The Lazy Blogger!

I intended to keep this up to date and post fairly regularly. Well 9 months is a little longer than I had in mind but here goes..

Its not finished.

I will summarise 2012 and promise to publish some tech
Since the start of the year I got it together in the spare room and rolled it out of the house on the 5th of May. Not painted and far from finished I put a litre of premix in the top and swung the lick start. At 2:15 pm, on only the 4th kick, it crackled into life. To say I felt like a kid at Christmas do doesn't come close and I celebrated with extended arms like when Lineker equalised against West Germany in 1990. (I didn't poo my pants though)

It ran for a few minutes, the engine reached 60˚C and stopped because it had drank its first litre of optimax mixed with Castrol A747. I suppose I should have gone with a Motul oil in keeping with Suzuki's of the era but the H*nda oil is 'reassuringly expensive', © Stella Artois, and it made my patio smell like Donnington Park used to through the 90's.
As for the sound; Its like 4 125cc motoX bikes. Brilliant.
So it smelled great, sounded amazing and proved itself to be soundly put together by living after only 4 prods on the starting handle. I then put another litre of fuel in, to get another fix, and it dribbled out all over the floor from the front right carb. This carb has since that day proved itself to reliably dribble fuel all over the floor unless kept constantly full of fuel under the pressure of the tank. If I turn the fuel off, as you would when its parked, then switch it back on it simply gushes out. Ive tried setting it up a couple of times and cant see anything wrong so I will get a service kit fitted and try again. I have noticed a bit of 'witnessing' on the float tab from the needle valve and suspect this my be what is causing the problem. I think this is to be expected on 30 year old engine bits. On the plus side the fuel/oil mix killed the moss that grows between my block pavers, I should have pushed it around a bit and killed all of it on the patio.          

During the build I had a H*nda RS250 GP fairing and slowly been modifying it to fit round the filters and pipes. Along the way I took moulds of the design (see further down the post) but continued to hack away at it and play with the cut aways. I have since decided that it looked horrible and started again as you will see at the end.
Here is the bike on the day it came to life wearing the experimental (and gay) fairing.

I will go through some of the details about the build over the next few weeks. I've got loads to show and not going to put it all in one post but here is a list of stuff that was fitted in May.

• Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa  - BSB compound as I dont have tyre warmers (yet)
• Rear brake calliper from a Husqvarner 610tc on a modified carrier (will be replaced this winter)
• Front brake - Brembo 19x20 master cylinder, HEL lines, Yam R6 gold spot callipers with EBC EPFA,HH pads. These are now replaced with Brembo callipers but to be honest I've never felt a brake as good as it was with the R6 blocks. Amazing power and feel, just perfect.
• New '90 weight Ohlins spring - the original was too firm.
• Tyga carbon front fender and hugger.
• Tyga rearsets
• Harris clip ons.
• Harris shorty folding levers (yummy)
• KOSO RX1N clocks (I'm not impressed to be honest) Biketec lap timer and a gear indicator from China
• Remote span adjuster for the Brembo master cylinder (not needed but I think it looks cool)
• Home made wire harness with provision for a horn and brake light circuit.
• Zeeltronic programmable ignition and powervalve control 
• Stage 6 throttle (bit of 50cc porn)
• etc..

Ignition problems

I've not had much success with the Zeeltronic unit. To be honest I think its my own fault in that I bought it second hand and it is the older 3 box system without powerjet solenoid outputs (I think the older one is an 8 BIT processor and the new one is 16 BIT) Anyway it doesn't work so I've sent it to the Tuningworks for investigation. It might be due to my own design of harness but the standard CDI works perfectly so I feel sure the problem is in the Zeel CDI. The Powervalve control is fitted and works but Ive had to take the pick up from a coil of wire wrapped around a HT lead. Ive had to do the same to get a signal to the Rev counter.

