Endurance at Carole

So this weekend, we finished with a cup (!), but it certainly didn't start off that way.
You may remember that I am racing in the Endurance Classic GP organised by ProClassic, which this year has 2 races, one at Carole and the other later on in the year at Croix-en-Ternois. I am racing with Christian Degardin on a Yamaha RD350 YPVS. Last year we were forced to use one bike as my 350 broke down in practise (stator), and we came second, so this year we decided to try and run one bike (the rules stipulate that if you use two seperate bikes you are penalised by 2/3 laps).

Anyway so at Carole we should have used Christian's bike all weekend. Christian runs a different setup to me, he has the original footrest positions, and handle bar, plus he uses different size tyres which are much thinner, this gives the bike a completely different feel, I had significant issues with this last year, so I was determined to have lots of practise to get used to Christian's bike, this was not to be...


First session, and Christian's bike came in covered in oil, and after inspection it appeared that the gearbox breather was blowing off oil, and this led us to check the gearbox oil, which was a lovely paste, formed by the water that was leaking into the gearbox. This could only come from 3 places, either the oil pump oil seal, the crankcase seals, or the small o ring attaching the pipe through the clutch cover.
Anyway we drained the oil, split the clutch cover off, and inspected the o ring (which was fine) and the the water pump seal, which looked to be the issue - good at least it wasn't the crankshaft seals...

Christian sourced an oil seal, and we put it back together and then filled her up with oil, and then water.... and more water.... and more water.... something wrong...
And yes the gearbox was now once again filled with a messy mixture.

During the evening (Friday) we were sleeping outside the circuit so we had to go, so I left Christian sorting it out. BTW, my bike had run well all day, so I had managed to get some reasonable lap times, and had great fun on the 350 again!

Saturday morning, Christian had found the problem, he had sourced a TZ oil seal which had a much bigger central hole, so it had let through the water. He had managed to source the correct sized seal, and all went back together and this time no problems.

He took his bike out for the first timed practise, and was back in after a couple of laps, one of his exhaust pipes had cracked, and he had been sound tested at 111db, we are supposed to be at 102db, so he was ordered to have the bike restested before lunch (12:00).

Christian removed his pipes and they basically came apart in his hands.... but he borrowed some pipes just to get through the test, which brought him down to 108db.... think again....

By this time we thought his bike was never going to get passed, but at lunch time Christian, managed to get some other pipes brought from his home which looked good.

Even with these pipes we had to add some baffling (a couple of bits of coke can added to the end of the pipes - inside of course), and it eventually passed the test.

Unfortunately I had already started my last qualification session on my bike (still running OK), so Christian took his bike out for the last practise, and announced it "ready to race".

Having seen all the problems with his bike, and the relative reliability of my bike, we had some discussion around whether we should go for a 2 bike strategy or not, the advantage being that we could always finish on one bike if the other one broke, but we ended up agreeing to use a single bike confident in the fact that Christian's bike was fixed.

The Race

I was the "orange" arm band, and so took the track for the start, which I managed very well,lost a couple of places directly, but then quickly regained them in the first couple of bends. There were only 15 teams, with about 5-6 teams in the classic category, and the rest in the Superbike category, with all the Gixxers, RC30, VFR's being the favourite bikes. In the classic category there were 4 teams of RD350's and 1 team using a Kawasaki 1000 for the engine.

Having not ridden Christian's bike in practise it took me some while to get up to regular lap times, however I was getting used to it after about 15 minutes, and it started to be fun. As Christian's footrest are that much lower, and I am much heavier than Christian I was dragging everything in the bends, and at one point my toe slider make a break for freedom, however I was having fun, and the bike was running well. I was just starting to get a bit of cramp in my right hip, when the 45 minutes was up, so I pulled off.

The pitstop and re-fueling went without a hitch (we had practised this!!), and Christian went off.... only to come back in after a couple of laps, with a holed piston (right side) - SHIT!

After much umming and ahhhhing, we asked the race director if we could use the second bike, and they said yes but we wouldn't be counted in the results. So we ran back to the trailer and got my bike out (yes it was packed away), and then we had to push it back to the pits in order to get the key for the petrol cap (yes I know it shouldn't be locked....).

Anyway after a break of about 20 minutes (all things considered), Christian took my bike out, for his first ever go on it! Of course it worked like a dream, but he was totally pissed off when he came back in (after 30 minutes) as of course he was having problems getting used to the way my bike was setup, different tyres position etc....

I went out again for my second session, and had great fun playing at eating VFR's and CBR's in the twisties, until they would give up going past me on the straights... Excellent, I even had the back slide out a couple of times which is a first for me.

Although Christian was less than happy he went out and finished the race for the last 30 minutes, and looked like he was having fun.... at least towards the end of his session.

So, it all ended up OK, and we were packing up the stuff, when they announced over the loudspeaker that we had been classed after all, and that we were at the bottom of the podium - 3rd place - excellent!

I think the fact that there were only 3 teams left in our category had something to do with it!

Never mind, we even turned professional this weeekend, as we walked away with a huge cheque in hand - enough to pay for Crhistian's new piston and (a bit) more!

