bolts. Cause of the bouncing it broke the exhaust at the header and muffler joint. Two years later it broke at the header elbow at the head, this was cause by the original weld fix that had put stress on the elbow because it wasn't perfectly align.

Everything else has been wear and tear from use.
****end update****


Everything NHX110. Since ADV doesn't have one, Urbanscootin.com hasn't been open to new users for years and I have some free time. I'm going to be cut'n paste over from Urbanscootin my section on the NHX110. Now folks can actually interact about the NHX110 instead of just looking on UrbanScootin. You can also check out my youtube channel, my signature is the link. There are breaks in the posts and might not make sense cause I was interacting with others but will not post up their post. These post are over the corse of three years. If you want to know the details of those then go to Urbanscootin.

http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/644/Motorcycle-Video/2010-Honda-Elite-scooter---First-Ride.aspx

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So I joined the elitist crowd and have left the superior crowd.

I'm not gonna post any pics cause you seen one you've seen them all. Got over a hundred miles so far.

Fit/finish:
The quality is very high. The plastic is still that good honda plastic we have all come to know on the met, unlike other chinese made scoots where the plastic will crack instead of flex. Having looked over the bike I can see how honda is able to price it competitively considering that it is liquid cooled and fuel injected. Meaning that they used lower cost mfg techniques and lower cost material (ie steel frame instead of aluminum like the met) while still producing high quality. By far this is the highest quality bike I have ever seen come out of china. I would even say that the quality is better then Taiwanese made bikes, even Taiwanese made bikes from other japanese company (ie zuma125) but hey it is a Honda after all. And it don't matter if it is made in Japan, USA, China, Italy, Brazil, Thiland etc. Honda quality is Honda quality.

Technology:
This bike has ALL the sensors you can think off: MAP, intake temp, O2, bank angle, etc. etc. This scoot is high tech indeed and modern in every sense of the word.

Ride:
The ride is surprisingly VERY balance. This is the most balance bike I have ever ridden. I can do a track stand better/easier/longer on this then any other two wheeler besides bicycles. The handling is superb and ride quality is great, very smooth and intuitive. Since it is a two up ride the rear suspension is a little on the firm side cause there is no preload adjustment, but this makes it very sporty feeling and corners very well. The front fork feels great. So the suspension feels firm but smooth, not jarring or bouncy at all. For small wheels it feels very stable (if you never saw/know the size you'll think they were much larger) yet still provides that quick agile steering that is expected of small wheels. This bike is sooo smooth and very responsive, but does idle a little rough (think it'll smooth out once broken in). This is a quick scoot for only being a 108cc, pulls like a 125 or 150. It is very quiet even more then the met. Brakes are very strong and responsive, I wish the front had more modulation.

Practical:
So the reason why I got this is to replace all my other around town bikes. This does everything I want/need. It can do 50mph all day long, won't push the motor till it is broken in. Huge carrying capacity. Two up capable. Still relatively small. Great gas mileage, my first fill up showed about 100mpg. I would like a side stand, there is an after market one available. Also would of liked a kick starter.

Style:
Being an all plastic scoot it looks like any other plastic scoot, more or less. One thing I don't like about scooters is that they are all too wide and this is no exception. I'm not a fan of the front end just looks very common not much style, but the rear end looks smooth and streamlined. Instrument panel is good, has fuel and temp gauge. The floor board to seat height feels a little short, shorter then the met...it could be the shape of the seat.

Update:

So now that I'm about to hit 1k (997) miles I'm giving a short term update. The motor felt tight until I started to loose patience around 400miles. I started to ride it really agressively, WOT from red light to red light, after about 100miles of this I notice the motor starting to loosen up and by 600 miles if felt pretty broken-in. Riding like this made the fuel mileage go down to about 80mpg. Check the valves and they were fine. Went back to normal riding and gas mileage went back up near 100mpg, I would say in the 90something range. I notice the sound of the motor more now and it isn't quite as quiet as the Met anymore, but is smoother now. My oil change interval for the last 1k miles was 100, 300, 600, 1000 using 15w-40 diesel truck motor oil. This could also be the cause of lower fuel mileage compared to the first 100miles cause recommended oil is 10w-30, but then again I wasn't boucing off the rev limiter the whole time in the first 100miles.

