if the word bonsai means the art of growing and training miniature trees, then what is the word for building miniature bikes? honsai! the owner of this build loves bonsai trees and made a business out of it. as he fell in love with his passion, he also fell in love with the ruckus. all black colorway with a drop of red? can’t go wrong with that! textured leather seat with red diamond stitches. short adjustable bars with a forward foot rest. polished wheel set and a flipped license plate bracket for that tucked away feel. a 171cc engine with a custom blacked angle-up exhaust. 3D printed bonsai tree on the fan cover and a KOSO gauge with a custom bracket.
typically, you would want to build a used, slightly old ruckus. fuck it, buy new, tear it apart, and built it! i wanted to do something special with the wheels on this one. since it was gonna be a simple panda build, there has got to be an eye catcher. started off with a 150cc power plant. with a forward position riding style. pulled back bars with a Vapor gauge and a front foot rest. went with an up exit exhaust and a carburetor velocity stack. the wheels was powder coated very dark grey and then used a tinted clear coat. with in the clear coat, mixed with silver, gold and white flakes. the effect was like tv static, it was sick! find the video on my instagram.
this M-series inspired build was truly a fun one! of course we had to go with the Yas Marina blue. then we added a frame cowl to get that cool looking ground effect and carbon fiber front fender. a nice little touch with a carbon fiber rear fender wing as well. custom made header with an Akrapovic titanium can. black suede with baby blue stitches for that ass with protruding pegs out of the cowl. adjustable bars with a fitted KOSO speedometer. all led lighting and an open cvt case. recently upgraded to the oem electric pump with an electronic controlled pulser.
this was not stolen. he had a red one that i came to diagnose and repair to get it running. some low life scum followed him home and walked right into his parking garage and took it. after a sketchy events to try to retrieve it, sometime you just know it’s not worth your safety. so he opted to look for another one to build. we decided to go with a lavender and carbon colorway. carbon box, carbon tank cover and carbon exhaust. a 171cc power plant sitting on 13″ Ruckhouse 2 piece rear wheels. standard drag bars with a KOSO gauge. a simple and yet exquisite build paying homage to his lost one.
she was following my social for a while until we finally connected and did some work on her original ruckus. then the time came when she folded. time to upgrade! sometime you just get tired of that 50cc life and want to to be able to his an express way. say no more fam! she wanted to keep the purple color. it was the color her and her boyfriend at the time started with the build. his untimely passing made her realize that it was time to finally finish what they started together. a 150cc engine was agreed on as well as a new wheels and seat. which made it easier for me. once the engine was mounted, we sent her Yoshimura muffler to get a manifold custom made. the fuel delivery system was also upgraded to a 28mm slider and polished manifold and riser. the 2 piece wheel set came in and we tackled the front end after wards. a 4 pot caliper was added with a braided line. the throttle tube was replaced with a cnc one with a carousel type cable feed. a matching left hand switch was also replaced. black vinyl and diamond stitched diamond for the reupholstered seat. we also added a design on the seat of her tattoo that her and her boyfriend both had. we never told her about it, until she saw it on delivery day. it’s those little things we do for our clients that make their build a little bit more special and meaningful to them. i have been trying to get her to bore it up at least to 170cc but like all the guys that slide her dm, iv’e been denied.
the owner came to me and said he acquired this “almost” done ruckus and wanted me to finish it. i told him i really dont like finishing other peoples work and i explained that sometimes styles and ideas, when mixed, looks ugly. we then decided to go ahead and start from scratch. so i started off with wanting to try something new with powder coat. i started with a storm gray and cream mixture, and i added a purple pearl on top of the clear coat. he wanted lots of carbon fiber pieces so the battery box, front fender, tank cover, frame cover and a gauge pod was added. the original builder already had a 150cc swapped into it. but the owner wanted more power. we ended up doing a 180cc big bore kit on it and changed the carburetor setup into a larger slide one. the exhaust manifold was also custom made and a Two Brothers muffler was attached. black vinyl and diamond stitched suede was reupholstered on the seat while a custom JBL speaker was mounted under. billet foot pegs and billet adjustable bars was added along with a digital speedometer. wheels was not my choice for it already had it as well as the front end disc conversion. we upgraded the front calipers to a 34mm Brembo to match the 32mm rear caliper. but before that, we ended up chroming the calipers then putting a purple metallic top coat on it to keep that subtle purple theme going. one of the trick things we did to this one was to add a wireless rear view camera. i had designed a 3d printed mount for the 2.5″ monitor and i fabricated a camera mount right above the muffler.
to collect the whole set. the kolfax fam had to build one for their mom. the kolfax dad only had one input. it had to be pink. the kolfax kid also had a request. chrome bar setup. say no more fam! the cute pastel pink powder coat called bubble gum was used for the main and sub frame. gloss black seat frame, tank cover and battery box. oh, and may i just add, that this and the barney purple ruckus was delivered to me at the same time by a giant semi truck. like, it was the only thing inside the container! wild! anyway, we chose a classic fat five spoke wheels. we did do an engine swap but no engine upgrades. the 150cc was fast enough for the owner. i was able to source a polished bar clamp stem and a chrome drag bar. polished left control and throttle came in and also used polished brake levers. the seat was a full suede with pink stripe pattern. same custom exhaust header as the the barney one, but used a full length muffler instead. made it a nice low tone! i wanted to do something special for her. so i hired my sticker buddy to create a cherry blossom design on the battery box and the cvt cover. simple build, creative and functional. now that the had all 3. they can ride around town and cause a ruckus, pun intended.
