Tuesday 18 November 2014

Emily in action, Cartagena.

Well Stuart had his fun on the Isle and at last I get a proper go in Cartagena, Spain. With Liz and The No Limits mob we had three days on track in the sun. I had an issue with the brakes at one point with the lever coming back to the stop but they were still working, so a bleed and a check over with the lever moved out a couple of clicks all was well. The braking here is more intense than the flow of the Isle of Man so this may be why Stuart had had no problems before. As you may notice in the series of pictures Emily has the spare road fairings fitted with green highlights.







She handles like a dream and I finally got both of my knee sliders down as she makes it easy. Just one trip into the gravel, but that was my fault with a missed gear going into corner one on the last afternoon.

Monday 13 October 2014

Stuart and Emily in action....

Just for all you 888 lovers, here are some action shots from practice and the Classic TT F1 2014.






 



Emily is now wearing a new dress, well fairings, for a trip to Spain in November. A post TT inspection found only one fault on her where an alloy boss had become loose in the under seat air box. That's been re epoxy'd in place along with a refit of the light weight battery for the trip south. 
In other news I had contacted K-Tech about the fork issues and they were somewhat mortified that the forks had been sent out in such a condition, to be fair they did immediately offer to do any remedial work and inspect. They have since collected/returned the forks and removed another internal component that may have been the cause of plastic shavings in the left leg. They have also added a 5mm preload spacer. I've still to get an answer on why the original 355mm long springs were replaced by ones 425mm long. I'll see what they are like in November.

To finish on an upbeat note I must say a big thank you to The Image Works, at some point Emily will get a new set of replica decals to adorn her race fairings. One of the decals was oversize but a quick call resolved this and a new pair were sent out two days later, nice work guys, thanks.       

Saturday 30 August 2014

The prologue...

And so the race is done the van is packed the Ben-my-Chree awaits. Lessons have been learnt for sure, the main one being try and get a test in somewhere. That was not to be as the planned time line just evaporated, so we started the two weeks with a bike that had only turned a wheel under power on the dyno. Over the two weeks we have made one adjustment front and rear on the suspension, so that's not bad after a rear set up at home and a tweek after Louigi saved the day with 20mm off the preload spacer. A slight adjustment to the steering damper and brake lever travel are just about the only other settings we have had to make, above the clutch and alternator issues that were suspect from the start. All in all a very good result for an untried recipe.

My thanks in no particular order go to 

Louigi Moto: to Christian for building an engine that Stuart says will pull from anywhere and of course Richard for the engine recipe and the parts to pull it all together. He even brought parts by plane.
Oronero: Peter for supplying the carbon parts and the new wiring loom that was just plug and play.
Reality Motor Works: to Nick Anderson for some most excellent powder coating.
Rob Scheuer aka Slob: for gifting me the rearsets.
Willow Services aka Grumpy: to James White for supplying a set of tyres.
Stewart aka Capo: for also supplying a set of tyres and technical support.
Avanti Race Parts: Antony Espindola for chipping in with a handy box of race comsumables.
Burton Engineering: Guy Burton for sorting us out with a smart set of the newly required fireproof attire for the pit stop, we looked smart too.
Chris Allanson aka Shuffy: for designing the Celeres Racing Logo. 
Along with financial support from Stewart and Jill Calkin "Calky", Martin Biggs, Charlotte Ponting and Gordon Hardie.
Keith Fothergill: for letting me use his spare set of clutch plates.
Jeff aka Utopia: for making a new front wheel spacer and posted in 24 hours.
Steve Wright: for helping out with loads of tea, rolls and pit crewing.
My wife Liz for letting me complete the build in the conservatory and pit crewing as well.
Finally to Stuart, for 14 years after an off at Black Dub nearly cost him his life, he entrusted me to build a bike to take him around the mountain course once again.

I thank you all.

