Motorcycle Repair: regarding making a honda street legal, honda crf 250, honda xr 250

Question
hi Bill,
i was looking to buy a used honda CRF 250 or 230
or
a Honda XR 250
or 400
I will be riding mostly off road, so i imagine i will have them
converted to be street legal
(plated) for occasional street driving.
Some of these seem to cost more to make street legal.
How can i find out which ones are cheaper to make street legal,
and from the street legal point of view, what is the difference
between these models?
If you can answer this i would be most grateful as I seem to have
run into a brick wall on this issue
Thanks,
Ned Robby

Answer
Ned, depending on what state you live in, the cost could vary a LOT! In California, they are really cracking down on converted off-road machines because they don't begin to meet any kind of emission requirements.

Honda XR250-400s are more related to the XL street bikes than the newer generation of CRFs, which don't have a street counterpart where you can borrow parts to make it more usable.

You have to have some kind of charging system to run lights and the horn for street function. Bare bones off road machines don't have that function, so adapting a different stator/rotor and wiring harness is going to run into some big dollars quickly.

Search "motorcycle lighting kits" on the web and see who is doing what out there. Check with your local motor vehicle office to see what their policy is, as well as local m/c shops. You may wind up spending a lot of time and money on something that can't be done now.

Bill Silver