Ohlins Shock in

I got my shock back from Steve Jordan on Saturday, it took a bit longer than expected and a fair bit more £ because the previous owner had butchered the threads on the ride height adjuster.

I finally got to put things back the bike, it took two cans of brake cleaner to get the bike this "clean"

I had to trim down this bit of plastic to get it in

I also started taking the clutch apart, all the plates apart from one of the steels are almost new, at least that's saved me some money.

Change of Bike

I decided I wanted a bike that didn't need any engine tuning and much less custom work, just bodywork and race suss.  I just couldn't face crashing the CBR and having to do all that work again

Bike isnt to bad, 17,000 miles, but it's def been crashed a few times in it's life.

I've started the conversion process.

Someone has rewired the bike at some point

Started the strip down, the bike is really dirty. The previous owner decided to connect the crankcase breather to the pair valve, not to the airbox... errr right, Suzuki had no idea what they where doing when they designed that setup...

Forks off, the previous owner put tapered rollers in, but i still had to check.  I didn't need to replace them so my spare bearings will sit in a box.

I put my 20mm Ktech forks in, i've got some 25mm ones i'll try at some later date.

Brands GP

Photo by Dave Court

Brands GP was a great weekend, the new engine was faultless, the gearbox is nicer than my old one, not a single missed gear. It also felt slightly smoother and would rev more easily, it'd wheelie coming out of Surtees if i didnt get over the front!  The bike handled brilliantly, I'm really pleased I got Steve Jordan to set up the suspension.  I also finally stopped the slight pulsing through the brakes,  I swapped the discs put some 300mm ones on and cleaned the pads and discs again and that seems to have done the trick.  I really like the SBS pads, very similar to PF95's in feel.

All in a total success, my results weren't that great, I still wuss out on the starts, but on Sunday morning I managed to be one of the first out in practice and (a reduced pace for all) managed to run the 7th fastest time of the session.  I can't make Cadwell as i'm on holiday but will be aiming for a good run at Snetterton.

Dead Engine

After much messing about with the water pump before Snett I decided to check my oil level... it was low again.  I should have checked it sooner but it was only burning a very small amount in the previous race. I'm back to where I was this time last year, going from max to low in 15 minutes of ridding.  I'm not prepared to mess about with any more and will break it to sell.  I bought a 15,000 mile  F3 motor off ebay for £250:

I got the old engine out in an hour, the new one took me almost 2 days to get back in and running due to lots of little niggles and changes from the F2. I gave it a complete service, only 2 of the valve shims needed adjusting. I took it to the dyno at Steve Jordan's today so he could check it out and after some fiddling with the jets it makes 89bhp, only 4-5 less than my best run on the big bore kit.  Only 3 less than the last run with the F2 637cc.  Not bad for £250, taking my old one apart and putting it back together without changing anything wouldn't have cost much less than that.

So far I'm pretty pleased, now I need to check the oil pressure and hope the gearbox works as well at brands as on the dyno as that's the last unknown.

It's not all great news, my rev counter has stopped working at high RPM, though my Shift-lights seem to now work.  I'm a bit worried I broke the rev counter when I powered it up backwards.  My pump controller was also a disaster.  I simplified the code so it would run flat out as it kept crashing, but the pump still kept cutting out when I got above 64C..which was very weird as I wasn't even reading the temperature sender.  I'm not sure if I was getting interference or overheating the controller.  I'll switch back to the mechanical pump for Brands.

Water pump and re-wire

After speaking to the makers of my borrowed shift lights I ended up re-wiring my bike so I can take a feed off of the CDI ignition signal.  I'm also going to try the same with the quick shifter to see if that gets it working at high RPM too. While I was at it I also added an extra power line for the water pump controller.

I made up a blank for the pump and have plumbed it all up, though at the moment I don't think the fairings will go on with the current pipe routing.

Oulton

The bike ran pretty well, the rider not so great.  I just couldn't get comfortable.  I don't think it helped being on a circuit where after 2 laps i'd wheelied more on a motorbike than in my previous 6 years of racing.

