Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
New racing class announced
Found this pic of Reynolds on a ZXRr, probably from the year he won the british championship.
Mine is currently in the garage awaiting an mot and some paperwork with regards the K frame. With my right wrist suffering a ligament issue and with the Swedish winter moving in, I'm not really in any hurry and the OW01 will be getting most of the winter hours as the zxr is basically already to go.
Speakers on MAX!
You gotta love Honda for going insane and building the most incredible multi cylinder machines to compete with MV.
As we all know, the Japanese have a bizarre history in TV shows...so somebody one day felt it would be a good idea to take an rc166 into the studio and to get a crowd reaction..
As we all know, the Japanese have a bizarre history in TV shows...so somebody one day felt it would be a good idea to take an rc166 into the studio and to get a crowd reaction..
Best of British? NORTON NRV588
You'll probably realise I'm a wee bit slow on the uptake with regards bikes that have already been in the news..and heres one I only found out about the other day...what a beauty!
Somewhere filed away under "cancelled projects" I still own a Norton letterhead offer of a complete rolling chassis off the mark 1 Spondon Norton racers.This type filmed here at East Fortune in Scotland:
That usually brings a tear to people who know what I didn't move on..but the main issue back then , is the same now..you had to have a rotary engine to put into the chassis and that wasn't so easy...
I used to head up to knockhill to watch the JPS Nortons with Ray Stringer and Trevor Nation (think Steve Spray also raced them) and watch them firing flames six feet out the exhaust..they ran hotter than hot and sounded like the Kraken was released! The question was always surrounding they're actual displacement..some argued it was double what was being claimed, and looking at them fly past the bikes at the time made you wonder how a twin at 588cc could be that quick..
Anyway, the new version sounds awesome!
check out back in the day...plenty ow01's, rc30s and of course a norton in its infancy..
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
misc pictures from 88fz to yzf...
As explained previously, once the OW01 was purchased , it was time to scout around the net for full race bikes or otherwise.Some are the pre-OW01s, and you can see the dna is there and the foundations.
OW01 History
News update.
Well, I went ahead a purchased the Yamaha ow01 that was on Ebay. I reckoned I'd never have the same chance if I hadn't without going through the hassle of trying to get a restoration project from Tokyo or somewhere obscure?
So the next thing was to try and find some authorities on the bikes and start looking around the forums and classifieds for any parts or info. It's gonna be a month before I get the bike back from London so theres lots of time before I see what needs to be done.
It's an 89 model which was road registered in 2002 but with an 89 reg plate.
I managed to get in contact with a guy who still races the model and who is sponsored by the main authority on the bikes.He mentioned he remembered racing against the very bike and that it was quick but that it apparently blew it's engine on a dyno..he also game me a name of the person who raced the bike.
So a few googles later and I was on the phone to PDQ, a company who worked on high performance bike building.The technician who raced the bike still worked there and the previous owner of the bike had also worked at PDQ before starting up on his own.So the question was, obviously, was it fast and did it blow on the dyno?
-"no, the engine never blew on the dyno! the owner was curious as to where the engine came from and what it's insides looked like as when he got it and dynoed it the results were so impressive it was deemed as something a bit better than a std tune.back wheel gave 138bhp and the parts on the bike were very trick.Rumours abound that it was an ex works loctite engine.In fact, there were a lot of rumours surrounding the bike but nothing ever really became worked out.The owner stripped the engine and when putting it back together managed to over torque a bolt going into the cases which stopped the rebuild.And that was that.It's got some very serious parts on it, including a race gearbox, race ported head, flatslides and then the frame has a yec gusset kit fitted...also there are loctite stickers painted over on the carbon fibre fairing..so we reckoned it was a full race engine built by a pro..had a race tacho and ecu as well..."
All good news and the rebuilt should be fun.Lets hope so anyway! I'll be updating the site once I start unpacking the bits n bobs.
One thing that I hadn't seen around were pictures of a bike with the YEC frame gussets.I searched and searched, only finding pics of standard bikes or race bikes that didn't have the frame race kit option.
Then , finally on a forum, this bike turned up, Eddie lawsons daytona winning Ow01:
You can see the extra frame gusset welded down to the swinging arm pivot over the cast part of the standard setup.
So, basically you have a deltabox frame which is based to take any amount and more horsepower kept together with Grandprix front forks (not like the öhlins above) and an öhlins fully adjustable on the rear.Mine doesn't have the race-kit swinging arm, but does have dymags, qd rear wheel, alloy endurance tank which is slightly larger, and a flatslide/harris airbox:
so, all pretty exciting anyway.Can't wait to pick up the bike and start the strip down..although..famous last words...
Well, I went ahead a purchased the Yamaha ow01 that was on Ebay. I reckoned I'd never have the same chance if I hadn't without going through the hassle of trying to get a restoration project from Tokyo or somewhere obscure?
So the next thing was to try and find some authorities on the bikes and start looking around the forums and classifieds for any parts or info. It's gonna be a month before I get the bike back from London so theres lots of time before I see what needs to be done.
It's an 89 model which was road registered in 2002 but with an 89 reg plate.
I managed to get in contact with a guy who still races the model and who is sponsored by the main authority on the bikes.He mentioned he remembered racing against the very bike and that it was quick but that it apparently blew it's engine on a dyno..he also game me a name of the person who raced the bike.
So a few googles later and I was on the phone to PDQ, a company who worked on high performance bike building.The technician who raced the bike still worked there and the previous owner of the bike had also worked at PDQ before starting up on his own.So the question was, obviously, was it fast and did it blow on the dyno?
-"no, the engine never blew on the dyno! the owner was curious as to where the engine came from and what it's insides looked like as when he got it and dynoed it the results were so impressive it was deemed as something a bit better than a std tune.back wheel gave 138bhp and the parts on the bike were very trick.Rumours abound that it was an ex works loctite engine.In fact, there were a lot of rumours surrounding the bike but nothing ever really became worked out.The owner stripped the engine and when putting it back together managed to over torque a bolt going into the cases which stopped the rebuild.And that was that.It's got some very serious parts on it, including a race gearbox, race ported head, flatslides and then the frame has a yec gusset kit fitted...also there are loctite stickers painted over on the carbon fibre fairing..so we reckoned it was a full race engine built by a pro..had a race tacho and ecu as well..."
All good news and the rebuilt should be fun.Lets hope so anyway! I'll be updating the site once I start unpacking the bits n bobs.
One thing that I hadn't seen around were pictures of a bike with the YEC frame gussets.I searched and searched, only finding pics of standard bikes or race bikes that didn't have the frame race kit option.
Then , finally on a forum, this bike turned up, Eddie lawsons daytona winning Ow01:
and one more from Italy with frame gusset and swing arm strengthing
You can see the extra frame gusset welded down to the swinging arm pivot over the cast part of the standard setup.
So, basically you have a deltabox frame which is based to take any amount and more horsepower kept together with Grandprix front forks (not like the öhlins above) and an öhlins fully adjustable on the rear.Mine doesn't have the race-kit swinging arm, but does have dymags, qd rear wheel, alloy endurance tank which is slightly larger, and a flatslide/harris airbox:
so, all pretty exciting anyway.Can't wait to pick up the bike and start the strip down..although..famous last words...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)