ANCESTRAL POWER PLANTS

The DAX’S powerplant might very well be a fairly sophisticated (for the period) overhead cam motor, but it owes its very existence to something much earlier and arguably equally revolutionary. Pretty much all the small Honda singles are indebted to a humble, yet technically influential engine that first appeared back in 1958. Honda’s C100 Super Cub was designed to provide powered transport to people who weren’t motorcyclists… or car drivers. The very first Honda step-thru was targeted at people who needed basic, yet dependable transport and whose only experience of powered movement was a push bike. The power unit featured a semiautomatic transmission system coupled to a very basic, yet exquisitely designed and built, push-rod valved, 50cc four-stroke motor. With the emerging Asian Tiger economy gaining momentum yet not technically savvy or automatically enginefriendly, the motor was as basic as possible. In fact, the lubrication system didn’t even have an oil-pump! Oil was picked up from the bottom of the sump by a hooked metal finger on the bottom of the con-rod. This ‘oil flinger’ hurled lubricant to the upper reaches of the cylinder head, thereby keeping the valve-train happy. Now you might think this arrangement was primitive and trouble prone, but not a bit of it. Honda took the prestigious Maude’s Trophy with a team of 20 riders running a C100, C102 and C110 for an entire week, 24/7, completing 15,800 miles. And that, folks, was the foundation stone of the DAX and many other small single cylinder machines.