If my Zeel unit is goosed then I'll get a new one with the extra inputs and outputs. These may come in handy over the next few years as I plan to develop the engine and carburettors (TMX's obviously)

Carburation problems

As written about above. Fuel howls out of one carb. other than that it is fine.

Other problems

lots of little things but none worth writing about tonight.

The first ride...

Sometime in June I finally engaged 1st gear and let the engine propel me up the street. Lots of smoke and neighbours out etc. 

I think it's normal for the first few metres to be a mix of good and bad? well it was ok but harsh. The suspension felt like there wasn't any and the engine bogged down at low revs so a bit of clutch slip was needed to get it moving. The bars were positioned too open, no seat foam, back brake was making a scratching noise and then all the fuel pee'd on the floor again. On the plus side it pulled like a b***ard and sounded like a hairy arse two stroke should.

The second ride...

The test track was the same (my street) so limited to 1st and 2nd gear only. New Ohlins spring fitted on the back and front backed off as far as possible so the suspension did at least move and respond the lumps under the wheels. Back brake noise was a slight alignment issue and fixed with a few thou removed by my little mill lathe thing.

This time I let it warm more and I risked a 'nip round the block'. Wow! Now it was starting to clear its throat and the bogging down had gone. coming back up the street the front end was not wanting to stay on the floor in any gear and at almost any revs. In first the front would lift as soon as you set off; it has so much torque and no weight to keep it down apart from me. It really surprised me how massive the power is all the way through. I took my GSXR out to compare and I would say the RGV pulls far stronger through the rev range but I suppose the poor old gixer is shoving near 200kgs plus the rider.

Back in bits again.

After these little excursions I took had some snagging jobs to sort and started to dislike the fairing. I felt it looked like a bad guy from a bad movie. I had my moulds from an earlier version to fall back on but decided to start again...

The family

The earlier fairing in gel coat

A trip to South Manchester with work lead me to call round to see the chap at Jap4 Performance. I left with a Tyga Aprilia RS250 GP fairing and a big smile. I took it home and fitted it in a couple of hours which is not surprising when you consider the Aprilia is pretty much the same as an RGV except for a price tag and some sexy curves. What was surprising is the width of the RS bodywork and how it comfortably wrapped around the 500 motor fitted with RG500.com pan filters. Even the width in the bellypan allowed the two cambers to run without touching it and exit easily. Tyga stuff is pretty good quality and the finishing is very good for a fibreglass fairing. It is not as pretty on the front as the H*nda's more aggressive sharp and pointy nose but overall it looks contemporary and 'made for the bike'. Everything fits perfectly and the steering is not hindered anywhere. 

In the words of Keith Lemon - 'OOOSH!'

It needs some paint and I've since done some work to the seat unit so the angle at the front matches the frame and fairing - it looks much better. I have also poked some crash bobbins through the bellypan, taken from the bottom engine mount, as I want to try and protect that clutch if it goes down,

I thought it looked big with a fairing fitted, especially after seeing it for so long as just a frame and engine. I put it next to my RGV250K (now sold :-/ ) and it looked tiny which is what I always wanted.

Another thing compared to the 250 - It is a lot lighter. Now I know the engine is a lump compared to the 250 but everything else is lighter including wheels, forks, exhausts etc. In total it is noticeably a lot lighter just pushing it around and the bike can be easily picked up at the front or back. I will weigh it one day soon.

Here it is along with the 250 to show how the size compares. if you have had a 250K you will know they are a small bike and the 500 looks smaller. Cool.

not the best pic but you get the idea

Cadwell Park - The first time it went passed 3rd gear.

Next post...It works but it broke and of course the fuel pee'd out again.

2011 New Years Eve post

New Years eve and i'm posting about my bike - no comments are required, I know how sad it is.

I'm not going to write much, the pictures say it all...

On the office table - Cranks in position and the clutch half finished. 1 week before Christmas.

The frame needed some more grinding to allow for the gearbox / screws but it went in easily.

