2016 nifty fifty
Racing prep time flew by, loads to do and most of it got done! z40 cam was this years big upgrade, lift is the same as the z28, doesn’t take a very practised eye to see the huge amount of extra duration.
got it in and for safety’s sake measured the squish and clearance, 1mm for the inlet valve and 2mm for the piston, a yawning chasm but safe.
New cam really fecked up the jetting , very rich in the middle and it took ages to clear out and get on the main, lifting the needle clip and fiddling with the air screw got us pretty close.
Frankly, a pz22 is not a very sophisticated carb, I had ordered a 95 main jet in a panic just in case. (yeah can’t find the box of jets i got last year, kept somewhere really safe)
Exhaust! the nice one got donated to another bike while it was off mine, couldn’t use a nice low slung exhaust like that on the paddy dakar. so this piece of crap was installed. and then broken, engine ran like crap with it and it sounded rubbish, so in an attempt to fix that punching a hole through the baffles lead to the whole thing collapsing. good.
Borrowed this one to setup the jetting and get some miles on the new cam, actually probably the best one on paper, leaked all over the place.
So i made this one out of the previous chinese 50 pipe, shortened the large collar that slips into the head so we could bolt it on with more then a few thread on the head studs, then welded the collar on properly, no more leaks! cut the rear silencer off but left the face to act as a flange to bolt the rattyist rs125 silencer on. sounds perfect, and only a small bit on the short side of my calcs!
See that chinese kickstart? that made all the difference, the stock 90 kicker sticks out a mile to avoid the pipe and once you’ve shortened the peg to avoid highsides your ankle is at a right bollox of an angle. Serious distracting pain in an hour long stint. Never thought about it all race day, job done.
race day fitness prep!
jet arrives, didn’t even contemplate changing it, way too late!
Race morning in a nice warm B&B, weather very dull.
got all the paper work sorted, weather still not actually raining.
Missed the warm up due to an anti doping talk some of us had to take.. also i’m not sure which way the V for victory sign is.
team 48, they got last years pipe and our paint job. because red and black paint is what we had.
Do I look fat in this?
Race! just off screen, last place guy looping it, many lolz
wet track, slowly does it, keep going.
Doing well, in top 10 over all, laptimes around the 1:36, anyone who past me was either super talented, or plain just fell off in front of me, there was a lot of falling off going on.
I lasted 21 laps before the engine died as far away from the pitlane entrance as you could get, the back entrance was closed due to some talentless ejits have a drift day there. So i ran up the field, sprinted across the track, bounced through some ruts, sprinted across the track again, dragged my sorry ass trough a very long gravel trap, then leisurely walked up the hill into the pits, no bothers. after i stopped coughing my lungs out and hour and a half later i thought “crossfit-tards pay for this” and vocally told everyone.
We did fix the bike a whole hour later, the igniter box had fallen down between the engine and the frame and pulled a shitty scotch lock type connector job loose! it’s not much fun trying to fix a bike while asphyxiated and wearing tight leathers, but some people pay for that too.
Alex went out next, and did a sterling job of not falling off. no wait he did, but that did improve the right hand ground clearance, Braham went and and out and the track was drying nicely now, so no more excitement then. Stephen managed to get into his skinny leathers this year and went out to pull off 1:30’s all the rest of the session with a best of 1:28.889, we were still no where on the timing sheets, thought we might have an extra 20 min left at the end of the session since there was two red flags during out time in the pits, so in he came and out i went. For three whole laps. Still, my last lap of the race i got a 1:30.043 which is a whole 0.641 better then my best whoop whoop!
Post race faces! 39th over all but we won a pot noodle, the real winners fecked off in a hump, I snatched the prize. it’s on the mantle place now.
looking at the speeds we could have come 3rd in class right behind the two english teams,so no breakdowns next year! also maybe some sticker tyres.
Team cider came second in class! the winner was obviously an 86cc, so ted’s had enough and next year it’ll up a class to stock 90 i believe.
oh dear…
try to do stuff
managed to go on the new years day run, feeling wrecked from the meds, so i took the cbr, i was still wet next week it rained so hard. next year i’ll be on the c90, no excuses.