As Liz has just said "It's difficult to put into words, the whole achievement and emotion of what we have all done." I hope that all of you that have been involved have at least felt a piece of the emotion that we had here on the Isle.
Having conquered Everest perhaps next year we can shoot for the moon, if you fancy coming along for the ride we'll be happy to have you on board. 


Friday 29 August 2014

Mission accomplished.....

OK so the lead title sort of gives away the end of the tale, but hey we all know how the Mousetrap ends, don't we? So if you've read Stuart's blog at http://www.blackdub.co.uk/ you do know but here's the tale from inside pit wall to tell. With the race shortened to three laps we had a choice of fuel strategy, to fill at the end of lap one or splash and dash after lap two. Stuart fancied the splash and dash, so no flying lap but if the race was stopped after two laps for an incident we would be ahead of the game. So scrutineering was passed without comment, the bike was fuelled and tyre pressures checked, simply add tyre warmers, bike cover and wait. 


Fairly easy for us but I'd say Stuart was certainly feeling the nerves as he kept going off to look for the thing. With Emily in her allotted space in Parc Ferme I'm just thinking is there anything else to check so in my head I'm trying to go from front to back and visualise each nut and bolt, not too hard really as a race bike there's not much to her. The announcement is made for the entries in the Formula 1 and 2 race to line up on the road ahead of the start, we wait as long as we can to keep heat in the tyres as we don't have a fancy portable generator.





It's not too long before we're on the move and start to line up in numerical order, that makes it nice and easy for the starter and spectators on the first lap anyway. It turns out that 3 of the 4 Ducatis in the race are starting line astern.




With a final thumbs up from Stuart he promptly stalls the bike but she restarts fine.


There's no going back now and Stuart gets the tap on the shoulder and almost the last ridge can be climbed. 





We put what we can away and having already filled the fuel dispenser with the required amount of fuel we wait by the pit wall and watch the arrows that the scouts move to indicate which section the rider has passed, Glen Helen, Ramsey and Bungalow, well they do sometimes as some seem to never move and others are seen to go backwards. Stuart was shown at Ramsey as his light comes on to show he's at Cronk ny Mona, oh well, I ask Steve to get his fuelling gear on in case we have an unexpected stop. We watch, we wait, and Stuart flies through looking good, but then he says he always does. Fine, just wait another 23 minutes and he'll be back we hope, others pit on the first lap and we look for tips. To be honest any way is good as long as it works. The pit box is tiny for the three of us with a box of essential spares and a paddock stand. Times passes and once again the light above 56 comes on. We get ready, I turn on the ball valve for the fuel and Steve gets his fire proof gear on, Liz once again sticks a spare visor in her top should Stuart require one. Now we haven't actually physically practised the stop, Steve's only had a quick go on the rig to assess fuel flow, Liz has practised the visor change sometimes it goes well, sometimes not, Arai helmets are a sod. I see Stuart arrive at the pit entrance and step out to guide him in, now it all goes in a bit of a blur. The paddock stand locates and Liz shouts "YES" to indicate her bobbin is engaged, I flip the bike on the stand and Stuart cuts the engine. I pop the key in the fuel cap, open, and leave Steve to the fuel. I spot the scrutineer give a thumbs up to his colleague so he's spotted nothing awry so I crack on with cleaning the screen as Liz has a chat with Stuart and gives him a drink. Stuart's declined the new visor but does have time to mention "It's lovely out there". I've cleaned and Steve's done so I close the cap and flip Stuart back on two wheels. She starts, he's off. Now it's taken longer to type and read than time it actually took to do, so I'd say it went bloody well and we're all feeling quite pleased and relieved. One more lap please Stuart and Emily.

The arrow on the board moves, that's Ramsey done, just the mountain to go.




Right on cue Stuart crosses the finishing line and speed trap at 139mph.


Personally I don't feel as emotional as when they both finished their first practice lap. Once we'd overcome the gremlins I couldn't really see anything else to go wrong with Emily. We all rush back to Parc Ferme to congratulate Stuart, it really has been a lovely day. After 14 years since he last rode a bike on a closed road on the Island Stuart has completed the race and a finish is what we'd hoped for but a week ago that seemed way off. I'm pleased for Stuart and hope that next year we can come back and do it all again, this time we have a bike that already works and some data to work with. I think it's ice cream time.

