Genesis Of A Racebike - IT LIVES !!!!!

wow its been a long time between drinks for this thread !

Huge thanks to Stevo today, for his help with machining a particularly tricky bush for the top steering head bearing. Cheers Mark, really appreciate your time in sorting this out.

Well maybe its time to do an update !! Some months ago (could even have been last year), I picked up a set of Z1300 triple clamps from a mate down in Victoria, so that the 41mm forks I have, could be fitted up. The triple clamps needed some tweaking ( thanks Dave Alderton) - but tonight they finally got fitted to the frame ! Laurie has already worked some magic on these forks so they should be fine for P5 racing......

Front wheel will be back from TJ's on Tuesday, with slick fitted. I still have to do some minor maching to the adapter plates for the front brakes so they fit nicely......will be using the 4-fin Lockheeds initially, until I source some 20mm plate from Sydney, so that the Brembos can be fitted up. The 4-fin Lockheeds are legal in P4, so these will end up on the 750/3.....but in the meantime they should do the job nicely on the 7/11.

With a few late nights over the next 2 weeks, this bike will be up and running for the KSRC track day on the 17th December. It will finally have a 17" front slick, decent forks and decent brakes. With a bit more engine development, it may even be slightly competitive in the P5 Unlimited class next season.......time will tell....

we'll see how it all goes at EC on the 17th .....

and while digging up some photos for this thread, I found a few more which have not been posted before - this is the hybrid at some of those track days back in 2008....

Oran Park 3 August








and a couple of shots from the Broadford/Winton double-header weekend we did towards the end of 2008.

PC's 7/12 hybrid is in these shots as well - this is a 1990 Gixxer 750 with a '94 Bandit 1200 motor fitted. Pretty easy conversion this one, it was *almost* a bolt-in proposition....






These last 2 photos are the logbook photos I like 'em !!

thats great workmanship you have acheived the motor fits in the frame very neat to,reminds me of a bigblock chev in a hq enginebay(fills the engine bay full of motor) it will be good to see it in action on the 17th !

and while digging up some photos for this thread, I found a few more which have not been posted before - this is the hybrid at some of those track days back in 2008....

Arrr memories this was the first track day I did on my red FZ1 and you can just see the red and white duct tail of my current FZ1 race bike that I was to buy a year later

Your bikes looking the goods Gos, I'm looking forward to checking out it's performance on the 17th

I wanna go

I dont think gos will see more than 2 sessions on his bike. Just a prediction..

















Everyone else will be on it......

Z750 Sidecovers ... you just trying to make the people you overtake feel bad Gos?

.....Z750 Sidecovers ... you just trying to make the people you overtake feel bad Gos? ......

Its all part of the Supreme Scheme of Psyching and the compliance plate says z750


touch and go with this old shitter at the moment - I fired her up this afternoon - good - but making some crook engine noises out of the top-end - bad ...... the new brakes seem to work well - good - but had a leak out of #2 carbie - bad......

So back into the workshop, sort out the float in #2, check the cam-bearing caps and #2 exhaust side has farken lifted *again* - this is the same thing that happened back in Feb 09 in Rd 1 at Wakefield.

I had some helicoils fitted to the 2 rear 6mm bolts - these just pulled straight out. I have a vague memory of the top-end starting to get noisy at the end of that February round late on the Sunday arvo

So - have tapped the rear 2 bolt holes out to 8mm, and fitted up some HT hex head bolts into these 2 bolt holes. Just finished putting the whol lot back together - will give it another kick in the guts now and see how the top-end sounds. Keep ya fingers crossed !!

Might be time to send the head for some welding up Gos. Is there anyone still alive who can do it? I used to get heads rewelded by Karol Morlang. He died a number of years back, still in posession of one of my ZX6R racebike heads. It went with his estate and I couldn't retrieve it. But, he did weld up two heads prior to that for me and not for a small matter of redrilling some cam cap threads either. Mine was to weld up where the valves had been bashed into the heads!!! He did an awesome job, with not one of the welded heads ever failing. No visible hotspots when stripped down either.

I might have to look at that some time mate - valves are still good in this head, but I do have a couple of other heads that are in better nick.....I remember hearing around the traps about Karel Morlang, he was a whizz.

Well after doing the #2 cam-cap with bigger bolts - it seems to have worked. Gave it another belt up and down the street, its a 1-bump start which is always good - had some indications of f@#@$#$ manifold leaks despite best sealing efforts - thats what you get when using z900 manifolds on a GPz1100 head......knocked up some better manifold gaskets tonight so hopefully that will stop the popping .

Will bring this rig up for Saturday, but she needs some jetting work I think. These carbies are the 29mm smoothbores that have been donated for the Shadowfax project - this is a good opportunity to test them out before they get fitted to that bike. The leak from #2 has been fixed, just a sticky float.

Bike feels so much better with the new front end - even just flogging up and down the street really tight. Also looks a heap better than the skinny forks, skinny wheel and shitty brakes....

Will be happy to see a couple of sessions out of this bike on Saturday - don't think it will last more than that

well what a dissapointment that was ! 1 lap and discovered an oil leak out of the head which was not there 2 days earlier ! Looks like it has cracked between an oil-feed line and the external surface, right near that f$$#@@^$@^$^@ ing #2 exhaust cam cap area. I think one of the locating dowels must have been caught by a cam lobe at some point and this has done the damage.

This was totally unexpected and bought a rapid end to the day as far as this bike was concerned......

Will have to use another head now - lucky there is a spare or 2 in the 4th - very happy though with how the forks & brakes felt, even in 1 lap I could tell there was a huge improvement over the OEM 36mm skinny jobbies and single-piston calipers.....

Roll on February 4 !!!

Pity i sold a set of twin 40mm webbers that i had complete with manifold to suit z900.I ran these on my bike for a while till some-one pestered me enough to sell them to him.

.....Pity i sold a set of twin 40mm webbers that i had complete with manifold to suit z900.I ran these on my bike for a while till some-one pestered me enough to sell them to him......

was he from Wangaratta ?? Pete (Mudguard) from the Vic Z Owners has a manifold to suit a z900 up in his shed - but it is far too small to suit an 1100/1200 motor. The inlet stubs on the cast adapter plate, are for 26mm inlet manifolds - I will be using much bigger 36mm inlet rubbers from Debben.

I should still get the z900 adapter plate though - it could be good on another bike

How did you find the webbers when they were fitted up ?

.....Pity i sold a set of twin 40mm webbers that i had complete with manifold to suit z900.I ran these on my bike for a while till some-one pestered me enough to sell them to him......

was he from Wangaratta ?? Pete (Mudguard) from the Vic Z Owners has a manifold to suit a z900 up in his shed - but it is far too small to suit an 1100/1200 motor. The inlet stubs on the cast adapter plate, are for 26mm inlet manifolds - I will be using much bigger 36mm inlet rubbers from Debben.

I should still get the z900 adapter plate though - it could be good on another bike

How did you find the webbers when they were fitted up ?

Was going to ask that myself?? tried running them on my drag bike back in 80/81 lot of trouble turning them, it was on meth tho, in the end we went hillburn mech fuel injection.... then i crashed it.........