06-2017 Frederic's NSR300 MC21

Frederic Levieux: NSR300 MC21 Rothmans

June 2017.

This month’s Bike of the Month comes from Frederic Levieux who is a long term motorcycle enthusiast with many exotic two strokes in his collection of 18 bikes including as Bimota V-Due and RGV250 back in his native France. He has been working in Thailand for a number of years and naturally wanted a project here so he managed to get hold of an MC21 NSR250SP. The bike was supplied with many new parts such as instruments, mirrors and various small fasteners etc. and even came with a Rothmans decal kit. On the flip side the NSR had obviously had quite a hard life and needed going through completely. Frederic was undeterred as he wanted a full restoration project and this fitted his requirements.

Soon after acquiring the bike, Frederic got in touch with us and visited us at TYGA Performance which is only about 40 km from where he lives and introduced himself and his project to us. Although he admired the modern styling of some of our latest projects, he wanted something more traditional looking and wanted a ‘sleeper’, looking standard but close up and underneath there would be a lot of modifications to make it perform better.

We sent Frederic a list of suggestions and tempting goodies to let him decide what to include in his project and we were pleased to see his list of requested parts was nearly as long! At the core of his wish list was the TYGA 300 big bore kit and being local he was able to bring his engine to us at TYGA Performance and have Matt rebuild it for him. Frederic stripped the whole bike down himself and cleaned up the frame and other chassis parts. Luckily many things including the front end, steps, exhaust and rear shock were replaced so this cut down his work load a bit. Nevertheless, it was a full on nuts and bolts restoration and he had to fit it in between managing a very responsible job and family commitments while in a foreign country so quite a challenge. When he was ready, he brought Matt the engine to rebuild with a new crankshaft and the 300 big bore kit combined with TYGA exhaust and carbon airbox lid to bring the motor up from around 42 to high 60s horsepower at the back wheel.

Now he had more power, he needed a better chassis and Frederic managed to source a CBR600 front end and RC45 brake rotors along with Brembo calipers to upgrade the front end. These were held in place by the TYGA triples and together with TYGA handlebars completed the front end. At the rear end, he installed the Ohlins rear shock. The rest of the chassis is more or less stock though he spent a long time cleaning up components to get them to how they look in the photos.

As you can see, the bodywork is stock and is all original Honda plastic though some panels needed repairing before painting. The paintwork was done by our paint sprayer K Pong who takes his time but does a good job. He was able to incorporate some of the stickers that Frederic was given with the bike, along with his own spray painted stripes and locally sourced graphics. The result is a very convincing stock looking MC21 SP.

Apart from the parts mentioned above, Frederic has also included a host of TYGA parts such as carbon generator cover and rear hugger along with race bobbins and the other parts in the list below.

Frederic will be returning to Europe this summer and is planning on taking his NSR with him. He even has a space allocated in his living room for it but I don’t think he has told his wife yet!