So the scoot hits the rev limiter at 52/3mph indicated and feels like it has plenty of power left as if it can do 60mph. I've put on a Tiny Tach and the rev limiter kicks in at 9k+ RPM. So one thing that was different with this motor is that it seems that it sparks only on the compression stroke. All other bikes that I've tested sparks at every TDC stroke. The tiny tach is made to measure spark at every TDC stroke and cuts that number in half to give you the RPMs. With this scoot it only reads 4520 RPM when the rev limiter kicks in. At idle the tach reads 850rpm. Specs show idle is 1700 give or take 100rpm so that is inline with the tach reading. The motor power really kicks in starting at about 7k RPM and seems to gets stronger until the rev limiter.

Since I plan on getting 50k miles out of this bike I started to use synthetic oil at 1k miles, Walmart brand 10w-30 synthetic cause I'm cheap. I think I'm gonna check the valves again, Honda says 600miles then every 2.5k miles...but who knows it could be like the met/ruck and need valves check/adjustment more often then what Honda recommends. I'm just gonna check it every 1k miles for the next few thousand miles to get a feel for it and adjust my adjustment mileage accordingly after that.

The bike still rides great but one gripe I have with it is the tire size. It seems like Honda put on under size width tires for the rim size. For example the front rim is 2.5" wide and back is 2.75" wide and the front tire is a 90 while back is 100. I think the front rim fits better with a 100 width tire and the back with a 110 or 120 width. Once these tires wear out I'm going for a 100 up front and 110 or 120 in the back. Cause of the narrow tires for rim width I can easily get to the edge of the rear tire, even under city riding conditions, that I feel like I'm about to run out of tire when I ride the twisties.

No, didn't have to adjust the valves at 600 miles and haven't check at 1k miles yet. Think I'll take some pics for a how to next time I check the valves. The valve adjustment is just like the met/ruck except the elite use a adjusting screw/lock nut instead of shims so you don't have to buy shims to make an adjustment. The specs is 0.006" for intake and 0.010" for exhaust. I think I have a how to valve adjustment for the met on here or on totalruckus, do a search for it.

I have a pig tail for my electric vest. The elite has enough capacity for this...got a video how to on here somewhere. Or you can youtube it.

Now that I'm at 2k miles the bike feels broken in and now runs much smoother and quieter. I just did another valve check and the exahaust was .001 on the tight side.

Check the oil and found it to be on the bottom tip of the hash marks. Not sure if it consumed oil or I just didn't fill up as much as I should from the last oil change. I'm gonna have to keep an eye on the oil level now. I was running 5w-30 this last time and now am on 10w-30 which is what I'm gonna stay at.

So before I thought I lost a couple MPH off the top from belt wear caused by long high speed downhill runs because I would hit the rev limiter at just past 50mph, but found that when up at 50mph if I let of the gas a little I can get to 52mph before the rev limiter kicks in. I think it does this cause the motor is now broken in and is producing more power thus able to hit the rev limit before the drive has time to catch up. kinda like if the rollers were a little on the light side. I still feel that this bike is under geared. I think it can easily be geared to hit the rev limit at 55mph and maybe even 60mph.

The other thing the bike can do now is get up to max speed on partial throttle, about 3/4 throttle.

I also just put in a high speed plug...I'll see how that goes in another 1k miles. The stock setting is certainly on the lean side by the looks of the plug.

I was looking at different tire sizes but need to measure actual size vs. theoretical size. Stock there is only about half an inch of clearance between the tire and the case and swing arm. I checked a 4.00x10 tire and it is too big. Basically we only have about 1/4" to play with, meaning that we can go 1/2" larger in diameter and width.

Theoretically a 110/80 is smaller in diameter and a 110/90 is just about as large as can fit but actual size will vary with different tires. What needs to be done is have a measurement of the 100/90 against the other sizes and if the diameter is no larger then 1/2" it should be okay to fit. I haven't been able to get my hands on a 110/80 or 110/90 yet so I don't know.

I was looking at the K61 too as a replacement. Moto Amore is in my area so I can go there and do the measurements on the K61. I'm not gonna do that until I'm in need of replacing my rear. Looking at the wear it seems like the rear will be worn out in the 4k mile range. I'm at over 2.3k miles so 4k won't be much longer, a few more months.