Monday 25 August 2014

Rain, mist and wind stop play....

As predicted the weather this morning was poor to say the least. After arriving at the paddock we were soon told that the day was canned, it's good that the Clerk of the Course called it early to avoid the quite usual day of one hour postponements. So Emily had a day off in the garage with the rest of the Louigi Moto stable for a bit of PR work. It's been great to catch up with quite a few of you that have read the blog today and your kind words are much appreciated.


So Tuesday is now race day and another night of fitful sleep awaits, I'd hoped to be down the pub tonight celebrating a finish but that can wait for another day. The race has also been shortened to three laps due to time constraints on the closed roads. A little prep work first thing for Emily then her debut at the Classic TT awaits.

Whilst nosing around I did spot one interesting bike and there are many, but if you ever go out of an evening to a bike meet do you look around and look for the one bike you would ride home instead of yours and fail? Well I may have found one.


Yes please.

Sunday 24 August 2014

So Emily can play....

We got some great news this morning that we have qualified for the Classic TT Formula 1 on Monday, although the weather looks poor. With that news I've spent the day just going over stuff, changing the oil and fixing the tachometer.  The tachometer is a bit of a sod, it took about 45 minutes of careful cutting with a razor blade to tease the old bezel off. I could then replace the needle that had fallen off, we stuck the bezel on later after a test to check its position. I've also changed two of the cotton reel rubber mounts to harder ones to lessen the movement of the clock nacelle. The belly pan has another two layers of fibreglass on the inside, it wasn't quite worn through but with the repair in place we hope to not get pulled for a hole during the race. Another slight adjustment to the clip ons to give Stuart more lock for getting through the Nook as he keeps scaring the marshals there. A quarter of a turn on the chain adjusters, a clean and new lock wiring applied we needed to add the new race numbers we've been allocated, 56.




Listening on Manx radio to hear live commentary on proceedings.

Saturday 23 August 2014

Practice is over....

What a week of mixed emotions, the lows at 18 miles and the absolute joy of seeing Emily Rayner-Evans complete a lap with Stuart on board. At that point the other pit crews in Parc Ferme watching from the wall with me must have thought I'd lost my marbles as I leapt around like a daft thing. Well I don't care I was just so happy for everybody who has been involved that we'd finally cracked it. Stuart had an analogy for what I had done it sort of goes, so you've decided to take up hill walking and decide that Everest would be a good place to start, that's what running a bike at the TT is like. 

So how did we get there? After finding the loose wire on the fuel pump I still wasn't convinced that that was the fault from Wednesday but all we could do was set out on Friday night and just hope that it was. As I said above yes the first lap came and went and Stuart was running at just over 91mph average for the lap, that's his first full lap in fourteen years so really pleased with that and for Stu. The second lap was just over 86mph and having heard from Steve Moody that Glen Helen was carnage with bikes and riders all over the place I guessed that this was the reason for the drop in pace, but no. We now think we know what stopped Stu on Wednesday, the rubber mounted clock assembly does move around and quite a lot it would seem. On the second lap the bike cut out as before and Stu pulled up into an old garage forecourt near Rhencullen, I had asked him that if Emily should stop again just check the switches are in the correct position. Well the main switch was off it had been hit by the clutch reservoir and killed the motor, a quick flick and he was off again. It did the same a couple more times and so Stu battled through to a second lap finish. Later that evening the toggle switch became a Manx cat version and was made shorter with the aid of my Dremel.

Not to late a night found a fuel hose chaffing on the rear rocker so a small fix applied and a belly pan that will make Del Whittaker smile when he gets to repaint it.






Good job Stuart, although he did say that he had a brown trouser moment at the bottom of Baggarrow to get the scrapes.