Taken today. It looks like a motorbike. I will put some details in my next post.

And finally somebody is happy. I know he will probably nick off on it when I'm out one day and crash it but thats kids for you.

Yo Ho Ho! Its Christmas already and still not running

I've not posted for a while because not a lot has happened but this last two weeks has seen a fair bit of progress. Lets start at the engine...

The top end came back from Stan Stevens who, contrary to what I'd been led to believe, could not have been more helpful and happy to discuss my project. Top Bloke. He told me that his biography was coming out which I cant imagine my wife being too bothered about but for those of us that the mere mention of his name back in the 80's meant the bike was at least 20mph quicker than the others I'm sure it will be an interesting read.
Back then LC's nipping up every week was simply part of the joy of tuned two stroke ownership and in a weird way meant it must be super fast if it broke down a lot. Thankfully I've grown up and moved on a bit realising those LC's had 18 year olds owning them so were bound to break down.
Regarding the tune it came with new pistons / bored and is stage 3. To be honest the ports didn't look as big as I'd expected but I'm not familiar with RG500 standard porting so maybe I would see the difference if I could compare standard barrels. I have looked at a lot of RGV barrels this year and they have huge ports so i'm probably just not used to the old school RG sizing. Obviously Stan's work was well finished - tops of the port windows were better than my tooth fillings but the knifing on the transfers was not as blended as I would have done myself. I thought about doing some extra work on them but decided to leave it as I may spend some time working this area along with the crank cases when it comes apart in a year or so for rings.

So I built the bottom end and was about to fit the cylinders when I decided that I needed to get the cranks done. I didn't really want to because of the extra £££ and felt sure the cranks I had were still perfectly fine but I knew this was being stupid so came to my senses and sent them off. The base engine was on original bores that were in near perfect second hand condition so I would estimate it had done 12k max. the cranks should still be good? Its not important now because I gave them to Armstrong Engineering (Westgate Road, Newcastle) who gave them back with fresh mains, seals and big ends.
Nice blokes at ARD - I went up and watched a video* taken in the 90's of some general GSXR hooligan behaviour taken outside the shop, when biking was in its heyday. Happy times...
*video - big black rectangular thing with 10 miles of magnetic tape in it that was used before SKY+ / flash memory to record stuff on tv and you had to rewind the tape at the end. I'd forgotten how crap they were.


While I was waiting for the engine bits to arrive I turned my attention back to the chassis, specifically the back wheel. I spent another evening with it on the bench getting measured and aligned so I could be sure of the spacing required around the wheel and also how much I needed to move the sprocket carrier inboard to get the chain to line up.
11mm needed to come out of the wheel / carrier in order to get things in line.

Finding a Lathe big enough to take a wheel was not going to be easy so I asked around some people I know in various engineering shops but wanted to do it myself really so I thought about things and came up with this..

Stop laughing..
This is my Emco Compact 5 lathe and milling head, on its side on top of a tool box. The wheel is fastened to a vice with an old wheel spindle.
Using this contraption I machined 9mm away from the hub. I used a fly cutter and rotated the wheel (feeding) the cutter taking 0.3 - 0.6 mm cuts each pass. I was able to do this work without touching the bearing housings and the carrier aligns with its own bearing so I felt comfortable that any slight concentricity run out should be fine but I was pleased (and amazed) to find the surfaces had not run out more than 0.15mm. Proper Job!
I had to brace the Emco much more than shown in the above photo. I had a mix of ratchet straps, wooden sticks and steel bars holding it as rigid as possible against the roof. It worked.

A quick blast on Cols lathe got the carrier adjusted and some spacers produced. The wheel fits perfectly but the rear brake carrier wont carry any callipers that I have to hand in TDG. I intend to use the simple lightweight Brembo unit used on the Aprilia RS250 so the little Emco will be put the right way up and produce something alloy and shiney for this. (the Suzuki 4 pot rear calliper is easily twice the weight of the Brembo)

So the chassis is rolling and the engine is all on site and that brings me up to the start of the Christmas break. Things have moved pretty rapidly this week but I need to get some piccys before I post the details - It is terrific! Engine fitted, top end half complete, fairing being fitted.

