Burnin' the Midnight Oil

Yesterday afternoon I headed up to John Trigger to help get the triumph ready for a test 'shake-down' at Mallory park today. At nearly 01h00 this morning we finished. I loaded the bike up and headed home for a few hours kip before loading up my gear and the KMR Kawasaki then heading back up to Mallory Park.

With all the work JT needed to do to the bike, it was always going to be tight... but JT has done an awesome job. A few weeks ago she was a tourer with a sat-nav holder and all the Triumph catalog crap on it. Now she's a bit closer to being a proper TT machine.

JT is probably the countries best Triumph tuner (Kawasaki and BMW too). His bikes won a TT and finished first and second in the British championship last year (Smiths Truimph). It wasn't his first British championship either. He isthe Triumph factory tuner. Pedigree. .

He built up most of the chassis and breathed some magic on the girl. She's making good power now and the delivery is as linear as a big vee twin. Beautiful! I still have a bit to do to finish her off... but in the wee hours of the morning, she was ready for some on-track testing.

'Suzy V' Gets Some Fairy Dust

Last weekend I picked up the Suzy V (Suzuki SV650 race bike) from Gary at SDC Performance. Gary built the bike for me last winter... and after she went so well at the Manx GP with a stock engine, I took her back to Gary for a toon-up.

Check out those bling cam covers on Gary's next SV!

There were a few race bikes being built up... including another carby SV.

Gary's been involved in racing for many years

A beautifully built, never raced CBR1000... and some of Gary's many trophies. Gary is after the British F1 sidecar Championship this year!

Back to Suzy V... Gary whipped the engine out and sent it to his Dad and well known tuner - Mike Smith. An engine rebuild with Blueprint, porting, Kent cams and a sprinkling of magic fairy dust.
Standard SV: about 72bhp at the wheel
Suzy V in 2010 (stock engine with MHP pipe): 75bhp
Suzy V now: 85bhp!

That's a whopping 13% gain! I hope the known SV weakness, the bottom-end holds together and she's reliable. Gary has done some risk mitigation on that side for me too... so here's hoping. Looking forward to getting her on track!