Saturday morning comes and Stuart's beauty sleep is ruined by an early start to be at scrutineering for 8.00am, again we sail through but the weather is not great. The start to practice is delayed and we need three more laps to stand any chance of qualifying. The almost unpredictable Manx weather clears and with the session lasting till 11.20 we have time for three laps, one down two to go and it starts to rain in Douglas, bugger as the session is cut short. We need that third lap to stand any chance of racing on Monday. Paul Baleta says to ask the Clark of the Course if we could tag on to a later practice and get that last lap in, we do and get the thumbs up to go out. A check over of Emily and again attend to the fuel hose, which should now be good, we are ready to go out. Stuart sets off and  a while later we hear of an engine blow and bad oil contamination so the red flags are out. My first worry is if Stu is involved and that he is OK, second is will the lap he is on count. I wait in the pit lane for him to return, as always it seems like an age but he does come past and I send him into Parc Ferme to park so we can check if his lap is valid. Off to the race office to see the secretary who is happy that Stu's lap will stand and it's his best so far at over 93mph. We can pack up for the day and await our fate, we'll find out Sunday if we are in. To finish today here's a shot by Keith "the clutch" Fothergill of Stuart and Emily at the Gooseneck.

Friday 22 August 2014

Friday awaits...

After Wednesday's elation and well, not disappointment as Emily had got 18 miles, so in comparison to the first two nights we're moving in the right direction, but frustration that something new had her stop for Stuart. Worst of all she restarted and was ridden home without missing a beat, even down the lane to the farm. From a visual and physical inspection every connection appeared to be connected and locked with either the clip that Ducati intended or a tie wrap that I had already added. All the earth leads are secure and seem but fine with a resistance check. Having recently worked on a friends 888 that had arrived with the fuel pump loose inside the tank I thought that maybe there was a problem in the tank with either the pump or the last two wires I hadn't checked yet. Stuart siphoned off the fuel and we now know we should be fine for two laps, should we ever get that far. Feeling inside the fuel pump is where it should be but gently pulling on the feed wires the negative connection comes away far too easily. Is this it? Is this the single connection that stopped Emily? Inside I'd like to say yes, but I just don't know.  It's a potential fault for sure but is this the one, time and the TT course will tell.
That aside the tachometer has died,  it had been vague for a few days and finally decided that it didn't want to play any more. Richard Llewellin will hopefully not forget to pop a spare in his hand luggage today. The cleaning of flies and the filling of scrapes in the belly pan would be a nice daily routine to get into, and even after 18 miles is one we can. Stuart managed to take the trailing edge nearly all the way through, so Del's paintwork is not looking quite so pristine any more. Stuart's feedback is positive although Emily is harder than he expected to muscle around the lower sections of the circuit compared to the flowing mountain. We have raised to rear slightly to make steering easier without, hopefully, compromising stability. 
Right, I'm off to re dress the lady and check the belly pan repair. Please wish us luck for later, I've also unlocked the comment section below so you shouldn't need a Google account to add your thoughts and ideas, please do.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Little by little.....

Well that was a day and a half, so we knew we had a a couple of major problems the clutch and the charging. To cure one we had to get the right spacer to go behind the inner basket, nothing on the island so the "Ze SS" earned the Iron Cross for action the field and gave up the required parts.



In the mean time I've fitted the road alternator I brought along as a spare, at test we had a healthy 14.5v just over tick over so hopefully that was that issue cleared.

A test run up the lane went well so we followed Stuart over the mountain for a final test, I say followed he was out of sight in seconds! Clutch seems good then.

The now usual chaos ensued a scrutineering, you'd have thought that they would have an idea on how to run this event by now, sadly not. Not enough power for tyre warmers, pit lanes empty with ours overflowing, a bit of a fiasco and not professional at all. Still we are here again and for once feeling like we may get somewhere with nothing really worrying me, can't say the same for Stuart though.







So once again we're ready for the off and Stuart skips away with a Suzuki and shows him the way to Bray Hill.






