With the lowest digit on his front number plate on the Monster Energy Supercross starting line and a powerful team behind him, Eli Tomac is running his second season in the premiere 450cc Supercross class. His bike is basically a full factory Honda machine with a few different sponsors and some slightly different bits based on those sponsors compared to the two other factory Hondas of Trey Canard and Cole Seely. Those differing sponsors are Pro Taper for handlebar, grips and sprockets and a different title sponsor, Geico, Cycra for the plastics and on D-cor visuals graphics.
Brian Kranz has been tuning for Eli since the end of 2010 and takes a lot of pride in his work on the bike. “When I build a bike it is a piece of art,” says Kranz. “Sometimes the truck drivers wish I was a little quicker but you can’t rush it.”
Enjoy the eye candy and look for more bikes in the coming weeks.
Eli is very picky about the front brake and making sure it has a firm feel. The works parts are intermixed with a few standard components to give him the feel and the power he needs out of the front binder.As he is getting more familiar with the 450 he is getting more in tune with the chassis tuning that is available to riders at this level. Though the production rule limits what can be altered on the frame the parts like shock linkage, shock length, triple clamp and the offset bearing that allow the bike to be set up specific to supercross and the rider’s personal preferences. The engine mounts are thicker than stock for more ridigity.
Earlier in the testing cycle the riders all had the choice on suspension supplier between Showa and KYB. Eli chose KYB as did Canard. The works suspension uses a very similar system to the production forks and shock on the 2015 CRF450R. The biggest difference in the rear shock is a secondary external rebound adjustment in the conventional location at the bottom of the shock shaft.
Though the top of the shock looks similar to production with the clickers, there is a lot more too it. The additional rebound adjuster on the lower shock clevis allows secondary rebound tuning. Additionally Eli uses both front and rear lowering devices on the start and Honda seemed very hush-hush about the one on the rear linkage but did not go out of their way to hide it.Aside from eye candy the fork is very similar to the production fork in the way it is chambered and how it operates. Eli runs a very stiff front end in comparison to the other riders on the Hondas.
Eli likes a slightly wider (longer actually) footpeg than the other riders but not quite as long as the ones Kevin Windham use to run. Just a couple of millimeters makes a difference for these riders and shows the fine tuning that goes into these bikes after hours at the test tracks.Tomac’s motor can be made into just about any style of power he prefers and he like his 450 to rev. All of the stuff inside the engine is very trick and things like altered crank weights, different clutch configurations as well as pistons, cams to tailor the power into whatever the rider wants. Not to mention the amazing configurations available through fuel injection and ignition tuning. The O2 sensor in the header records if the bike is rich or lean and then allows the mapping to be optimised.Protecting things is a big deal. The extended cover for the water pump is proof.Back this year is the cable clutch. Since all of the riders are recently off the 250 they were use to the feel and the modulation of the cable activation which is said to have a less quick engagement though a slightly heavier feel.There are a lot of electronics that are not on the standard bike. Most of it is data acquisition sensors and in practice there is even a second layer (likely a recorder and a plug-in interface) to monitor lots of functions on the bike.This little led light is basically a staging light for the start. It illuminated when the RPM is set to the precise level to achieve the best start based on lots of practice starts. It is a visual que added to aid the rider when there is so much additional noise on the start line at an actual race.
The map switch selector on the bar basically activates a start (or launch control) map then automatically switches back to the regular mode after the start.There are some details on a factory bike that just glow in trickness.Though there is likely more unobtainable stuff on Tomac’s bike than any other you’d be surprised what you actually can buy. If you have a lot of money. But the good thing is that the stuff that makes Eli’s bike look like Eli’s bike is readily available and easy to come by, some of it expensive too.
