Technical Update

As the RD 350 battery has just about had it, I set about investigating it's replacement. The custom made race batteries are made out of Lithium MH or Cadmium, and the newest technology are the LiFe cells, however these were far too expensive for the 350, so I started looking at ways I could buy the individual cells and make one up.

I found a site in France that sells the cells, but for only a couple of Euros more will solder them together to make higher voltage units. So I ended up buying one of these.
The site is Maximusracing and he specialises in providing high quality battery cells for scale models or for race bikes!

I calculated that I am pulling about 1.5 amps with the electronic ignition, with peaks a little higher when the valves need turning. So I went for a 4 cell unit which generated 2.3 Amp/hours of energy, easily enough to do more than 1.5 hours racing without charging the system.

I am trying to find ways in which I can now remove the alternator all together, but until I can replace the ignition pickup with something else, I have to keep the rotor, but I could remove completely the stator plate, loosing a kg in the process, not counting the back EMF, from the generation (non) of charging current.

For the moment I will simply replace the lead/acid battery with the LiFe one, letting the bikes charging system look after the LiFe charging. This could last as long as a lead/acid battery, however with multiple cells you have to be careful to balance the charge in each of the 4 cells, otherwise there will always be one or other cells that are discharged first or fully charged first, and this apparently is not good for the lifetime of the battery, so once in a while I will use a balanced battery charger (39 Euros straight from sunny China) to rejuvenate the LiFe cells.

The standard lead/acid battery weighs in at a porky 2.3 kgs, whilst the LiFe cells are just over 300 gms - a saving of 2 kgs. This will either allow me to drink more beer at Xmas or go faster if my weight remains the same! Of course I should mention that the price is inversly proportional to the weight - a good lead/acid replacement would cost around 25-30 Euros, and the LiFe cells cost 89 Euros.

Update

Bad news on the health front may keep me off the track for the first part of next year - nothing really serious, but I am on medication until at least February that will not allow me to get my license renewed, hopefully I will stop the meds in Feb. and if all goes well, I should be able to compete - but will the races all be full by then.... we will see!

In the mean time, I took the Ducati out at the weekend, we were five bikes - Triumph Thunderbird (1995), Ducati 600SS, Kawasaki Z650, Ducati Monster 1000. We had a a great ride up into the Vercors mountains, and back - 3 hours in all, the Ducati started well, ran well, and braked well - a real pleasure although the cramped riding position is awful for my legs, they are really bent - it's worse than my Daytona! It still doesn't idle, and this time I tried the air screw turned in to the recommended 1.5 turns, which didn't make any difference. The clutch definitely slips in the powerband, but not all the time, from the manual it appears there is an adjuster on the clutch basket, which I will investigate at a later date. Before going out, I had to adjust the chain, and I thought I would check the oil level, the chain was done in about 5 minutes, but of course I overfilled the oil, and had to syringe some back out - poxy level gauge - still it hadn't used much if any since the oil change - so I suppose that's good news. When we stopped for a break, I did see one drip under the engine - but nothing serious.

Summary of 2010 Video Clip

A quick video which sums up the 2010 season for ProClassic.