I get news via friends that Stuart is past Glen Helen and then through Kirk Michael, sadly my phone rings and Stuart is there letting me know all is well but seems to lost electrical power at the 18th milepost. When we get down to pick him up Emily starts and is ridden home under her own power with no remedial work required. One those faults that would be easier to diagnose if she didn't start at all.

So a day of find the intermittent fault is on the agenda, fingers crossed.

Monday 18 August 2014

Ah bugger clutch..

Well with testing limited to just a spin up the lane, by which I mean about 200 yards, I knew we were up against it. So having had the clutch slip on the dyno and having to add another friction to get it through the session, this then made the clutch not a slipper in the correct sense. So I tried another set of plates to reduce the stack height but retain the slipper action, it did seem to work down the lane for Stuart and me but come full power it slipped in the wrong sense. Sadly this was only 3 or so miles down the road outside the Railway Inn at Union Mills. So that's that for today but there are positives to draw on, the lad in the next van to us fell off 20 yards off the start line and broke his collar bone, Stuart overtook one other rider before the clutch failed and even a stalwart of the Manx GP Dave Clark's spark plug fell out on his Suzuki T20 and didn't get anywhere having spent the last day or so rebuilding the engine after a failure at Jurby. So I'll fit either a standard clutch or see what else I can get hold of in the morning. Hey ho that's racing. 

So to finish this evening here are some shots to give you the flavour of the day.




Sunday 17 August 2014

Sometimes it's all about the journey, sometimes....

   When I said next stop Liverpool I didn't mean it had to be like that. An engine start failure on the Manananananan meant we departed the Liver Building an hour late, combined with force 5 weather this predicted a slow run across the Irish Sea, we arrived in Douglas at 01.50. Obviously the Steam Racket had foreseen this and the movie of the day was the almost everlasting part 2 of The Hobbit series, The Desolation of Smaug. Now I'm not sure I've seen anything that drawn out since the government started making excuses for the war in Iraq. Still it was entertainment, or at least it would have been if not constantly interrupted by the stomping of running children outside the overly bright cinema.
To parody a well known sketch,
"Child or freedom?"
"Er, child"
"One hammer each, door on the left, thank you." 
"Hammer?"
"Yes sorry, we had a few complaints about running children. If you could simply nail one foot to deck to avoid disrupting the other passengers that would be great, thank you. Oh, alternatively let them play on deck in the dark and we'll see if Darwin was correct, thank you."

On behalf of the ferry company I'd like to apologise and say thank you to our home stay host Sheila, for staying up to meet us in Andreas at 01.30 in the morning and still be chirpy enough to make a cup of tea.

Still let's get down to the bit you're interested in, the bike.
Having arrived at our final digs for the week we were able to unload and finish off those last minute jobs.
First off is to introduce Stuart to Emily now that she is dressed.

  
I've had an idea in my head of where all decals would go and pretty much as planned, so with some masking tape we can edit and fettle.



 The application is a complete pain the neck, and I mean that. My neck was killing me sticking these things on.


But in the end I hope you like the way she looks, she seems to have changed persona now and means to do business.


Now apart from the dyno Emily has not moved under her own power or even stopped for that matter. So Stuart was sent out for a quick foray up the road just to check that we have the gear lever and other controls in the right place and she actually stops!


Tyre pressure check, pack the van check, lets go to the paddock.
In the day paddock where we are based it seems quite small, there's barely space for more than 14 vans not including an awning so we may share some room up in the garages with Alex Sinclair and the other Louigi Moto bike, a TT2 during the week.
For me now comes probably my most nervous moment to date and so to scrutineering.
The queue is long and the wait gets worse as we approach the front. The bike ahead of us has to go to the naughty corner for some last minute fiddles. The waiting is dreadful, not quite condemned man but you get the idea. Eventually an inspector comes along "Got the bike?" "Yep" I reply, and so it begins, the conservatory bike versus the man in blue. It all goes swimmingly really, he even says "nice bike" so I get one of these.


 To go with one of these.


