'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!

David Knight in training

Found this little vid of David Knight doing a bit of extreme enduro training with the locals at a training track a few miles from his house on the IOM:



The obstacles are nothing to him... perfect balance and control.

Pinstriping

A Christmas present - something I've always wanted to learn.

Got a few brushes and pots of paint on the way.

Pretty soon, everything's gonna be pinstriped!

Dakar Pics

Some of the awesome pics of the recent Dakar at totallycoolpix - specially for Chief and Chief

Thanks motoguru on the Blood Falcons blog for the link.

Steve's New Project

My good friend 'Bultaco' Steve has just aquired an interesting project.

Apparently it's a TR750 in a TZ750 frame. I have little idea of what that means... Suzuki, two-smoke, 750, lethal... that's about it.

It might have something to do with this post from a while back: King Kenny at the Indy Mile

The idea is to build an old skool Mr Sheene track-day missile. It'll be sweet!

If that doesn't work out, how about a  cool-ass Mr Roberts flattracker?

AMA Flattrack 2010 - Springfield Mile with Bryan Smith

Another great short vid from TheFastandDirty - Springfield Mile with the 2010 winner, Bryan Smith:


Monster Energy Flat Track Video - Springfield Mile from TheFastandDirty.com on Vimeo.

Flattracker Build - Subframe & Rads

A bit more progress on the flattracker last weekend...

... got the rads all plumbed in and bracketed on. They sit at an angle because of the exhaust headers... I'll see how it looks when the bike's together. Might straighten them out a bit.

More subframe mods...

My chicken-shit welding isn't great... but normally isn't this bad. had issues with the MIG wire feed.

But nothing an angle grinder couldn't sort out.

Flattracker Build - Fuel Tank

Been spending some time in the garage working on the flattracker the last few weekends. Managed to get the tank all sorted.

Tank mounts - done.

After cutting and shutting the tank, I sealed it with Petseal. But what a dumbass - I plugged the fuel-tap holes with paper... which of course soaked up the petseal and cured hard.

Drill them out...

Rethread...

... but this time not for fuel-taps... I had a plan...

A lick of primer on the underside...

Aluminium (heat reflective... more bhp!) paint underneath and a dab of black on the front bits that can be seen to keep with the blacked-outness (?)...

... and instead of 2 fuel taps, a couple of neat banjos leading to dry-breaks. I can have the tank off in about 15 seconds now with no bother: a 13mm nut and a hex bolt, two dry breaks (spring-loaded so it's a one handed affair!) and the tank just lifts off. It's garage tested and all is sweet. A pukka race machine!

Chev-dawg Lives!

8 weeks ago the Chevy let me down on the way home from Oop North. Got her towed back home. Took a local mobile mechanic 2 weeks to get to the beast to diagnose a dead fuel pump. I ordered the part and he had it two days later.

6 weeks and all the excuses he could find later and I paid him a visit last night - to pick up the new fuel pump. With the help of Dave (one of my neighbours), we dropped the tank replaced the fuel pump and got it all back together. Sounds straightforward - only 7 steps in the manual. Yeah... right!

Lying on your back, broken bolts, a mahoosive 100 litre tank and an angle grinder needed to get the bastard off made it a bit more challenging. It took us 5 1/2 hours.

I hate working on cars. Things are not well thought out or engineered on cars... the designers don't have the constraints of weight and space that bikes have, so they the bits are just thrown together in the cheapest and quickest way possible. But... one quickly forgets pain and I'm so pleased to have the old dawg back! Now I can move bikes around and go race!

Fast Freddy at Kyalami

Found this great pic of Freddy Spencer on his Honda 250NSR at Kyalami 1985.

I have fond childhood memories of the old Kyalami track. It was just down the road from where I lived and my uncle used to race modified saloons (he always had a Fiat) there regularly. Many a weekend were spent hanging around the paddock and watching racing... bike GP and F1 too.

To Flip or Not to Flip...

... that is the question.
Been hoarding some bates footpegs for my flattracker.

Gonna fit 'em soon.
Calling on the flattrackers out there... should I fit them so they can flip up and are a bit protected... or is fixed better for ploughing the bike to a stop when we get off?

Let me know your thoughts and experience...

Crazy Hot Trials

Check out this awesome footage of a kid on a mountainbike and some crazy trials:


Future & Present - Gerard Trueba & Toni Bou - from Pira Dirtyflows on Vimeo.

AMA Flattrack 2010 - Tyler O'Hara Springfield bootcam

A great HD bootcam vid of the Springfield Mile from TheFastandDirty

Tyler O'Hara Springfield Mile 2 from TheFastandDirty.com on Vimeo.