93.1bhp

I took my bike to Steve Jordan Motorcycles for Steve to fit the manual cam chain tensioner and get the bike run in, then the carbs setup.

Steve showed me how to set the chain tension for the cct, then balanced the carbs.  It was then heat cycled on the dyno followed by a carb check/setup. The bike was running a bit rich  and needed slightly smaller mains which got me 93.1bhp.  It's still a little rich, but I'd rather play it safe and anyway it should balance out when on track, especially as it was so hot today.  It should get a bit more power once it's been on track and run in, maybe 95bhp, so we should be looking at about 94hp on the circuit dyno, which is about right for my expected weight of 170kg.  Now I need to just finish the bike off ready for the track, including fitting the quick-shifter and setting up the suspension (well the sag.)

I never put this in the blog (in case i turned out to be miles off), but i'd been asked a few times, so guessed my bike would have about 92bhp so i'm quite chuffed it's a bit better.  So i'll now be a bit braver and take a public stab at the weight,  I'll go for 172kg

Ram air again...

... and hopefully the last post for a while.  It's 99% there, i'm just going to run some silicon sealant on joins to make it 100% air tight and glass in some mounting lugs to hold it in place.

 Clearance is a bit tight, but it fits.

Current panic is over one of the engine mounts not lining up, i need to take out the crash bungs to figure out where the holes should go, so hopefully it'll all line up after that.  I also popped out the seals in the oz forged wheel and noticed an extra little spacer, so need to make 100% sure the wheel does actually fit the bike.  Hassle I could do with out.

Custom ram air duct

These are the two halves in the mould.  The extra red bits allow for internal lips for joining.  I did plan to use tissue on the final layer for both, but it was so much hassle to get smooth i gave up on the lower half.

 Popped out of the mould.

Trimmed up and ready for joining, which I've done already.  It fits quite well up to the original plastic duct.  The join wont be that smooth, but that's something I can work on over winter, maybe making the whole thing from glass. I took a guess with the amount of cloth needed, two layers of tissue, and one layer each of 100g and 300g matting.

Order by price, yup Bridgestone R10

I went for a pair of type 3's and another type3 front + one type 2 rear for Snetterton, Mark at Holbeach advised I get the harder rears for Brands and Snett, but softer just felt safer for my first outing.

Front 30psi
Rear 25psi

Taken when HOT.

Ram air mould

These are the moulds straight after separating them from the plug.  I've since cleaned it all up, waxed, etc, made overlaps and actually attempted my first ram air tube.  I realised after i'd started on the moulds i'd made a mistake with how it fits to the existing plastic tube, but decided not to mess with it for now and might alter them when i have more time.

Entries sent off

I checked out the Thunderbike calendar and realised if i didn't enter the Snett-300 meeting the only one i'd be able to enter was the last race of the year. So i've sent off for my ACU licence, entry forms for the Snett meeting and booked a trackday.  I've also booked some time on Steve Jordan's dyno to get the bike run in and the carbs setup.  I'm getting him to fit the manual cam chain tension, because i'm just not confident on getting the tension right.

So I now need to pull my finger out and get it finished as i'm really tight on time and cant afford to have any problems.  My track day is only 4 days before the meeting.

The wiring is all done and wrapped back up (thanks Dad) and i finally finished the foam mould for the ram air duct, coating it in some gel-coat to make it a bit smoother.  It needs sanding down and waxing up to make a mould from.

I also took the yoke out, welded up the lock stops (welding was terrible, so no photos) and swapped out the forks for my race set.  They feel really stiff compared to the set i took out.

Last big decision is tyres, do i go for the new Bridgestone R10 or Metzler interacts, the R10's look to be about £60 cheaper a set.

It lives :)

I never stop being extremely statisfied when a motor i've rebuilt starts.  Even more so with this bike, as it is the first 4 stroke i've ever touched with a spanner, let alone rebuilt and tuned.

I bypassed the pump and it turned out to be sticking floats, 2 & 3 were stuck but no real reason for them to be, as soon as i tapped them they came free. No4 was intermittently sticking when i put the float bowl on, so i swapped that with a spare and cleaned the needle sides with 1200 wet n dry then cleaned out the brass tube it slides in and that seems to have sorted it.  The needle valves have little plungers on top of them and one had jammed/stuck.  I'd also filled one of the ram air tubes with fuel too.

I'll def have to check the floats again before i start it next time, make sure they aren't going to be an issue.

So anyway, for me quite exciting for everyone else a pretty boring video:

It won't start

I did a little more work on the ram air first thing, then tried to start the bike.  There was quite a bit of prep work beforehand, getting the radiator plumbed up and getting some distilled water plus sorting out the cam chain tensioner.  I wussed out fitting the manual one and will  probably get Steve Jordan to fit it for me when i get the bike dyno'd (or at least find out the definitive way to fit one.)  I also had to turn over the motor with the CDI disconnected so i could fill the filter and oil cooler with oil.  After thumbing the starter for a bit to get the motor filled with oil i had to top up with almost 3/4 litre.

So anyway, the good:

• I have good oil pressure (the light goes out when turning over the motor)
• All the electrics seem to work, the rewiring is good.
• The fuel pump works.
• It almost started once

The bad:

• My carbs arn't sealing properly and are flooding the motor, bad enough in cylinder 4 to cause a hydraulic lock and fill no1 cylinder with fuel.
• I'm not sure if my pump stops pumping when the float bowls are full (i just assumed it would), in the end we disconnected the pump and tried to start it direct from the tank
• The sparks from both coils seem a bit lame, but that might just be how they are.  They did seem a bit better with the UK spec CDI.  Still nowhere near as powerful as the kart ignition I used to run on my MZ.
• The old battery is really really lame, We had to hook up to a much larger battery as the old one would probably only be able to start the bike once maybe twice, it turns the motor over quite slowly.  Hopefully my race battery will be much better, but still we plan to fit some plugs to make  using jump leads much easier.
• My fuel lines leak and need clips on every connection.

I'm going to take the carbs apart tomorrow morning and see what's up, hopefully we'll get it going tomorrow.  It felt like it was about to fire just before it flooded the first time so i think once the carbs are sorted it'll go.