On the down side (or up side for me and the RGV) I have moved it out of thedampgarage. Not only is it soaking wet with rain finding holes in the roof but the cold is keeping a constant layer of moisture on all my lovely polished aluminium.
It's living next to a heater in theoldofficeatthebackofthehouse but I'm not starting another blog.

Will try to get the progress published before the end of 2011. Crickey! that gives me 23hrs and 53minutes!

What summer?

Another damp and cold summer, now with added wind for September and the damp garage has become the 'bloody soaking wet' garage due to several holes in the roof. The roof is cheap rubbish and it is old but I think it has taken some impacts from the tree that shadows it. One day TDG will be a nice brick built job with a slate roof but for now I'm going to splodge some roof mastic on and try to get to 2012.

As for the 500 it's been a phase of investment. Some nice bits and pieces plus the star of the show - nova gearbox.

Let's start with the motor.
Engine painted with PJ1 and new gaskets and stuff from Crooks Suzuki and I started the reassembly.

Fitting the nova box is well explained on the website and the version they sell looks a lot nicer than the cast thing shown on line. Gears are gears but they look nice.




All top quality kit and even I can figure out that the original ratios are hopeless.
Not so good is the fact that you have to reuse a bush on the primary gear and also use the Suzuki clutch arm / shaft. Not only that but there is NO warranty. As a customer I probably want too much but for over £3k I don't think a simple steel bush and a nice CNC arm is a lot to expect.
Sadly this dampened the nova fitting party experience for me a bit and it got worse when I fitted the clutch case to the engine and the anodising fell off. To be fair to Nova they don't do the anodising and anyone who has been involved with manufacture will know you are only as good as your suppliers. Nova know the anodising has issues and have offered to sort it (as you would expect) so let's see what I end up with. I sent both covers to them as they were different shades of black, I want them to match. Silver might look nicer.




The top end is still with Stan Stevens. He has had a bit of a health scare so obviously not working to his full capacity but it will be done mid September. Stan identified that one of my induction rotors was from a gamma 400 so this is getting sorted at the same time as the tune.
I'm going to run it without touching the crank. Risky? Maybe but I think its all good, in as much as you can tell. I will do the crank next year when I've got some £££ back in my account and will look to what is available to improve the original setup.

Frame
I got an ohlins unit from an old CBR600. It is 295 eye length which is shorter than the Gsxr unit I tried but I feel the back end was a little too high when I built it in the house and this is due to the larger wheel diameter from the 5.5 180 tyre. I have fitted the ohlins using a VJ21 upper shock mount as it is a little shorter and therefore raises the back a little so this compensates for the shorter shock length. The result is that the back end is around the same as before, maybe 1/2 inch lower. The new shock has a remote reservoir which will help not to get in the way of the two rear chambers.



Wheel alignment is done, well it is at least measured and straight.
An afternoon with some steel rulers, vernier callipers and string got the rear wheel straight and in line with the front. The rear wheel is going to need machining to get the sprocket pushed in and the chain will end up nearly touching the tyre - done this before on my yamma gamma without any issues.









It's nice that this being done on my wooden bench.

Finally I tried a seat unit on from a fireblade. Sick!








It's going to be good i reckon.