remember the kid? well this is that dad! he fell in love with his kid’s ruckus and wanted one of his own. he secretly made sure to tell me make his faster than his kid’s. he was tall. so i had to figure out a way he can be comfy on this tiny scooter. i decided his seat had to be set back as well as lowered. his leg is going to have to be forward as well as his handle bar. starting with the frame, he knew it had to be purple. i found this new powder called candy barney, it was a chrome based top coat. but, problem. our frame was not chrome. nor was it polished. so, i did a 2 stage powder coat job. first i used a chrome powder coat, which looks so much like chrome, just without that super mirror finish. now that we have a high shine top coat, i applied the barney purple on top. wow! never seen a purple shine like that. cleared it and called it a day. we decided we were not gonna use a super fat rear wheel on this build so we opted for a 12 by 7 rear wheel. it will give the ride a little more agility. with that decided, we used once of the original engine mounts out there, since we weren’t using a 12 by 8 wheel, it was perfect for the wheel offset. we found a seat frame that was exactly what we were looking for, lowered and set back. this caused me to re imagine the tail light and signals. i decided i will mount the tail light off to the side, right above the license plate and i was going to fabricate rear signals to fit under the seat using led bars. the power plant was a torque monster 180cc with a stroker crank which pushed it to 191cc. high lobe cam too! he has the same transmission as his son, but with a 1000rpm spring. a taller final gear was used for that top end speed improvement. we chose a corvette style wheel set since he loves muscle cars. a custom made, short exhaust with a swept up exit. for the handle bars, a bar clamp stem and tall frisco bars angled to his arm length. this was a very quick build with not a lot going on. it does look like it would cruise nice and slow but i was able to test ride this on one of the san diego rides, and this thing fucking goes! it goes so fast i ended up loosing exhaust studs. luckily the homies had tools and just replaced them with bolts until i can get new ones. the seat was nice and pretty. full vinyl seat with double stitched diamonds in purple! she’s very pretty…pretty fast!
imagine getting a message from a high school freshman. wanting to build a custom honda ruckus. when i got this message from the owner, i had to do a double take. his profile said he was in high school! so i thought, this kid has no idea what he is getting into. but, i still answered all his questions and any information he wanted to know. at this point i went to go camping and had zero signal. not until i got back into town i started getting the data dumps and missed text messages. one of them was from the kid. it literally said “when can i drop it off to start the build?” i was shocked. i thought man, the kid has really nice grand parents. anyway. the day came when he drops off his stock ruckus and here come his really cool dad. talking to him for a little bit and he really wasn’t into the scooter game. it didn’t matter. he had a great kid and he was happy that someone like myself can make his build into reality. the plan was simple. all black everything. polished wheels. a 171cc big bore upgrade with performance transmission and white walls. i was all in. gloss black main and sub frame. gloss black seat frame, engine mount, adjustable handle bars and headlight bracket. high temperature, gloss black engine case and gloss black open cvt case. seat was reupholstered with textured vinyl sides with black suede top with black stitches. his performance clutch had a bit of high lighter green showing through the clutch bell so i has to match the variator face. first i sprayed the tip of a crumpled up paper towel. then i literally “the power of Christ compels you” on it. that created a splatter effect. i learned that from one of the san francisco spray paint street artists. the build’s lowered stance was achieved with slammed forks with disc brakes along with a low rear shock. when it was done. his father was in disbelief that this was the same scooter they dropped off. to see his son’s reaction was one of the best things. the kid absolutely loved how it turned out. turning his dad into a believer, he now wanted one of his own as well as one for his wife. shoots, a family that rides together, stays together!
one of our investors picked up this ruckus from my cousin and immediately wanted to redo it. we stripped it down to frame and found the closest powder coat color to the subaru dark grey metallic. once the main and the sub frame was mated together again, we went ahead and reran the wiring towards the back section and tucked it up a little bit more. a lowered front end with disc brakes was installed as well as a low rear shock to achieve that nice squat. the engine stayed stock as we only installed a lighter weight variator and an unlimited cdi. an air filter pod and a carbon fiber exhaust was added. we lowered the seat position but wanted to keep the handle bars high. so instead of using the stock bars. we added a bar clamp stem and used a honda grom handle bar. a set of full solid 12″ wheel set was used and a 2 position foot bar was installed and gave him the option how he wanted to set his legs. the owner had a subaru wrx so we added a little bit of flair to resemble his car. first his engine mount, kick start and keyless gas cap, we powder coated it subaru blue. then we studied the interior of his car and matched it with a black cloth side, storm grey top with red stitching. since the build we have upgraded and added a few things. we continued the blue bits on his new lowered and angled handle bars and we added a honda metropolitan fuel sending unit. that way, the digital speedometer that we used can send him fuel level information. lighting was also touched up by upgrading the headlights to led as well as an integrated tail light. i would like to upgrade his power plant in the future, so we’re going to have to convince his wife about that upgrade.
Row4 Design 