On the business side of things - Parc Ferme.



Unfortunately due to a lack of marshalls, a late ship (again!) and the Ulster GP combine to rob the Classic TT of Saturday night's practice. Still you can never have enough set up and tweeking time, it's strange, even when it's standing still you seem to find little things to do. Stuart is off out today (Sunday) for a lap or two on my Supersport 1000DS (now known as "Ze SS") to refresh again his braking and turn in points. Me, I'm off to check the clutch pack, can't say why but although it works it just felt odd as I rode Emily back to the van last night.



Wednesday 13 August 2014

Sometimes the last steps are the hardest...

 As is the way in life sometimes no matter how hard you try to plan something there will always be a hiccup along the way. The last week seems to have just felt like I've been bouncing off brick walls, just when you fixed one thing something else knocks you back. One issue at the moment is charging, running the race alternator it only seems to give out 13V across the battery at 5krpm, hopefully this will be enough as the first alternator gave just 12V. I have a standard alternator to fit if required on the Isle. Another complete f**k up was by K Tech with the forks, they replaced the original progressive springs with linear springs, so far so good. But the new springs when allied with the original spacers gave about 8mm of sag at minimum preload, nowhere near enough. I'm guessing that the original springs being progressive may have been a replacement item and with the nature of the progressive spring there was sag available at the softer end of the range so all seemed well, pop in a set of linear springs and hey presto no sag. They actually had fitted springs from an SV650 even though I had requested ones from their catalogue for the Showa forks. Do K Tech not actually check anything? Luckily I was in the right place at the right time Rich at Louigi Moto decided that we could adjust the internal spacer without dropping the forks. 



 So a jack, some tools and a hacksaw later we're 20mm shorter in the spacer department and we have 25mm of sag. Rich did say that he never had a spacer so hard to depress to release the internals. An indication of K Techs complete failure to supply an item of use, especially considering the destination.  
  Still now is not the time complain for all bar a couple of tweeks to suit Stuart Emily is as ready as she can be for her date on the Isle of Man. The paintwork is back and I'm lock wired out. Here she is.





Next stop Liverpool.

 

Monday 11 August 2014

Every Dyno has its day...

Today was dyno day, and with a bike barely run in it's time to give it some beans!
To be fair to Chris of CJS Racing he did give Emily an easy morning by building data from the lower rev range. This afternoon though after a few high speed tuns and lots of tweaking he arrived with the figures below.


All in all far better than I expected and Rich Llewelin won the sweepstake with a guess of 118bhp. Torque seems good too topping out at 70 ft lbs.
Just one tiny issue to cure, the lady's not charging the battery very well so Tuesday will be another day of diagnostics. In other good news though, the fairing is back from paint and look awesome.

Sunday 3 August 2014

Something's looming.....

Apologies for the delay in posting an update, but getting stuff done does take priority. 
The last couple of weeks have been a little fraught whilst awaiting delivery of the new Corse loom being made by Peter at Oronero. Nobody said that making a loom from scratch would be easy and just sourcing the different parts is difficult enough. With some technical assistance from as far as over the pond Peter has got there at last, even able to supply bespoke parts able to cope with the subtle differences between the models. 
Well the loom arrived arrived last Wednesday morning and with the afternoon booked off it's home to the build facility, AKA the conservatory. So of course to fit a loom you need to access all areas so once again off with the airbox and other components to make some finger room. All in all it's a pretty straight forward item to fit with just some advice on which of the four injector leads to fit, each loom is made the same but some items are redundant, in this case I need to connect injector leads 2 and 3. Typically of course this the time you find that you've fitted the ECU back to front so the nice period Ohlins sticker is now hidden on the inside, not as if it's seen with the fairing covering it anyway.

