A CBR1000RR-Swapped N600 May Be The Perfect Honda

Tiny little city cars are very good, but motorcycles are even better. Of course, each one has its pros and cons, which can only mean one thing: The ideal vehicle is some Hegelian synthesis of the two. Something like this Honda N600, perhaps, which eschews its traditional little two-cylinder for an inline-four out of a Fireblade — and swaps its 45 stock horses for 170 horsepower at 13,000 screaming RPM. The build comes from the mad geniuses over at Cars and Cameras, who have really come into their own as our own little domestic Garage54. 

Cars and Cameras released part one of the CBR1000RR-powered N600 build, which is nearly 44 minutes of cutting, welding, and making the big four cylinder fit behind the N600's front seats. It's sort of a Renault 5 Turbo layout, which is a far cry from the car's original front-engine, front-wheel-drive design. The first episode covers everything from rolling the N600 into the shop, all the way through to the CBR engine's first start in the new chassis. Any other YouTube channel would take months of slow-drip posts to get to that point, and for that we thank Cars and Cameras. 

Despite the increases in displacement and power, the CBR engine is actually lighter than the mill that originally powered the N600 — even with a fuel tank, exhaust manifold, and wiring harness still mounted to the bike engine. All that power with less weight than an already-light stock Honda sounds like a recipe for a car that's an absolute blast to drive. Or a deathtrap. Quite possibly both. 

The engine isn't really interfacing with the car much in by the end of the video — little things like "pedals" are left as an exercise for later in the build, instead relying on the bike's throttle tube — which raises some questions about how exactly the build crew plans to make that all work. Running a chain to a sprocket at the rear is reasonable enough, but converting a throttle with a return cable to a single pedal seems like a much more intricate job. Seems like we'll all have to stay tuned for the next episode to see how they pull it off.