Daytona

I installed the freshly charged battery and she started straight up, unfortunately when I took her out of the garage the front left indicator was dangling, broken. The only whole ones I have are rear ones so they went on instead - they are exactly the same except the front ones are slightly shorter, still they'll do until I can source some second hand ones. At least they are a pair! I need to lower the "fan on" temperature so it doesn't get as hot - I had reloaded the standard map for the ECU with the standard "fan on" temperature at 104°c I need it to come on at 100°c. While I have some time on my hands I will get the rear indicators level - I initially installed them with the bike on the side stand and they are not level, but I will need to fill the hole before drilling another one as the are only about 0.5 cms out. I will try some plastic welding, and if that doesn't work, some araldite or glass fibre will plug it sufficiently to support a new hole.

FZR 600 service

The track bike was leaking a bit of oil from the left hand side cam cover so I thought I would give it a bit of a service. drained the oil and antifreeze, and will order some plugs. I think I will go for 10w40 synthetic oil as I have a stock. OK the leak is fixed I did the valves whilst I was in there. I didn't change the plugs or internal filter, just cleaned the air filters and re-oiled them. The bike started right up, so I topped up the oil 10w40 motul 7100 and removed damaged stickers from the belly pan, covered a hole made by the hot exhaust with carbon fibre and epoxy and then stuck some new stickers on the various scrapes.

Street 675 and Yam 350

So, Libby was complaining about manouvering her bike so in order to encourage her to ride I bought a lust engineering lowering kit, which was duly installed and the fork tubes were raised through the yokes approximately 14mms, of course this makes the side stand difficult to use, so I made up some spacers for the aide stand bracket and purchased some longer bolts to fix the stand. I took it out for a ride and was plaisantly suprised that I didn't really notice any difference! I fell off the 350 at Ales race track trying to follow a hopped up scooter through a slow bend! Anyway it was the last session so the bike was packed up in the van, and Up havw only just looked at the damage. The left footrest took the brunt, it is fixed on with a huge bolt going through a hole in the footrest holder, which had broken, the gear lever had bent and that was about it. so I used a footrest holder that had been cut from an ally plate about 4 mm plate. I drilled holes for the footrest and gear lever and Bob's yer uncle. I also changed rhe front wheel on the bike to use a new tyre which I had fitted to another wheel. The 350 has different disk bolts each side, on one side are 4.8 mm star headed bolts and on the other (Left side) there are 5.0 mm allen head disk bolts, and if you inverse them they rub on the fork leg on the right! So after a fare bit ofaffinf about I got it on and setup correctly. as per below photo.

Daytona and last bike for Atelier Entre 2 Temps

Ordered and fitted a new front S22 tyre to the Daytona 123XXX kms. Excellent tyres but I might look for something a little more hard-wearing! I have been working on a first gen 1200cc Daytona this last couple of weeks, it was basically a barn find that a customer purchased in the Bordeaux area and trailored it back to the workshop. It had a few bits and pieces to change, but I got it going and it went out of the door yesterday. This will be my last official customer!

Daytona 955i

Changed the rear tyre (another S22) - they don't last long but they are great. Changed at about 120k, now up to 122K after boys run out over last 3 days. I also went back to the standard tune 10179.hex with non standard exhaust, think I will up the warm tickover as it is low and I have stalled at the lights a few times. I also modified the fuel sender as I was getting the MIL on after filling up with fuel. I drill 2 holes down the tube at about 5 cms down and then added a tie wrap to stop the floater going up to the part where it triggers an error, this means I don't get a MIL and I still get the low fuel light on - this has worked perfectly, I must have got the tank breather pipes on the wrong way around as sometimes at the petrol station there is a vacuum noise when I lift the filler cap, so I have reversed the pipes - hopefully good - to be tested this weekend.

Street triple 675

Libby was complaining about not having enough control as her feet are not touching the ground. So I purchased a lowering kit from Lust racing in the UK. Unfortunately you need to remove most of the exhaust system, which is a good opportunity to clean it properly! The kit had different torque values compared with the service manual. It got fitted using the service manuals numbers. I raised the forks through the steering stem about 12mms to even things out. seems to have had the desired result as she now feels more comfortable so all good.

RG500 Jetting

Well I have abandoned getting air filters for the 500, just can't get the jets right! I did look at trying to make some velocity stacks for 58mm external diameter carbs but nothin was available that was very short - due to lack of clearance with the fairings. So I am back to trying to setup the carbs better on the 500. Basically the symptom is : Good idle and pickup off idle As soon as you get mid range power dissapears (about mid throttle) and then you need to ease is above 8k rpm at which point it makes great power to the red line. I thought I was running too rich in the mid range so I purchased some needle jets p-4 and p-8 as apposed to the q-2 needle jets that are in there.

After changing the needle jets I can come to the conclusion I must have been running lean as the bike gets better with a richer setup. I am now running 240 main jets and P-8 needle jets and I will probably try going up to 250s just to see. On the other hand did the 120k kms service on the Daytona, all fluids except fork, sparkplugs, plus valves and throttle body synchro. All is well the valves were all in specification.