My
sad story started as an alternative to racing around on Hi-performance
machinery namely a Kawasaki ZX6R, a Ducati 900SS, a Harley Davidson 1200
Sportster Sport, a Kawasaki ZX7R, a Ducati 748, a Triumph T509 and finally
a Triumph T595... all in a space of just 18 Months. After a couple of
busts for excessive speed and a couple of visits to the local lockup as
a potential girlfriend for Bubba and his Friends, I decided that enough
was enough and that I needed a safer motorcycle to explore my urge for
wheelies, stoppies and general tom foolery, but without the outrageous
speeds that I had been involved in with the "Secret Squirrel Club"(my
friends all own Ducati's 996's,916's, R1's and ZX9R's etc.). Being British
my taste lent towards a Super Motard style bike that offered all of the
above fun and games but without the loony speeds, For those out there
not familiar with this look, it is basically a Motocrosser on the street.
The stock engine manages to put out around 30 to 32 BHP and is strangled to death by emissions, its laden down with various smog pumps, rubber hoses and of course a restrictive exhaust system. Out she came and off it went to a local flat track engine tuner, who shall remain nameless due to reasons discussed later. The engine was rebuilt using a high compression JE piston, roadrace cam, shorter valve guides, titanium springs, this was basically a "White Brothers hop-up kit, the kit also came with an oversize head pipe and SuperTrapp silencer, 41 mm Mikuni Flatside and a Splitfire plug and gaskets, whilst in pieces the engine received a little head work which involved raising the intake a few millimeters and a multi-angle valve job.
I replaced the headlamp with a unit I saw on a Yamaha Warrior Quad, this was a style that looked like a Paris Dakar racer with the surround protector and as a further benefit had twin 30/30 watt hi / lo beams it was a synch to wire up and fields a great pattern of light, as you may agree it looks pretty good, it even had tabs to mount the ignition switch, horn and flasher relay, I cut the two ends of a renthal cross bar to anchor the lights to the indicator brackets so it's rock solid and most importantly looks like a Honda stock item. I added an Avocet bicycle speedometer to a K&N chrome superbike handlebar, this speedo is pretty amazing as you can easily calibrate it to the size of your tire, it reads MPH, average MPH, Highest MPH of that trip and has a resettable trip meter and a total miles readout.
I worked around the bike, picking and modifying various parts, I took off the stock cleat style footrests and added some Ducati 748 ones that I had laying around, there is several hours of filing and grinding to make them fit, they look priceless as does the slots that I cut out of the stock engine sprocket cover to reveal the sprocket. This kind of attention to detail makes the bike stand out from a simple buy it and bolt on accessory. The side panels were sent away to be sprayed black and I think maybe in the future I'll replace the front and rear fenders for black ones. The logo (650L) was removed using a mixture of rubbing alcohol and WD40 which I think I ended up drinking in my hot and feverish, sore fingered delirious state.
The engine arrived with all the necessary go fast bits attached, and I went about the final rebuild of the Motard from hell. Have you ever seen the Candid Camera segment where two guys deliver a large crate into a store room? When dropping off the load and returning to their truck, someone stops them, and tells them they put it in the wrong room, meanwhile the crate is swopped for a slightly larger unit that will not fit between the door frame! These hapless guys spend many minutes trying every single possible angle, to no avail, finally a dimwit in a 70's suit turns up and explains the joke !!! Well, my point (finally) is that someone must have swapped the engine for a bigger one because it took me a long time to get this bloody thing back in its rightful place.
The wheels were mounted with a Dunlop 207GP compound 120/70 front and a Dunlop 204 160/70 rear, I had to make a spacer to give me enough clearance for the gold Regina chain, I got a beautiful Braking oversize rotor for the front mounted on a gold carrier to match the Talon hubs. The rims were laced by White Brothers to Akront rims, and stainless steel brake lines were also added together with a 44 tooth rear Afam sprocket. I added some gold bar ends, and some renthal grips, I modified some shorty levers for a XR600.. I had to add a piece of aluminum to activate the front brake light switch, I cut the mirrors down, standard mirrors had me lowering my elbows to see anything, these short mirrors mean I have to raise my elbows to see anything, a liberal sprinkling of gold Allen bolts finished off the cosmetics together with the decals that a local print shop did for me. The bike was heat cycled a few times and then ridden, as suspected, the jetting was off and was a little soft in terms of power delivery and throttle crispness, however it was very powerful. One problem is that it smoked on startup, I rode some fairy easy miles and got increasingly confident with the throttle, it wheelied in 3rd gear with no clutch, very under geared to say the least !!! I then had it Dynoed with about 450 miles on it. The "Dyno Expert" wasn't present and a young apprentice set up the Dyno incorrectly, instead of revving it to an easy 5000rpm it was actually 10,000rpm!! This happened three times, the 4th run with the Dyno set up properly yielded 55BHP and 44LBS of torque. Because of the smoking, I put more easy miles on it trying to spread the rings, as I thought they might not be seating. A couple of days later was my first Sunday ride with the "Club" I was coerced into thrashing it and it all got ugly, and the poor thing melted down lost power and smoked liked a chimney, it leaked oil and blew it out of the breather, but it STILL wheelied in 3rd though!!!!
The bike was rebuilt by a friend this time, a local dealer mechanic and racer. I was present at the breakdown and subsequent rebuild, the cylinder was rebored to 1st oversize (101mm) a new piston, rings, rocker assemblies and cam together with a big finned conversion by XR'S only, the cam was slotted and degreed,( a job promised to have been done by the previous builder!) a little more porting and a "better" valve job, the valve seals were replaced (the old ones were badly marked when the previous tuner neglected to replace them on the first rebuild) the whole engine was shipped off for a cryogenic process where it was frozen to -300 degrees to reduce internal stresses (meaning nothing will go out of shape next time it over heats). The engine went back in with a new JAGG oil cooler and a trick Yoshimura Digital oil/volt meter, the rear sprocket went down to a 41 tooth a car PCV valve was put inline on the breather to stop the air being sucked in and blown out, a Honda tachometer was sourced to keep check on the rev's and the whole thing was run in properly this time, although not before checking that it still wheelied in 3rd with no clutch .....It did ;-) The final test was a mad Sunday ride with a liberal sprinkling of 90MPH wheelies, no deaths and more importantly, no smoking or leaking. The front forks rotate a little on hard breaking and rolling 50MPH stoppies, however that sideways momentum looks particularly sick especially with the back wheel two feet in the air! As far as handling is concerned this ain't no 748, the front wheel pushes a little in fast corners but a little body weight takes care of that, ideally I'm looking to replace the rear tire with a less rounded profile to help with traction and I am thinking about a two into two carbon fiber exhaust to fill out the empty spot where the battery once lived, who knows?
P.s. I got stopped by the police a couple of days ago for "carrying my back wheel in the air"........looks like some things don't change. (Bubba here I come) The cop was particularly interested as to why I would want to put "race wheels on a dirt bike" ..........well if you have to ask!!!!
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