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Quick update part deux

The frame....
The frame I got from mr C in stafford turned out to be less than perfect. It's not scratched or dented and the history is fine but it had seriously oval steering bearing cups. Apparently this is not unusual on Rgv frames and is blamed a lot on braking, endo's and wheelies. I must admit I find this a bit difficult to accept and think it's more likely due to the fact that most have been crashed.
Crashing rgv's is very easy and if you had just got off a 125 on to a 250 I would think an impact is inevitable. The thing with the 250 is it's gutless and struggles to pull 5th at legal speeds so you knock it down a few, gas it and suddenly you are doing 100mph and that corner is right under you....bump!
I digress, sorry

So the bottom bearing cup was loose but not unserviceable. A bit of loctite retainer has it held strong so that will work. The top cup was stretched by 0.70mm!
The Gsxr front end uses a 30mm steering tube, the Rgv one is 26 I think. Anyway the upper bearing cup was 47mm and a 30/47 taper bearing is not available but a 30/48 was. So it's simple - open up the 47 diameter (47.70 in places) to 48. All I needed was a person to do it...
Spondon....££££!!!!!
Local engineers not interested
I tried to get the tool room to do it at workout they didn't seem keen to do foreigners (a bit odd)
Local blokes with various machines were a bit scared of the job or too busy.

I think the truth is that people were a bit frightened of the job and not sure how to do it. Well if you want a job doing right you should do it yourself....so I did.



Sadly I didn't have a horizontal boring machine handy or any kind of vertical machine either (like the Bridgeport that I've since acquired) but col has a lathe so that would have to do.
Basically I used the steering tube between centres to align everything and then hold the frame upright against the tool post with g-clamps. Once set in position I put a boring tool in a small 4 jaw, set it to cut 47.95 diameter and put it in the big 3 jaw.


I turned it our by hand. Look. I was quite pleased. It must be said that i took 3 or 4 attempts to position the frame and probably took 10 hours to get set. It's only cheap if it's your own time. Anyway all done and everything went together great. The bottom taper bearing was available in the right sizes without any machining which was good news.



Sweet.


Next was the swingarm. No real drama, just required the removal of 5.5mm off each end of the axle and new needle rollers. I then took 11.00mm from the internal bearing spacer. It needs some different shims making but nothing difficult.
The frame rearset mounts needed the inner edges filing back a bit to give clearance but that's all and it went in 'dreamy'.
I got a gaxr600 k8 shock from eBay to see if it would work. Shock length is the same as Rgv but the reservoir is attached. Directly to the shock near the upper mounting. I've been told hat it is a good upgrade but I want an ohlins unit and Gsxr ones are everywhere so I should get s good deal on one if I can get one to fit.
The swingarm has retained the aprilia linkage because it uses the same distance angles as the vh22 (did you hear that you posh aprilia owners?)

Front end on and a swing arm fitted. You know where this went....


Mega!
The subframe is 11mm higher at the end than it would be with a standard swingarm and shock. I think that is close enough.

So next I need to get the Gsxr rear wheel aligned and the sprocket carrier positioned.
So I got the back wheel and.... Well have a look.



Double mega!

Then I had to try some clothes on it.



Triple mega!



Quadle mega!

It's better than porn. Well it was until that fat bloke sat on it...



It's tiny. I'm talking about the bike.
I think I'm going to have a pretty cool looking GP bike in the end. If it has 110bhp and weighs 140 kgs it will be as good as it looks.
Why did I not do this years ago?

Quick Update for summer

Engine

Sir Stan Stevens has the top end. He was away in France on his hols all of June and has had a bit of a health issue which has slowed his return to work. Get Well Soon Stan!
Anyway I spoke with him to discuss if I should go for a 570cc oversize (plus tune) as the cost of replacing pistons etc would make it no more expensive to do. Stan put me off, or should I say put me right, by pointing out that a good set of barrels is worth keeping. Oversizing is fine when the barrels have gone to their last re-bore size but other than that it is worth keeping them standard and prolonging their life. He did say that more power comes with 570, as you would expect, but it's not a huge amount more and is it really worth it???? I agreed with him, bid him a speedy recovery and hung up.

