$2400 bolt-on turbo kit turns your Hornet 900/ Honda 919 into a sleeper from hell

Of all the bikes I’ve owned, the Hornet 900, or Honda 919 as they’re known stateside, stands out as the best all-rounder, a do-everything workhorse that was great for stunting, scratching, touring, commuting and most other things I threw at it, including the odd BMX track. After a while though, the bike’s huge usability had me finding full throttle quite a bit and wondering what it might feel like with a bit more power.

The engine, after all, is a detuned 919cc Fireblade donk with a good 30 horsepower missing from the original due to smaller throttle bodies, smaller valves, cooler cams and lower compression. Many road-testers have complained that it’s a few horsepower off being the hilarious bike it should be.

And while 100-odd horsepower might be an excellent amount for many riders, it’s incredibly exciting and tempting to discover that there’s an effectively bolt-on kit that can boost that figure to somewhere around 140 horses, while putting out more power and torque than a CBR1000RR all the way to the 9.5k redline. For only US$2400.

The 919 Turbo kit installs in somewhere between 6-12 hours of shed time following the comprehensive instructions, tunes up easily thanks to a custom piggyback unit on the ECU, and importantly, is all but invisible unless you’re looking for it. You can put together a third-gear-wheelying turbo sleeper for less than the price of a FZ1 if you pick up a good secondhand 919.

The 919T kit uses only one of the Hornet’s twin standard exhausts, which is gutted as part of the build process. The other exhaust can be converted to a lockable, flip-up storage compartment in a further mod the 919T team is working on.

Bill Welter reckons “We are going to build a small number of systems at a time, probably 5 or so per batch at first, at least until we see what kind of demand there is.” - well Bill, I reckon there’s gonna be a lot of demand. In fact, this information plus my misty-eyed memories of Hornet 900 ownership are making me seriously consider getting one to make this modification on. Fantastic idea!

More information: The 919 Turbo website

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