So I did some technical twisties last week and found that the stock tires grips okay. I don't like the feel or lack thereof during dry conditons. I was able to scrape the center stand and felt that there was still traction, meaning I wanted to lean more but wasn't able to. The rear surprisingly didn't run out of tire as I had feared. What I do like about the OEM tires is the wet grip. It has really good feel in wet conditions. I was also able to get the tires to slide under certain conditions and find that they are very predictable. Overall I have to say that the OEM tires aren't as bad as I first felt.

Dry condition feel sucks. Slippery condition feels really good and is very predictable.

So finally got 3k miles and did another oil change. The rear tire is almost to the wear bar. Being the dry season here in Cali, think I will go until the wear bar is gone before replacing the rear. If it were the wet season I would definitely would replace a tire when at the wear bar.

One thing I suggest is that every time the oil is changed, the drive should be cleaned out too. As the belt wears it produces a lot of belt dust which gums up the variator parts and will slow the scoot down. It seems I regain a couple MPH after a cleaning. The rollers were still in great shape with no flat spots what so ever. I believe that cleaning the drive also prevents the rollers from getting flats spots because the dirt/dust will stop the roller from rolling. What I like about the elite110 is the drive venting. It takes in air from the outside to help cool down the drive and pushes hot air out from the bottom of the drive cover. The way it is partition it does a very good job of directing air where it needs to go, prevents belt dust build up and it also helps reduce belt dust by blowing some of the belt dust out. For the same miles the elite has less belt dust build up compared to the metropolitan/ruckus.

Changed the rear tire at 3862miles, it was almost bald. Got to the wear bar about 3.5k miles. Put on Michelin S1. So far they fell good. Comfortable ride and quiet. I had tried S1s on the met before and it was too harsh of a ride. Side walls were too stiff for that lite of a bike. On the elite it feels fine. Front seems to be at half life.

Just about to hit 4k miles and changed the oil. Checked valves, dead on, no adjustment needed. Clean the variator, this time around it was much cleaner then last time. Rollers are still round and haven't develop flats spots yet...but it seems like they are on the verge of developing.

Previously I mentioned that I had lost a little speed. It seems that the culprit was a wearing rear tire. As it worn it wasn't able to cover as much distance per revolution. So now I'm back to 52/3mph rev limiter hit. Just from the tire change alone.

I also notice that after a thousand miles my oil level isn't all the way up the hash marks but closer to the bottom. I notice this last time but wasn't sure if I had filled all the way to the top or not. I believe my motor consumes a little oil. I'm thinking that it was cause by my impatience with the break in period. I was taking it easy the first couple hundred miles then after that rode it like I stole it, WOT all the time. I should have taken it easy for the first 1k if not at least 600miles.

My gas mileage is still holding steady at about 90mpg.

At 6k miles, check the valves again still good. Changed oil and am now gonna stick with one oil for all my bikes to make it easier on myself, so I'm going with a rotella synthetic because it also works in my motorcycles. Oil level seems to be stable, think I had filled it on the low end before. Belt and rollers still looks good, no flat spots. The spark plug looks like it is on the lean side, which is typical of bikes/cars now a days because of emissions.

at over 7k miles:

Just changed my gear oil..it was pretty clean. Honda recommends every two years.

Also bleed the brakes, what a difference in firmness of the lever...gets me every time I bleed brakes. Honda says every two years but I always do it every year in spring after the rainy season. The reason why is because brake fluid absorbs water and degrades, besides degrading from use. Having fresh brake fluid for summer since more heat works the brakes harder and to get rid of the water absorbed fluid from the rainy season.

It looks like the front tire will reach the wear indicator by 7.5k miles. Since it'll be summer I'll run them till just about bald which I think will be about 8k miles. I haven't been able to find tires in the stock size: 90/90-12 except that I have a couple in that size left over from when I was working at a scooter shop. They are some chinese brand/made, could be cheng shin. The closest size available is a 100/90-12 dunlop tt-92 tires. These are very good high quality, high performance tires but cost a lot. Folks use these to race mini bikes, which I did in the past and they work great.

@~7.7k miles; cleaned and checked the rollers and belt, looks good..I'm surprise the rollers don't have any flat spots yet. The front tire is just about flush with the wear bar indicator. At this rate I think it can maybe do another 1k miles before it becomes bald.

I'm going on a short 1k mile trip this week to meet up with these folks: http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=716979
I believe I'll be okay with the remaining tire life I have left..I'll be pushing it but think it'll be okay considering how they have worn in the last 1k miles or so. Will also do an early oil change as well for the trip.

