Honda’s legendary two-stroke CR500R went out of production twenty years ago, but what’s not to love about a 60-horsepower watercooled two-smoker motor that zings to the high heavens? Well, for one thing it only came in a big heavy steel tube frame chassis. Around that same time, Honda was selling a smaller and lighter CR250 AF (that’s aluminum frame, not as fuck), and some dirt enthusiasts have created a little cottage industry of slapping the big motor in the little frame for the coolest muscle dirt bike possibly ever.

It’s not the simplest swap ever, as the fuel tank has to be modified to bulge up around the spark plug, and the frame has to be cut and re-welded with a Y-piece to split around the big 500's expansion pipe. But it seems like the end result juice is way worth the squeeze. It’s the best of both worlds with the light and stiff chassis of the 250 but with the power of the 500.

This certainly looks like a full-on build that would take a lot of time and money to recreate, but it’s still a whole lot less than buying a new bike and tacking all of the go-fast accessories on it. Plus, half the fun of a project is the journey to get to the end of the road. When you first twist the grip of a bike you built yourself, you really know the meaning of life.

I don’t have a lot of sand riding experience, but this looks like it would be a riot to rip across a wind-whipped sand dune. Everyone needs to experience something like this at least once in their lives. I’ve felt it with various motorcycles, jet skis, and snowmobiles, but never something quite like this. Just watch the video to see true joy in its most pure form. No thoughts, head empty, only Project Whiskey.