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…
Tags: honda 50 racer, honda cub 90