Yes the met is a great little scooter. My last one had 12K+ miles and it also ran like new.

I wasn't able to meet up with Co and Re, the world travelers on symbas. Something came up and I wasn't able to fit into their schedule ride by. One of these days I'll meet up with them...

When I got the elite I looked over the PCX and it was just not practical for me as a daily commuter, just had no carrying capacity compared to the Elite. I do like the larger wheels. And now that the PCX is 150 it is even better. If you do decide on the PCX get the 150 and not the old 125.

As for braking, you won't know until you tried both. PCX has larger brakes but weights more and having larger wheel diameter there is more leverage against the brakes. So the PCX has less brake leverage ratio compared to the Elite. The Elite has plenty of braking power, more then enough. I can easily lock up the front brakes if I want to and have almost crashed a few times cause I was on the brakes so hard...I actually have gone down on the elite once last month when I was trail braking and went over some gravel. I was able to keep pretty good control of it and when I did go down I was able to slow it down from full speed to walking speed and the momentum just threw me off, landed on my feet stumbling backwards in front of the scoot with throttle hand still on the grip..the position was so awkward that I wasn't able to hold up the scoot and keep myself balance on my feet so I let go of the scoot and it slid about 6inches towards me. The bank angle sensor killed the motor, turn of the ignition and back on to reset it.

I'm starting up my summer work schedule and a project just came up so I'm not sure if I'm gonna be free to ride up to SF the weekend that you are here. As the date comes up I'll have a better idea if I'll be free. Are you riding up?

So one thing I notice is after a few thousand miles the drive seems to not be as smooth...feels kinda like the rollers or belt is worn and it has a hard time getting to top speed, but every time I check they are fine. I clean up the rollers/variator and everything is smooth again. It also seems like top speed is easier to get to as well. So my advise is to clean your drive when every few thousand miles.

Okay got 9.5k miles and need to change out the front tire. It got to the wear indicator between 8.5k-9k miles. I notice that after I got the new tire on there my speedometer max speed reading is around 48-49mph. So this tells me that there are several possible things: one is that the worn and new tire diameter difference comes out to about 2mph on the speedometer, also the other possible thing is that the new tire could be a tad larger in diameter even when both tires are the same size, and for certain the belt and roller wear will cause a lost in top speed as well...which I believe is the real reason for the lost in top speed.

I think I might change out the belt and rollers at 10k miles...honda says to do the belt at 15k. I might just try the new ones and see what my top speed comes out to, if the same then I'll use the old one till 15k. I'll also check/adjust the valves at 10k...can't remember when I last checked it, maybe at 5k.

And about the front tire size availability. I was not able to find any that is sold here in the USA. I got my tire from when I was working at a chinese scooter shop...somehow they ended up with two in that size. When the shop went under I called dibs on them tires. When I got a new rear I went with Heidenau K61. Got those directly from John at MotoAmore the USA Heidenau distributor. He mentioned that they do make the K61 in a 90/90-12 but didn't carry any cause there is no demand for it. I mentioned that there is no tires available at all for the elite110 front size and that got his interest and said he will order 5 of them. So if you need a front tire give John an email/call.

About the Heidenau K61 rear tire I am just about at the edge of the tire. I don't feel much of a difference in lean angle so this tells me that the curve profile isn't as high/round as my last tire the Michelin S1 or the stock tire. So far it handles fine and feels good but I'll need to put more miles on it to be sure and see how long it last. The previous two only lasted about 4k miles each.

I'm at 10k and checked the valves. They were the same as I last checked/adjusted. Changed the spark plug. I have been using a NGK CR8EHIX, because most of my riding is high speed. The old one shows signs of leaner running condition, which was expected for emissions. The old plug gap increased to about 0.039", spec is 0.031"-0.035". The iridium electrode didn't wear much but the ground end did. I could of just made an adjustment to it and use the old plug but I got three more from a pack of four and at 10k change interval I can go 40k with what I have.

