2006 Precision Concepts XR650R Build Photo Gallery

2006 Precision Concepts XR650R

Tucked away in a dingy Mexican garage somewhere in Ensenada, the Precision Concepts XR650R holds a striking pose in the streaming sunlight. From the moment we laid eyes on it we were in love with the sheer beauty of our factory replica.

These were our two bikes to race in Nevada and it's obvious just by looking at them that the 917 bike is a nasty desert steed. The clean-cut look, modified suspension and altered cockpit made the PC 650 our bike of choice. It was too bad, so sad for our guys on the almost-stock 918 bike.

Again, this motor was meant to be run at high rpm. The upper revs is where our race bike was most responsive in the motor department.

Reading the dyno chart alone could tell you that this bike was made for the desert. This kind of riding is wide open and the PC bike does it better than anything else. The difference between our race bike and a stock configuration was huge.

During the prepping that PC did before Baja, they took the time to make sure we had the full experience by giving one side of our bike the Mexican colors while keeping the red, white and blue on the opposite engine case.

Of course they couldn’t paint just one. The full-system T-4 exhaust added performance, style and melted the crap out of our pants.

As we’ve mentioned before, the attention to detail was precisely executed. That hand-painted engine case is a sign of a true factory-prepped Honda. That red, white and blue emblem signifies a lot of power in the racing world.

In it’s full glory, the PC bike was a real beauty. This was the setup for our warm-up race in Nevada, but the Baja 1000 version was only slightly different.

The stock headlight had been removed in order to save weight and to make it easier to remove the front number plate when installing the aftermarket lights.

When in came time to close the shop doors for the week, PC had worked their magic and transformed our bike into a killer race machine.

Who can tell me which part goes back in first? The biggest part of the motor modifications include Honda’s Power Up Kit.

To the uninformed observer it would seem as though all hell were breaking loose, but this is a daily scene for Precision Concepts.

As they say, no guts, no glory.

The inner workings of our XR remain a mystery to us, but Siraton inspected every millimeter of the beast’s belly to make sure things were ok. The initial poking and prodding found everything to be in order, but things would turn out differently in a few months.

Yes, that’s an authentic Ricky Carmichael number plate off one of his championship-winning bikes. Ah, the perks of working for Honda.

Innocent and peaceful, the 649cc motor would soon be torn apart and violated at the hands of motor-man Eric Siraton, the brute.

This was the scrap bin. We haven’t seen these parts since leaving the bike in Murrieta.

The carnage.

Our wheels were straight and true at this point, but the first time we set out on the PC 650 we did our best to mash the front and rear spinners.

Our bike was a Californian-legal model so some of the restrictive hardware on the stock bike never found its way back on at reassembly.

Once our bike was torn down, a whole slew of new parts sat waiting for their time in the spotlight. The suspension was in staging for Bob Bell to work his magic.

The stock aluminum chassis has been proven over time to be more than capable of withstanding the rigors of desert racing. That didn’t stop Eric Siraton from taking a quick glance at the welds to make sure there weren’t any obvious defects.

The big-bore Hondas are the staple of Precision Concepts’ reputation, though the CRF450X is getting more play from Honda. Bob Bell’s own son, Robby, recently gave the 450X its first major professional victory in the 2006 San Felipe 250. Could there be a change on the horizon?

Bone stock and not a single hour of use, we dropped this 2006 XR650R on the doorstep of Precision Concepts in Murrieta, CA to let the transformation begin.