Progress looms

This is the week the bike has to run if we're to stand any chance of some dyno and setup time. If the setup has to wait then so be it, if all else fails I'll pop the number plate on and get an MOT! With that in mind I also booked off Thursday and Friday to get down to Louigi Moto for those final little tweeks and base settings that would have the bike ready for the dyno. Simply put the injectors come off and the TPS is set with Christian's magic numbers along with a base setting to the ECU, he could have told me figures but then he'd have had to kill me apparently, I wisely declined the information. Just semi-synthetic oil for the running in period goes in the motor alongside distilled water for the radiator. Happily all the fluids appear to have stayed on the inside with no leaks, fingers crossed eh! Just a final connection to make up to the fuel pump, a reference check showed that as suspected the red and black were the required connections. With that and a few new earth leads we're ready to push the button, now don't get too excited as this was just to get fresh oil into all those important little places, and happily even though I thought I'd put a tad too much in at 4 litres all was well and the level returned to a more normal position, phew. Alongside these tasks I've been able to bleed all the hydraulic systems with some rather expensive Brembo fluid, I wish Paul Baleta had warned me how much it costs!! Also we now have a chain fitted, one of life's little essentials for bikes (shaft drive ones excepted).
OK so are you ready for it? It's time to simply add petrol, using Richards remote fuel tank we prime the system and wonder why the fuel pump doesn't stop? As it's a Corse style loom it's void of fuses and relays so yes the fuel pump runs continuously, hopefully well enough to keep Stuart and bike going flat out. 
Right, let's do it, turning, turning, turning, bugger. Turning, turning, turning, bugger. 
Right let's play diagnostics. Is there a spark, nope. Is there any fuel on the plug, nope. Have I connected the cam and motor pick ups back to front, nope. Call for the Mathesis diagnostic unit to check things over. First issue is the diagnostics won't talk to the EEPROM currently installed so a quick switch with a 916SP one gets us a step closer to seeing what's going on. We're now able to see where the fault lies, it turns out to be the cam sensor so a replacement is sourced and fitted.
OK are you ready for it?
Right, let's do it, turning, brum, turning, brum, brum, turning, turning, turning. Bugger what now?
"Ah" says Christian "we still have the 916 chip in the ECU and that runs four injectors" the 916 would run either 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 as pairs, but I run 2 and 3 having only two. So the bike was trying to run on one injector, or not as the case may be. Back to the original chip, let's see if that works.
OK are you ready for it?
Right, let's do it, turning, turning, brum, brum, brum, brum, job's a good'un as that man would say.
At last I'm smiling like a Cheshire cat and Rich just says "I knew it would start." Easy for you to say Rich you've been at the birth of many but this one's mine so it's special to me. The electronic rev counter works as does the temp gauge as well, I'm reet chuffed!

Now with a switch
 I'll take some more pictures later and maybe some video. As a final note the fuel tank now has some anti slosh foam installed along with a complete set of new fuel lines with some quick connectors.

 

Friday 4 July 2014

Some inspiration...

It's all you need sometimes when things feel a little slow. The first of the paintwork has arrived thanks to Del Whitaker at D W Automotive. Gotta say it does look rather good and I've asked Stuart to lift his boot clear when climbing aboard. So here's an early weekend post as I'm very excited.




Hope you like the style of the number boards which are loosely based on the period bikes.
In other news the hose for the rear shock has finally arrived and the reservoir is now set in position for the overhaul. With that back later in the week and tyres from James White in the post, next weekend's goal has got to be a rolling chassis at last. My deepest thanks also go out to Jill and Stuart Calkin who have also made an offer of sponsorship, cheers Calky.

Other points of note this week are the new bracket made by Stuart's dad fitted straight on with the addition of some riv nuts to the air runners.
Well done Stuart's dad.




The sharp eyed amongst you will spot the lock wire, surprisingly tricky when the bolt heads are this close together. Also fitted were the coils which are also lock wired. Overkill maybe, still they won't come loose.

Just in case you're in the South West the naked bike (poor Emily) will be on show at Sammy Miller's on the 20th July at their MotoItaliano day. 
Maybe see you there.
Finally I can see that the blog has had over 3000 views and I thank you all for taking the time to read all the way to the bottom.