Bored in the house with all he ice and rain, fixed up a door lock, fascinating.
some ejit threw all this out, sky+HD box gave up a nice 3.5″ 500GB harddrive, sata cable, ata to sata power adapter, a neet little heatsink. the cheap drill worked perfect the battery fits my einhell charger. haven’t found a 12 brick to power the netlink router yet, i have a desktop PSU that would do it but i’d have to chop up a working brick to get the right connector, i’ll get it done later.
Today i actually made myself get out, figured it was time to service the car.
Only 2-3 years late. could park a bus in the spark plug gap. and yep the filter was fecked, i know this car is shit but you’ve gotta give it some credit for not dying on unfiltered oil.
yes we got another lathe. no we still haven’t got the other one working…
Important new addition to the family
A brand spanking new 5m x 3m steel shed, ok it’s not here yet, but it’s on the way. then the winter slowdown can go feck it’s self after i get a nice warm insulated dry shed.
Christmas pressies for us 🙂 which is mine?
Another pressie, this time a very cheap AM2 motherboard, why is it cheap? because it’s a mBTX and a toshiba, mBTX not very popular anymore (it’s still pretty good tho) and toshiba of a certain vintage won’t play nice with certain types of RAM, last stick in the bottom of the scrap pile was good!
Thumbs up for this one.
Thumbs down for all these
Fix mBTX to a ATX case? epoxy, meccano and some out of the box thinking (geddit? 😀 ) I’ve fitted 2x500gb sky+ harddrives, they’ll be a LVM data backup as the arcade setup wont’ take much space, (i’m not some wack rom hoarder) the LVM setup will get a 750GB added later. gotta fix up a spot to mount it. Also bought a 4200+ cpu from CEX, it’s runs right now at 2.2ghz i think.
so the older thingy has been dedicated to upto 16bit consoles only, nintendo is well supported, but i’m have loads of fun with the sega megadrive emulators.
Also built a couch, tided a corner and stuck the tv in there. yes i built it, with a chainsaw.
found a souncard and pad in the attic, no idea if it works, but i found something even better up there as well..
Yeap, an N64, sweet as fuck,
the sticks are worn out, but fixable.
just booted right up, even had the save files….
Things done in the garage, nothing actually, this is mostly teds stuff.
very worn out k3 xl250 cam tensioners blades. probably not going to put that bike back together.
however it has helped bringing this much nicer k0 xl250 back to life.
Very lumpy cam super secret cam for the racing 90, got that months ago, still not fitted.
so long time away from the blog, not much has really happened mostly due to a really wet winter and the medication really slowing me down, going to get the arcade built for the shed, so we can finally have out house/baby/shed warming party 🙂
large and late update
first up the runner:
the seats great isn’t it? yes the rest of it is falling appart but who needs it? ebay front brake calliper is in terrible state
took it on the two stroke only run to the kilumney bike show:
It was the tzr125 that broke down, I totally got away with it!
cub 90 racer has successfully survived the paddy dakar, wish we could change our race number to 21 and go to mondello like this.
gotta strip the engine down for the compression increase, can’t leave the mud on it for that.
stop leaking ya bastard
Spent a little time playing hunt the petrol leak, pulled apart the vacuum tap and found a little bit of corrosion built up on the tapered seat, cleaned that up, poured a litre in and left it sit for a while.
Looked fine when i came back, no leaks! but when i picked it up to toss back on the bike the lip of the fuel pump had a little lake built up in the there. pump to tank seal is not right, probably shouldn’t have disturbed it in the first place and i wouldn’t have this problem.
Cleaned the face’s (lots of pitting and corrosion) sighed at the ruined paint and applied a thing smear of gasket goo.
