Honda dropped their new model 450 last month, and from the outside, it doesn’t look as big a jump as we’ve seen in the past, such as in 2017 with the addition of twin pipes, or in 2021 when they dropped the twin pipes and moved much closer to what we have now in 2025. To the average eye, it doesn’t look like much has changed other than some funky new radiator shrouds.
But changes are there, we just need to dig a little deeper to find them.
On Kris Keefer’s website, he points out 5 key changes to the new 450.
- Engine: The redesigned airbox provides a straighter pathway for airflow, as well as the revised header pipe design is longer.
- Chassis: The meat and potatoes of the 2025 Honda CRF450R is the updated main frame constructed of 70% new components to optimize rigidity and improve handling characteristics.
- Suspension: A new shock spring, reservoir, shaft and oil seal contribute to a consistent stroke feel to match the fork updates.
- Plastic Crossover: No, your old shrouds and side panels will not fit. You’re stuck with the 2025 plastic scheme.
- Brakes: The front brake caliper has an updated piston and seal grooves for consistent performance throughout the moto (fading).
The chassis has been updated to “optimize rigidity and improve handling characteristics”. What exactly does this mean though? To find our answers, we have to jump back into the past and see some of the comments being made about the Honda 450 in 2021 and 2023.
Following the 2023 Houston Supercross, Michael Lindsay from Vital MX spoke with Chase Sexton, and we got some insight into what issues he was having:
“Last year it was really overpowering the front, now it’s overpowering the rear”, “When the track was slicker last year, we struggled a little bit, and this year it felt a lot more stable.”
Interesting! It looks like the changes Honda made, completely changed the characteristic of the bike and shifted the problem from the front to the rear. What I mean is that, the front didn’t just improve a little bit, but the rear actually became worse, presumably caused by over compensation. This is quite normal when working through the trail and error of rider feedback, and what’s good is that the engineers at Honda were actually able to alter the bike in a way that could directly target the area where Chase felt the issue i.e. the front being over-powerd.
The Motocross Action Magazine Real Test of the 2021 Honda CRF 450 R had this to say when it was first released:
“Lateral rigidity has been reduced a remarkable 20 percent, which can be felt in everything from line choice to directional changes to accurate wheel tracking…. No doubt about it, the 2021 Honda’s more conservative powerband, flexier frame and spot-on ergonomics will make every loyal Honda CRF450 rider a happy camper… It is possible to have too much of a good thing. For some unknown reason, Honda’s engineers steepened the head angle by 0.5 degrees, ostensibly to make the CRF450 turn-in better…. When you combine the steeper head angle with the soft forks and aggressive braking, you get a bike that dives. The dive steepens the head angle way beyond common sense. This tacks the CRF450’s front tire to the ground so well that the frame hinges in the middle and the rear end steps outs….”
I like these reviews from MXA, because they really do put the bike through its paces over months and give real world feedback on the bikes in stock form. If you’re wondering, “Lateral rigidity” is the ability of the frame to resist bending between the headstock and rear axle. Imaging grabbing the frame in the picture above with one hand on the headstock, and one hand on the axle pivot, and you’re trying to bend it so that the headstock touches the rear axle pivot, and as you look down on it from above you see a “U” shape. The force acting against you there is lateral rigidity. The issue is though, that many of Chase Sexton’s crashes in the 2023 season were due to washing the front, how could this happen on a bike that has so much front wheel traction, it will throw the rear out?
If MXA’s comments are correct, that the head angle was too steep, and the forks were too soft, then this leaves the factory HRC team with a problem because of the AMA’s production rule where it states that “Material may be added to the production frame or swingarm for strength, including welding. These changes shall not affect frame geometry.” It is guaranteed that the HRC riders will use much stiffer forks and shocks than production, and will also look to change the head angle through adjustments to the fork clamps. This extra stiffness coupled with the “20%” reduction in lateral rigidity would mean that the frames ability to resist the forces put on are greatly reduced from the previous model, and so would “overpower the front” of the motorcycle as per Chase Sexton’s comments.
To maintain maximum grip with the track, the tires need to be pushed down into the ground. This is fairly straight forward when accelerating in a straight line because the motorcycle squats on the back and puts a lot of weight down through the rear tire. The same is needed for the front, but when you have a bike with really stiff forks, and a frame that’s happy to bend out of the way, it could cause a problem when leaning in a corner. When a bump is hit on lean, rather than the suspension compressing further and putting more force into the tire to maintain grip, the frame will bend away, when the front tire travels over the bump, and on the back side, the frame may not be able to react quick enough to return to its usual position and so the tire loses more grip. As a result, you could have those Chase Sexton type washouts.
So what did Honda do?
Remember in the AMA’s production rule it said “Material may be added to the production frame or swingarm for strength, including welding.”? Well that’s exactly what Honda did. On both sides of the down tube, Honda welded in two plates all the way from where the perimeter spars butt against the headstock, to the point where the down tube meets the cradle spars.
This update would stiffen the front end of the motorcycle mainly in lateral and torsional direction vectors which would undo their work when they launched the bike in 2017.
You can watch more about this at 02:54 on Vital MX’s Pits Bits from February 2023.
Ok, problem fixed right?
Well not really. According to Chases interview from the same time in February, he said that the motorcycle is now over powering the rear. What this means is now there isn’t enough give in the front of the chassis, so that more force is being directed at the rear of the bike and into the shock.
In the end, this is where we end up. The image above shows the 2025 Honda CRF 450 R frame. According to Kris Keefer the “New subframe mounting point optimizes lateral rigidity and reduces energy transmission from the rear of the bike to the front. The rigidity of the steering stem, triple clamps, outer fork tubes and front axle have all been revised to match the frame updates.”
The picture above shows the 2024 CRF 450 overlaid on top of the 2025 model, and the new mounting point as well as the longer exhaust header are clear to see. I believe the subframe mounting point actual helps reducing the energy transmission to the rear more than anything. The reason being that if you were to look down on the frame from above, the sides of the triangle shape drawn from the headstock to the subframe points are longer, and when we push down on the point of the triangle, it is easier to bend the sides out of the way i.e. the perimeter spars, and so less energy is put into the rear shock.
What really stands out though is how few changes there are compared to the big jumps seen in previous 4 year cycle model changes from Honda. In the past, you could easily tell that it was a new or old model, but now without the change to the radiator shrouds, you would have to look a lot closer. This to me tells a bigger story.
During the COVID pandemic, dirt bike and powersports sales went through the roof, driving manufacturers to ramp up production. Delays in deliveries (remember the container ships queued outside San Diego as well as the container shortage) meant that stock was building up in warehouses and couldn’t be sold. This left manufacturers with a lot of stock on hand, and I could nearly guarantee you that there is a warehouse somewhere in the world packed with CRF 450 engines. What I believe happened is that Honda decided to make relatively minor changes to a 4 year cycle motorcycle in order to use up existing stock, but also to consolidate efforts on the new CR-E, but that’s a story for a different day.
Hope you enjoyed this article!
Kind Regards,
Jens