No Budget Cup - That's Numberwang! Racing

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

Yeah but if you've got the disc held in the middle then they all automatically extend to their max point for best cleaning. Dead easy.

Good point!

Manic last minute prep, discovered some issues with brake seals and pistons, awaiting spares to arrive for rebuild, or have a pair to borrow, but they are in Germany.

Plan is to leave for France Friday at some stage.

New paint scheme looks quite nice.

Updates will follow after this weekend when I have a second to breathe.

Well, no crashing from us.

Spent all of Thursday night fixing leaking carbs with team member A, got them sorted by 11 pm (the main float chamber seals had shrunk, probably due to the dry powder from the fire in May), we got the bike running ok, it started to smoke, assumed it was just oil burning off the down pipes or similar, but it got worse so it was shut down. Removing the belly pan revealed a belly pan of petrol, which the exhaust was running only millimetres off. Source of smoke discovered and 2nd bike fire narrowly averted. got up earlyish Friday and loaded up the bike, all the race gear was gathered and packed, as was my camping gear.

Trucked down to Nurburg nicely, got there late lunch time, Martin removed his brakes from the 1100 and kindly lent me them. I then set off in the superheat in the french super car with broken air con, to sit in traffic jams through Luxembourg and fill the Pug and bike up with cheap fuel, and then more jams all the way to Thionville and may be further.

Met the other guys en route and convoyed the last 30kms to the circuit. Approaching was similar to Cadwell, going through gently rolling countryside, no real hint of the circuit until you get right up close.

Arrived just in the light, set up tents in the end paddock, the place was chocked with Endurance 4 Fun racers, No Budget (NBC) cup racers in both the 600 and 600+ classes and Bikers Days track day entourage. Busy. There was a slight whiff of fuel from the bike to check out in the morning.

Woken by bikes being revved etc just gone seven. Started with Bacon sandwiches and Yorkshire tea, we were one of the best prepared teams for breakfast! Checked the bike over, removed belly pan to investigate petrol smell, loads of fuel around engine. Remove air filter, carbs full of fuel. Check sight glass, a couple of litres had got passed the bores to fill the sump. Remove carbs, inlet ports full of fuel.

Diagnosisesi (it’s too late at night to spell):

1. Replacement fuel vac valve not working properly (stops fuel to carbs when engine not running, mounted on the bottom of the tank under in the inbuilt fuel pump)
2. Carb floats not working correctly.

So a multi pronged attack:

Fit Martin’s brakes as these can be useful on track – easy bolt on off good condition functioning bits ( a rarity for us).

Make up a good fuel vac valve from the replacement and the original which I snapped the vac elbow off whilst being clumsy in the garage and the replacement.
Take off the float chamber covers and check floats.
Hand turn the engine over (two on the back wheel, 6th gear and one holding the bike down on the stands).

The floats were all ok and operational and the main float chamber seal, so all was all put back on the bike, throttle cables hooked up etc. Ignition primed (starts the fuel pump) and fuel started pi$$ing out of the top of the carbs, and the vac valve was still passing..

Dissassembly of both vac valves to their bare components revealed a motley selection of **** bits. It also revealed that the member B who had swapped the bits over previously hadn’t paid attention to the air bleed hole that needs lining up to provide atmospheric pressure to the other side of the diaphragm. So it was put together with the best bits available ( the seal on the original had lost its shape – probably due to, yes you’ve guessed it, dry powder). However this still pi$$ed fuel, and out of the sides too! Further investigation revealed that the bit we only had one of was bowed, so wouldn’t seal properly. I went in search of another (there’s loads of SRADs in the NBC), but no one had a spare, and almost everyone else was running fuel injected SRADs. One guy offered me some loctite (cheers team 88 – hope your bike gets back together after the enthusiastic restart), which I borrowed and used to fix the different layers of the vac valve together. After letting it almost fully set I went round the entire edge with epoxy from my glass fibre fixing set (but leaving the atmospheric bleed hole free using that tube you get with WD-40 ). Proper bodging.

I got on investigating the carbs, the floats were all ok and operational, so I investigated further, taking apart the spare set first, finding the little float seals and the push in barrels secured by screws. These were removed, and swapped over with the originals, which had lost the shape of the seals on the barrels (more dry powder issues??). This was all put back on the bike, throttle cables hooked up etc.

After some sausage baps had given time for all the stuff to set it was back on the bike, there were no major leakages, so the other two dropped the fuel/petrol combo from the sump, and we let it breath for a while. The oil filter was fitted and more nice race synthetic oil poured in. It was noted that a wire had come loose from the fuel pump connector, so I let team member A fix it.

After a bit of trying the bike started (some judicious fishing about for the lock wire choke was required, I estimate the tank went up and down between 40-60 times this weekend and was removed completely at least 20 times). However it wasn’t running great, mainly on 3 cyclinders. Team 88 came over and ordered me to whip off the airbox, revealing carb No 4 had a malfunctioning float chamber (at idle the top of the carb was overflowing with fuel).

By this time team member A was getting quite fractious. I said I’d investigate the carbs further. He said he’d head home as if he left now he could be home by the end of the day. And started packing up all his stuff.


So I continued, it was off with the carbs for a change, disassembly of the float chamber, removal of the seal barrel thing and seal, no obvious issues but I put it all back together

As team member A had given team member B a lift (and team member B had left his car at his house) member B left as well, this was at about 2pm, 25 hours before the race.

It was then all back together, although Team members A’s wiring repair had come undone, I noticed he’d tried to fix it with, in Andy’s word, that well know insulator, super glue! This meant the side of the crimp was glued to the multi plug connector, and some more practical bodging was required.

