TerraRoot

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…

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.

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.

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!

 

Race Report, nifty fifty 2014 mondello

 

After an 8am start getting scrutineering and paper work done, we had a 30 min practice session. I went out just enough to figure out which way the track went (not been on the national circuit) and that it was make of soap, and broke the wee bike! poor alex braham and stephen never had a go, which is quite bad since they have never ridden a honda 90.

So we had to fix it, race was starting asap, bikes fucked, cutting out under load back firing, struggling to rev. Checked plug gap, wd 40 all over the HT lead, nope, dawning despair “are we gonna get out at all!?” We missed the le mans start. Tried to get out after cleaning the carb from a pit start starting 1 lap down, made it to the gravel turn the rally cars use, turned around and spluttered around the back and into the pits. We need a second hand coil, steve tobin knew a man, top job. Replaced coil bike started right up first prod SWEET! jam helmet on, we are down about 20mins 10laps 48th place, out i go, track is drying, Don’t end up on your arse tim, other people need to get a spin, dry track made it easier to get around i could just leave it in top and keep the corner speed up, get my head over the front of the bars, elbows up, everything running sweet, passing loads of people in the lower class’s. and team Manly (66) came by, the one with guy martin on the team. Get them. and so i did, another lap and team BikeWorld (3) also joined the battle, didn’t know at the time but they were in my class, at about this time i posted a 1:30.684 lap 7th fastest lap of the whole race. on my 24th lap. Taking it sensibly in the corners because i’d never hear the end of it if i broke the bike and nobody else got a go i got stuck behind some back markers and 66 and 3 pissed off. End of session came up and i had moved us up to 37th!

Alex went out next, two quite long full course cautions in his session, but he moved us up to 30th, had a great race with another team (haven’t got their number)
Braham got us up to 25, more full course cautions, everyone is having trouble with dunlop corner, the off camber entrance combined with trail braking mean the rear brake pedal would drag, dodgey situation. we decide to pull him in a 10 mins early, the timer board says their is about 55 mins left in the race.
Stephen goes out. Crashes on the fourth corner. Of his first lap. Luckily near the back pit entrance so he is back into the pit garage before even a lap is up. I’m up at the pit wall, turn away thinking “it’s his first lap be ages before he comes aro.. WTF!” zip over a scrutineer is doing his job well and spots a bent rear shock, i fix it with my mighty right arm, the mud is scrapped off and he’s out again. not too much time lost 
We look to be getting a top 20 finish, 4th in class, not bad, practically slapping each other on the backs at that point. They extend the race finish time, we worry have we enough fuel, people are pitting, stephen hasn’t a clue whats happening we’ve no pit board. we keep waving him onwards. don’t run out of fuel don’t run out of fuel. After extra half hour of racing we got 14th place and 3rd in class, I’m in awe of our selves, We did the fucking business

 

My pre race night bbq, best steak sandwich ever, van got a bit smokey tho…

 

Morning of the race, it’s a bit wet…

 

 

 

 

 

Alex and Stephen

Guy Martin and Stephen, poor guy 🙂

Next years targets

At this point i though we’d gotten 4th in class. but yellow flag infringements and penalty’s pushed us up!

Best fucking day ever, totally hooked, all ready booked for next year, will even finish putting the engine back together properly now. Gonna enter in the watergrasshill superpole if i can make it