Mark at Performance Fabs has the carbs and they are getting bored out to the max. I also bought a shift shaft support.
I called in at his place and was a little surprised to see it was at the back of his house. from the outside it looks nothing but inside it is pretty smart with 500cc goodies and projects everywhere. NICE!

Frame
Success! I had some problems with it but these are now fixed. details in the next post.

Spring into action?

It's June and the need for the 500 is stronger than ever having done a trackday on the 250. The little 'V' was amazing on the track and managed to live with modern 600's, with a better pilot it would have got past them too. My mate has one too but fitted with slicks and a '22 back end. We both went well and thought how cool it was to live with modern race kit on 20 year old smokers. Things obviously haven't moved on as much as the marketing men tell you.

One thing is clear though - that handling and double the power is going to be quite a ride.

So lets discuss power.
After several months of deliberating the engine spec I have made my choices.
Stan Stevens stage 3
Carbs bored
Programable ignition
Straight cut primary gears
Some tidying up in the crank cases
Lomas pipes
Air boxes in the fairing
Nova gear train and dry clutch.

That should give me over 100 bhp easily, maybe 110???
I thought about doing the bdk engineering Rgv 250 top ends conversion but I feared it would have hidden complications and I'm not sure it actually does what bdk claim. I followed a forum link and after a lot of messing it managed to crack 115. To be honest I would be happy to mess but I want it running this year so that meant using the rg5 top end. I called Graham File but it was mega pricey. I suspect that he would do the best job but it was just too much.
Mark at PF would be likely to do a decent job but he gave me a strange reply on the forum when I asked about which top end to go with so I've chosen to give my hard earned to the godfather of 2 stroke tuning. At least I know it will work even though I could maybe get more bhp going elsewhere. I got a forum response saying how good the Stan tune was, it's a safe way to go.

As for carbs I think opening them up has been done loads of times and proven technology. As the finished bike will live for track days with the throttle wide open, bigger carbs will be beneficial.
Timing is an area where it's obvious I will need to work. I like the idea of two maps and a switch but that's just showing off. I will buy an off the shelf solution here.

Gearbox- like everyone else I love the Nova racing unit but £3k is lottery money. My box has some wear so that is enough excuse enough to borrow some wedge and get one. Again, my track day intentions are going to destroy a gearbox with any weakness so one is going in. Anyway, dry clutches are the shizzle.

Bodywork
I'm afraid it's coming from a h*nda



No- I'm not styling it like a dog. That is Elvis my aerodynamics expert consultant

The fairing hung on the pushbike is from an RSW 250 and is proper GP style. Mega. No headlamp (it's not having one) or mirrors. I will have to do a lot of cutting on the sides to get air in and I will try and reveal the clutch.
I've not got the back end yet but it's likely to be based on a k10 fireblade as it is small, simple (unlike new Gsxr) and will reveal the exhausts which is a look I want.

Colours
I'm going to go modern and keep the Suzuki race rep theme. I like the sert colours although a 500 gamma would be a stupid endurance racer choice but I'll steal the colours anyway (or at least be similar)



Looks good don't it?
I'm hoping for a similar cutaway to reveal the lovely engine goodies.
The best thing about this the White wheels. When I were a lad there was two rules for motorbikes :
1. Frames were polished
2. Wheels were White
As far as I'm concerned these ate still THE rules and all this black frame nonsense is just bring silly. And WTF is that gay blue purple thing on new gixxers? I'd sooner have it with hammerite!

Frame update
Nightmare. Clive flogged me one with egg shaped steering bearing cases. The top one is stretched by 0.7mm! I need to open it out for the Gsxr front end so I'm looking for a machine shop to not charge the earth. I might do it myself yet.
Oh yes, another thing. I've got an aprilia rs250 swingarm. It would be cool but it's got the usual dent on the right. I half expect rubbish from eBay but this was from an rgv250.co.uk forum member. You can't trust anyone these days. I will put some metal in and a sticker over it ( like all the rest)






The frame is progressing slowly.


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