In the end I fired the bike up sans air filter and all appeared gravy. 4 cylinders, thumbs up from team 88, a nice roar of bare carbs. It was only 20 minutes after the others had jacked it in, but there was no way I was calling them back.

I now needed a team, I knew where to find a rider, there was a young Mr Carlile prancing about on a cramped, under powered, ill fuelled CBR600, so I went to the pit lane to watch the last 15 minutes of the first hour, noting his impressive rise through the ranks on a machine that wouldn’t accelerate at all in 6th gear. I nabbed him seconds after he pitted to see if he’d be interested in a possible ride the next day, surprisingly he agreed.

So it was back to more faffing with the bike, taking it for a paddock/car park ride to bed in the pads. Putting the fairings back on, getting the neighbours to charge my battery etc. then did a walk of the track with Andy so at least I could see where it went. Then some food with Mad Men racing after they finished a race, well done for nursing the bike through.

Sunday

Got up. Lock wired the last bits, secured the last odds and sods. Went for track day briefing (Team Member A had booked some track time last minute which I was going to try and take full advantage of).back to the bike, started, and out on to track, Bike was fine apart from the fact that the power that used to exist between 10-13.5kish was no longer there. No power on the straight, by the 2nd lap the temps had started to go over 100 deg C, so I pulled into the pits at the end of lap 3 to try and sort. No time to do it in 20 minutes to get out for the next session, but after some refilling, bleeding, a little help and car park testing it looked sorted.

It was then a case of stickering up the bike, getting it through atechnical inspection, registering the ridersetc.

After lunch I headed out on it again, still no pull above 10k, getting swamped on the straight, then the gear linkage undid, so I pulled off (another 3 laps done), it was then I heard a knocking at low rpms…..

So paddock diagnosis was the bottom end startring to knock, probably a result of the last crash with the engine running on its side for a while while. So no racing for me, and the end of That’s Numberwang racing for this season, I really can;’t be ar$ed to try and sort the bike out again, fit a new engine, find out what other dry powder nightmares there are etc. SRAD GSX-R bits will be coming to a 2nd hand web based selling location shortly.

So after loading the bike up, watching a few of the opening laps of the race and the odd crash or two I set off home.

A few miles down the road skirting the suburbs of Dijon the Pug cambelt let go. 1 ¼ hrs by the side of the road. 2 ¾ hours at a yard in an industrial estate. 1 night in a hotel in Dijon. Some beer and wine to commiserate. A day sight seeing in Dijon. Millions of phone calls between me and ADAC, a hire car for 5pm. Reloading a car full of race sh1te into a diesel Twingo. Removing Martin’s brakes so he gets them next weekend. ADAC telling me my car won’t be repatriated as it’s worth in Germany is less than the supposed repair bill of 4k, but they’ll bring back the broken SRAD and trailer for me!!.

Finally home. No car. No functioning race bike. No race team. Lots of lessons learned. A couple of beers down the hatch.

Next the Nordschleife on Friday on my one functioning vehicle, the K6 GSXR 750! I may hire a van, as I’m sure Martin would like his brakes back.

That’s Numberwang! Over and out.

PS apologies for the rant and lack of photos, my camera also seems to have gone missing. Hopefully I'll find it somewhere tomorrow.

No more Numberwang!?

Shame to hear that it all fell apart- Seems like a lot of hassle!

Have you thought about ditching the No Budget Cup and just trying some club sprint racing?

No time for this season, weddings, holidays, finding a replacement car etc.

Unsure to my work location post 1st October, but wil reassess when things become a little clearer, but I'll do it a little differently next time.

[Stu]

Feel for you Bud.
Have you thought of becoming an Author?

Originally Posted by Stu

Feel for you Bud.

You win some, you lose some, the lows are what makes the highs (and there have been a fair few biking highs, I can't complain) worthwhile. Having the car die on me was a bigger bummer.

What a bummer Tim! It seems like you packed the bad luck fairy along with the gear.

If anyone had told you how much work a race bike takes before you actually owned one would you have belived them? It seems there's always something else to do on a race bike no matter how much time you spend on it. Maybe its paranoia!

A sump full of petrol isn't going to do your mains any good. If it is the mains it shouldn't be that much of a job to get them changed. Two nights in the garage with a tube of Suzukibond (or hondabond, or kawabond or yamabons. its all the same Threebond) and a new head gasket should get it going. (Complog.co.uk have specials on thinner head gaskets at the moment for £25)

This may sound like a daft question but why didn't you just swap the jets/settings to the spare set of carbs and bang those on? Would have saved a whole lot of work and time. It might also be worth looking at the injection route too, if everyone else is running it. I've got some throttle bodies off the 600 if they'll fit although with that top end you might need something bigger.

Sorry it was a nightmare and there's not much worse a feeling than putting in all that hard work and getting all excited to not getting to compete.

C

Originally Posted by Berlin

This may sound like a daft question but why didn't you just swap the jets/settings to the spare set of carbs and bang those on? Would have saved a whole lot of work and time. It might also be worth looking at the injection route too, if everyone else is running it. I've got some throttle bodies off the 600 if they'll fit although with that top end you might need something bigger.

C

Lack of knowledge, I've never done anything on carbs before! I was learning on the run.

There's no way I can fix the bike before the next race in 2 weeks time (I'm away for both weekends) and frankly I can't be bothered to fix it all for the remaining race at the end of September, plus I'd need a new team member or two etc.

The bike will sell for more as bits over here so I'm going to strip it and flog it piece meal. A sad ending for what was a good bike, but after the fire/dry powder incident there seems to be more and more issues appearing. I'm just going to cut my losses, and wait to see what next year brings location wise.

[yorkie_chris]

Turn the motor upside down, you can then get the sump off and get to the bottom end. Headgasket can stay in place.