Came back after helping with a R6 engine, no leaks, cautious optimism, shake the tank a bit, suck on the vacuum pipe, tiny weep from correct fuel outlet (after i stopped sucking) Success! ( in my book anyway)
Threw it together and went an spent 4 hours at the local kart track racing ourselves, there’s a little more to be gotten out of the engine, more compression and the cam needs dialling in, but it held out against the other two bike and their 125’s. I definitely won the not crashing contest. Colin however ran away with all the other prizes. worst brakes, best engine, most damage to the track by hitting it with his head…
After all the fun, no leaks under the yzf! score!
decided not to try to replace the cbr yet, i’ve no dry place to put the YZF as is and i think i’ll try to keep this one clean. well clean for me anyway.
no zoom today anyway, their all broke.
So, with all the top end on and offing, it look like some thing ended up in the case of the ypvs racer. barrel and crank survived, new piston on the way.
Jolly Moto pipe for runner 180 turned up, it’s pretty. Might get some time next week to dimension the pipe.
Attempting to goto watergrasshill go-kart track today weather permitting. race bikes are ready, I’ll have to buy new head bearings for the 90, completely shot.
racing fiftys and restoring 7fiftys
So nifty fifty 2015 race report, it’s not good people, first i got a camping stove so that i wouldn’t smoke out brahams van. then brahams van died, so i stayed in a B&B with stephen.
morning of the race..
race was a complete fail. the transponder was flaky, the tyres had 30psi in them from the new years day run, i fell off, braham fell off, i was 7 seconds off, dropped tyre pressure to 24psi instead of 20 thinking the tyre was hot, not quite enough but better, at the end of the day i took the last 15 minutes of the race and got down to a 1.32, still two seconds off but lessons learned for next year.
Next important thing is the fix up the yzf750, gotta do some trackdays, yzf is perfect.
Decided to change the front wheel, i knew it was cracked and had been welded very well, but it leaked and anywho i had a better wheel. Also reason to change from badly painted orange wheel to yellow, mismatched lurid wheels are so 90’s right?
no contest in the end there was only one yellow at halfords and i can’t be arsed to go any further, on with the white primer and soon on with the fiat bloom yellow.
More bits lost, fucking clueless as to where everything is. they have to be in a bucket somewhere!
this upper bar is supposed to be horizontal as far as i can tell from yamaha brochures. i’ll weld it up when it’s back on its wheels and the body work is going on
Future bajacorsa tube bumper?
more race bike prep
Older by another year! least the cake was awesome.
More cub prep, fitted the upper bushings for the shocks, no more floating about the place. Stuck on the race numbers, cunningly modifying the bracket to hide our Öhlins TTX shocks.
Should i wash it for the race? note in the shade to the left there an ominous rubber ring hanging off the side cover…
Feck. wanted honda p50 head lamp lens, 100 bloody euro on ebay.
Sarge: race ya? Me: hells ya.
Cork Toy Run 2014 & and some nifty fifty tweaks
I would pay €1000 for patina like that! as long as i got the gsxr1100 attached.
Cork toy run 2014, really nice fireblade here, but only got two good photos, aprillia swingarm, fiull spec ohlins forks
Urals?
Other ninetys on the run
Really nicely engineered trike, check out the rear camber adjuster and the front wheel, not sure what’s happing there.
Back home dirty. think i’ll clean it before the race.
One job done the day after, gotta tuck that rear brake lever in.
Was raining by the time i finished, also drilled the pedal, for lightness 🙂
Ought to make up at least one position per lap now at dunlop 😀
cub racer
Only one pic today, the sony sp is still in the shop they can’t fix it so i’m getting it back broken. I’m an idiot for buying a sony.
things done today, two patchs for the land rover, a dolomite 1500 turned up as a spares car for the Sprint, An SRAD 600 is dumping the coolant into the sump so we got some trouble shooting done on the oil pump and the oil cooler.
Best thing done today, got the racer 90 ready for road, made a bracket for some random coil and chucked it on.
Bit of petrol and away she went! took off race plates and stickers next, on the road that stuff will just get attention. Not sure if super shocks will get through scrutineering so i’ll try to find something less conspicuous.
Raise the compression, jet up a little, go win some races!