I didnt get dyno'd/weighed, but I did put the bike on the scales in the scruit bay which are pretty accurate, it came out at 171kg with 10 litres of fuel.  So i'm about 166kg with the minimum-ish amount of fuel i need for a post race dyno run and the 2 litres needed for fuel testing.  I need to see what it makes on the circuit dyno, but for now i'll just run with extra fuel in the tank till i'm sure.

Few things to resolve, it seemed to be burning a very small amount of oil, but it was hard to really tell. I still have the pulsing through the brakes and they did start to fade a little.  My shift lights and quick shifter don't work at high RPM, so i'm going to alter my harness and re-wire them.  I'm also adding power wires for the water pump controller.

On the plus side Steve Jordan has sorted my suspension and the rear tyre wear is now much better, though Oulton isnt as hard on tyres as Brands.

Another trackday in the rain

Had another track day at Brands today, it dried out for two damp sessions then rained again all afternoon.  Now I have a few things to fix, the cheap fork seals I used seem to be leaking, not much but enough to need replacing, very annoying.

On the 2^nd lap of the first session I had one of the biggest moments on a bike that didn’t end with a crash, I clipped the inside curb at Surtees (trying to go inside the square of messed up tarmac there).  The bike basically jumped out under me sideways and landed on the side of the rear wheel, flipped back the other way, slid for a bit then recovered.  The impact was so big it bent one of my chain adjusters, another thing that needs fixing.

I’m also a bit worried that this bent my calliper bracket as one of the bolts started rubbing on the rear disc (it only had about 0.5-1mm clearance before).

The front brakes also pulses slightly now when i'm gently on the brakes, when i use them hard it'd fine but if i rub them or as I ease off they start pulsing.  Maybe it's because I used them so much on the wet wheels first, on the plus side the SBS pads do seem much better than the stock ones I had in there before.

Anyway I still feel completely unprepared to go racing… I've never finished last in a race before, this could well happen an Oulton.

Update

I rode the bike the other week at Brands Hatch GP, it rained all day so it was my first time on a 600 with wets.  I got pretty comfortable in the end but i'm still slow in the rain.  No problems burning oil this time and i didn't bin it, so overall a success.  I did have trouble getting the bike up to temperature, in the end we'd taped up almost the entire radiator.

Work has continued on the water pump controller, we tested it this weekend with the pump taking water from the tap as it needs positive pressure. It needs a closed system for me to properly load test the controller so I welded up my spare radiator and will test it again during the week.

Electric water pump

I've decided to cover the bike in vinyl rather than paint it, the seat went quite well, but the rest of it so far is quite rubbish.  Still it looks a tiny bit better than it would with naked fairings.

I've also decided to convert my bike to use an electric waterpump, it's hard to justify but I wanted an excuse to learn how to use microprocessors + remove the issue of overheating on a delayed grid/ after races.  This should hopefully be able to keep the temperature of my bike constant, no matter the rev's or the speed i'm going.... no need to mess about with tape on the radiator when its cold either.  I've written the software side, it dynamically calculates the pump speed according to how fast the temperature changes/has changed in the past.  Basically it learns as you ride how it needs to control the pump to maintain a constant temperature.

This is an unfinished prototype, it's unfinished because i've managed to blow up some of the components.

Weight

I weighed my bike using normal bathroom scales, one at a time under each wheel.  Not the most accurate way but gives me a good indication of the final weight.  The tank was empty and the fairings weren't on (just the seat) and it came to 161.kg. One litre of fuel is about 0.7kg and I need 2 in the tank after a race in case I get fuel tested.  So lets say I'll have 3 litres just to be safe: 2.1kg.  I'd say 4kg is an overestimate of the fairing weight so I should be about:

161.1 + 2.1 + 4 = 167kg

With 94 bhp I need the bike to weigh 170.5kg


So i'm going to be close to optimum.