Changed the belt, spec service limit is 17.5mm mine is thicker then that but I don't like the fact that my speedo reading is 4mph less then when new. Haven't ridden it yet to see if I have a speed change or not. Since I changed the front tire 500miles ago and the rear 1k miles ago my speedometer reading should be pretty much as it was when the bike was new. I am using different tires so there could still be a discrepancy but theoretically they should be the same. After the tire changes my max speed read 48-49mph from the old front tire of 50mph. I'm hoping that the new belt will bring my top speed back up to 52mph like when the bike was new. I can see the wear on the variator that shows the belt wear when new to 10k miles. The rollers were not changed because they have yet to develop any flat spots, I'm surprised by this but it is a good sign. I can see where there is chatter on them. Also the three variator back plate guide slides are still in good shape and I don't hear much rattling in the drive which tells me those guide slides are not very worn along with the rollers. If the top speed still reads 48-49mph then I'm gonna conclude it as variation in the tire size. If it does change, which I believe it will, then for certain it is belt wear. And if I don't get back to the 52mph top speed I'll try new rollers and see.

So besides the worn belt everything seems good.

Okay so the new belt got my tops speed back to 52mph, still on original rollers...thing those might go 15k miles. So if you are curios about when to change the belt, Honda says 15k miles in the schedule maintenance and the service limit is 17.5mm in the service manual. Mine had 10k miles and the belt was about a little over 17.6mm and top speed was about 48-49mph. So if you don't have calipers or don't want to take out the belt to measure it then the easy way is to see what the top speed is. I estimate by mine that if your scoot tops out at 48mph then the belt will be just about 17.5mm and time to change. Can't really go by mileage because of riding style and conditions. Also as mentioned previously, your drive should be clean for an accurate mph reading...as the drive gets muck up by belt dust you will lose a mph or so. Best to clean the drive every 2k miles, I find after 1k it's still pretty clean and after 3k I'll lose a mph off top speed.

One thing I notice in the last few thousand miles is that the bike seems to be able to coast longer with less engine braking. When new the engine braking was very noticeable and felt like there was too much but now it feels less.

Things I use to clean the drive:
old toothbrush
simple green w/squirt bottle, I mix somewhere between 10:1 - 20:1 ratio of water to simple green, In the case of the drive I use higher water ratio because there isn't any grease/oil

you'll have to take off the variator and clean where the rollers are (pretty much everything that touches the rollers), the rollers themselves, the variator boss, the brass bearing of the variator. That should do it. If you are really anal then you can clean anywhere you see belt dust but since none of that interferes or touches the drive it would just be for looks..which I actually do about every 5k miles.

I also forgot to mention before that I had also clean the pinion gear..the part that engages the starter to the drive to turn the crank over to start the motor. Best to clean it with an aerosol can of WD-40, wipe it as dry/clean as possible and if you have an air compressor use that. Then get some grease in the parts that mesh.

At 11k miles. The last 1k miles I started using Mobil1 10w-30 Extended Performance because I'm getting too lazy to change my truck oil every 5k miles as per the owners manual when I was using Walmart Supertech synthetic. With the Mobil1 Extended Performance, they say you can go up to 15k miles but I'm weary of that so I'll do it at 10k miles. So for the folks that don't already know, what ever oil I run in my truck I run in my Elite110 as well. One thing that I do notice with the Mobil Extended Performance is that it runs a little smoother in both my truck and scooter. With a 1k miles change interval on the scoot, the oil looks a little cleaner with the Mobil1. I'm considering increasing the interval to 1.5k or even 2k miles.

Having the scoot for almost two years and 11k+ miles and passing by numerous road side radar (some more accurate then others) the speedometer accuracy still holds up to the ~5% optimistic side.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before or not but I'm finding that the elite110 runs stronger in warmer temps then colder temps. This has to do with fact that it runs more on the lean side because of emissions regulations.

So starting the scoot lately has cause what sounds like grinding of the outer variator plate and the starter pinion gear. I took it out and had a look and all seems good with that interface.

The drive cover for the last few times has become more and more difficult to take off. This time around I couldn't pull it off with my bare hands. Looking at it the two dowel pins on the drive cover have rusted up pretty bad. Rust expands which explains the tight fit. Took them off with lots of effort via pliers and had to replace them. I suggest that they be cleaned (if rust is present use a wire brush) the next time you take off the drive and coated with anti-seize. This will stop the corrosion and make taking the drive off/on easy.

So back to the grinding noise. Since I started using an electric liner and electric gloves my battery hasn't been able to fully charge with in town (stop N go) riding. So I think a weaker battery is part of the problem, it makes the starter engagement not as quick and crisp. Also I notice that when I roll the scoot backwards it is more likely that the grinding noise occurs.