Father / Daughter Custom: Honda CB350 by David & Sonya Lloyd

Honda CB350 restomod cafe racer

For more than 25 years, David and Michael Lloyd of Lloyd Brothers Motorsports (LBM) have been involved in flat track racing. Back in 2005, they campaigned the only Aprilia/Rotax flat tracker in AMA pro competition, utilizing their own custom chassis design, and they went on to develop competitive trackers based on Ducati engines.

“Back in 2010, they were the first team to break Harley-Davidson’s 19-year winning streak…with an air-cooled, two-valve desmo motor powering their race bike.” —Bike EXIF

Honda CB350 restomod cafe racer

Two years ago, we were proud to feature the XL600R street tracker that David and his son, James, a rising high-school senior at the time, built together — the first street-legal tracker ever to emerge from the Lloyd Brothers workshop! Well, James isn’t the only sibling with the motorcycling bug:

“Strolling through the swap meet at Barber Vintage Festival several years ago, Sonya, 15 years old at the time and a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast, found this little green 1968 CB350 and it was love at first sight.”

Honda CB350 restomod cafe racer

They knew the bike would need some real TLC, but that’s what projects are for! They brought the CB home and began cooking up a vision for the build.

“Our goal was to build a resto-mod that could have actually been built in 1968 as a cooler production offering from Honda, sans the SpeedCell Technologies lithium ion battery, Motogadget M-Unit Blue and the LED lights.”

Honda CB350 restomod cafe racer

The project was a bit of a stop-and-start affair, as father and daughter’s schedules didn’t always neatly align, but they slowly made progress.  Then came March of 2020, and they had a lot of unexpected time on their hands:

“The Corona virus hit and with us both being home there was no longer anything stopping us from putting our heads down and competing the project.”

Honda CB350 restomod cafe racer

Father and daughter’s hard work has transformed a crusty swap meet purchase into one of the sweetest 350’s we’ve ever seen. What’s more, many friends from our own Georgia motorcycle community lent a hand, including Bryan Heidt and Wes Hines from Fuller Moto, Cato from Cato’s Custom Upholstery, and painter Chastin Brand, organizer of the MX5000. Below, we get the full story from David himself, as well as more gorgeous shots from Talmond Films, LLC.

Father / Daughter CB350: In the Builder’s Words

Honda CB350 restomod cafe racer

It took a couple of years to get it done after completing the XL600R father / son build…but she is finished! Thankfully there are only two children in this family!!

Honda CB350 restomod cafe racer
The donor!

Strolling through the swap meet at Barber Vintage Festival several years ago, Sonya, 15 years old at the time and a lifelong motorcycle enthusiast, found this little green 1968 CB350 and it was love at first sight. An impulse buy that we knew would need a little work. Then we decided to make it a lot of work with countless hours of sanding, smoothing and polishing.

Honda CB350 restomod cafe racer
Love at first sight!

Work didn’t begin until the XL600 was completely finished and then it stopped and stalled several times depending on when our schedules aligned to work on it together. The Corona virus hit and with us both being home there was no longer anything stopping us from putting our heads down and competing the project.

Our goal was to build a resto-mod that could have actually been built in 1968 as a cooler production offering from Honda, sans the SpeedCell Technologies lithium ion battery, Motogadget M-Unit Blue and the LED lights.

The top end of the engine has been completely rebuilt by Kent Soignier of GMD ATL and the bottom end completely inspected. A new charging system was sourced from Rick’s Motorsports Electrics and we fabricated a completely new wiring harness using stock switches…a snap with the M-Unit.

A flat track friend in Iowa had a brand-new set of still-in-the-box Hooker headers that we built an “H” pipe collector for before being slightly silenced through Cone Engineering shorty megaphones with welding help from our friends Bryan Heidt. The finishing touch is a durable “titanium” ceramic coating.

We are very fortunate to have some great connections and friends here in Georgia as well as great sponsors from our flat track racing days. Wes Hines water-jet aluminum bits that we drew in CAD for footpeg mounts and a rear brake lever at Fuller Moto, Chastin Brand was able to bring the vision of the paint layout to an incredible finish.

Odi “Hucker” BMX grips were modified in length to fit and topping it off is a custom seat made of what Cato (Cato’s Custom Upholstery) claims is the “finest Italian leather”…it feels amazing.

Cato from Cato’s Custom Upholstery!

Everything from the front axle to the rear axle has been rebuilt or replaced to bring it up to factory specs, including fork internals and the specified Automatic Transmission Fluid used in the forks.

More Detail Shots

Photo Credit: Talmond Films, LLC.

6 Comments

  1. Awesome project young lady! Nice detailing.

  2. Frank Falcon

    That is one sweet bike. Something to be extremely proud of. Way to go Dad and Daughter!

  3. Wonderful job!
    I like those little Hondas, but too small for me(6″4′)
    I did a job like that with my daughter on a VT500, but once finished my daughter got pregnant and decided no to ride until the baby will have grown a bit.
    So Sonya take care!;-))))

  4. Philip Lader

    Folks,I beseech you,PLEASE put an Italian drum brake on the front so the bike has some stopping power……

  5. Outstanding! Lovely bike 🙂

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