I've also decided to vinyl wrap the bike rather than paint it.  I've started the seat unit, and its pretty rubbish, but i've got the hang of it now and will probably do it again once i've done the fairings.

K-tech compression adjuster

I got the forks back together and back in the bike, i'm not sure if I got the rebound adjusters setup correctly, but i didn't have my settings with me to check. 

K-tech compression adjuster at the top, standard at the bottom.

Fork rebuild

While replacing the seals I'm also swapping over the fork lowers.  This means I could compare the standard kit to the k-tech race valves (i forgot to take pictures of the compression adjusters, i'll do that tomorrow).

Sadly it looks like a butcher fitted the valves, and I wasn't sure if some of the damage would be a problem, a quick phone call to Steve Jordan and he confirmed they were setup correctly and the wear/damage on them wasn't an issue.

Top is the standard spring, bottom is the 9.0 k-tech spring

Top is the race cartridge, with the removed bumpstop.  You need to remove this to replace the valve on the bottom of the damper rod.  It's edges are peaned  over and it sits on a circlip.  Not very easy to remove, without making tools to clamp the rod and drift off the mount.

Top is the road rebound needle, the k-tech kit has this inside the valve in the cartridge.

K-tech valves, left is the valve on the bottom of the damper rod.  Right is the valve that's in the bottom of the cartridge .

K-tech valve on the left, standard on the right.

Dyno again

Back at the Dyno again.  The bike hit the same peak as before 94bhp, but the curve was a fair bit worse.  Probably the combination of running too lean, a different silencer and having the body work on.  I'm pretty sure most of the loss is down to the jetting, as the lean area matches the loss of power:

On the way back one of the fork legs  puked out it's oil. While i'm doing the seals I'm going to swap the fork lowers with my standard forks which are in much better condition.  As well as needing some special tools I also had to grind down a 17mm spanner

Running again

After a few wiring mistakes i've got it running again.  Just need to book some time on the dyno to get it checked out

Sleeved the rest of the wiring on the bike and then went to change the plugs on the quick-shifter from bullet connectors to a proper plug.  While testing it all I discovered the actual plugs to the coils gave a bad connection and one of the wires had gone black so i'm going to replace all the wiring to the coils and the plugs.

Also decided to shorten the quick-shifter wiring harness as it was over a meter longer than it needed to be.

Tidying the wiring

I've almost finished the new dash and have been tidying up the wiring, with much smaller connectors and sleeving the exposed parts of my harness. I'm almost finished, just need some slightly bigger sleeving to finish  off the power/starter and warning lamp wiring.

Engine rebuilt

I've rebuilt the engine again, and it's now in the bike.  Should be ready to start tomorrow, though i'm planning to tidy up the electrics and change the dash layout before I take it back to Steve Jordan's.

The engine feel much tighter than before, fingers crossed the rings dont wear out as fast this time.

After much messing about i've found the ring gaps are way too big.  I should have taken the rings off and measured them last time, but for some reason I got it in my head that i wouldnt get them off without damaging the, even though i'd  managed this hundreds of times on my MZ (i'm blaming someone else for talking me out of it).

I have new rings but the lower ring gap out of the packet seems slightly large, while the top rings will need grinding.  Also my bore guages seem worn out/broken as I can't get a consistent reading from the 2-3" one.  I'm going to buy a internal micrometer so I can be sure of the piston/bore clearance before i go any further.

Still no wiser as to how it wore the rings out in less than 150 miles, my hope is that I don't have some other issue and I somehow gapped them incorrectly first time round

starter motor

Weighed the starter motor, 1.8kg.

Another rebuild...

While I had the head off I got convinced to check out the pistons too.  The bores were polished more than I expected, but apparently this is common for wiseco big bore kits.  The pistons themselves were virtually unmarked and all the rings were still lined up ok/unbroken.  So I'm going to rebuild it again and hope it was just the valve seals, if there is an issue with the rings, i can't see it.