I will post some video later this week. And of course thanks to all who turned up to help us, we had Jean-Luc as the fireman, plus Jean-Mi, as "stand" man, plus others.. Plus of course Libby, who was there to calm our desperation in times of duress!

Speak to you soon as Croix-en-Ternois on the 500 is in two weeks time!

Technical Update...

So I eventually found two issues :- One plug cap with a higher resistance than normal, so I replaced all plug caps with a 5K ohm NGK plug cap. Secondly I found that I had reassembled a carburetor spacer upside down, this would have caused an air leakage on cylinder nr. 3. I can't say for sure how long it has been like that... but I hope it hasn't damaged the cylinder, as this one will have been running lean, hopefully the overall richness will have protected it to some extent.

So whilst troubleshooting I have collected the following data, which is worthy of note :-
Low Tension coils = 0.6 ohm
High Tension coils = 22K ohms measured cap to cap

Whilst I was taking the carbs apart, I did notice a fair amount of corrosion on the emulsion tubes especially in the carbs 1 & 3, I don't know if this is a result of the bike spending time on it's side stand or what.

Technical Update

Some photos:-

Well, just some notes while I think about it. Tyre pressures with the Power One's were 1.5 rear and 1.7 front (bar), which worked reasonably well in the wet, and I kept the same pressures for the only dry session - which worked well - no slips.

The carbs were running 240 mains, I was running a 15 front sprocket and a 41 rear, but couldn't really tell if this was good, but I certainly wasn't at the end of 6th along the start finish straight.
I was using Motul 80w90 Gear oil (thick grey stuff) which made the clutch slip, so I went back to Motul 10w30 (or 40??) Two stroke gearbox oil, which didn't slip although the clutch still drags.

At home all plugs were dark (too rich) but nr. 4 was differently coloured than the others - I think my problem is with this cylinder, and more over the plug cap on this pot is reading double the resistance of the others, which are all 10K ohms, nr4. was reading an irregular 20K ohms, so I think my problem is coming from there. I have swapped out the "bad" plug cap and will test this evening. For reference the primary side of the coils were measured at 0.6 ohms on both coils, and secondary measured from plug cap to plug cap measure about 34K ohms.

That's it for now.

Le Mans Videos and photos

Race 2 at Le Mans, in the wet I am right at the back.... :-(



Race 1, in which I lasted one lap....

and it's still raining......

Well, back from the weekend at Le Mans, and I hope the season will only get better from here.....

The rain started as soon as we got near Paris, and unfortunately we only saw the sun for a couple of hours throughout the weekend. We arrived at Le Mans on Friday morning, just in time to miss the early morning practice at 9:40, I was hoping I would be able to grab a practice session from another category, however they were all full, so I had to wait until the early afternoon before getting the RG on the track.

In between times we put up the barnum, and hung onto it while we were hit with bouts of horizontal rain, and gusts, that blew away a couple of tents next to us, and basically soaked everything.  We couldn't put up the sides to the barnum, because it just acted as a sail.

Anyway, getting back to the bike, I had decided to run with the bike with the carb trunks on, as I wanted it nice and rich to give it a chance to run in at least a bit, the practice session was wet, but again it didn't really matter to me, as I ran around rediscovering the circuit bringing the revs up nicely in the first few gears, and trying to restrict the bike running on full throttle down the straights, still only 15 minutes, and the bike was running OK, so I came back in relatively relieved, as you may remember I had had some issues at home.

On Saturday morning, we had a timed practise session and guess what, there was a dry line! I left the bike unchanged. In this session I started really opening her up, and although it was clear I was running way to rich, the bike reacted nicely, and it was a real pleasure to start pushing it a bit. The clutch started slipping as the bike came on pipe, which was an issue, which later I fixed by changing gearbox oils. I managed a 2mins 10 sec best time, which placed me on the 4th row of the grid,which I was pretty pleased about.

I had planned to remove the trunks from the carbs, and change the gearbox oil in the break, which is what I did, I also checked the plugs, and as expected they were black, so very rich.

The first race, and even on the warm up lap I knew I had a problem, the bike was popping a farting, and I was really worried about damaging it. On the start grid, I looked over at the guy next to me, and there was a long bolt under his bike, I shouted at him to take a look, and he got off his bike, and checked out his suspension, not finding any problem, he simply took the bolt and threw it over to the start marshals, meanwhile I stalled.... Anyway I got a crap start, but the bike was not firing properly, so I just finished the first lap and in I came. The race was pretty exciting, as not quite dry, we had plenty of falls, one quite nasty, so there was a red flag and restart (the guy was OK, a couple of cracked ribs). 

I really thought that removing the trunks had caused my issues, so in the second race I thought I would put them back just to complete the second race. This is what I did, and I tried the bike in the pit lane, and it did seem OK, however in the race I was still having an issue. However I did finish the race although in a very lowly position, fighting it out with some VFR's who were much faster than me on the straights, but I was taking more corner angle in the wet, so I could keep with them (did I mention it was WET again). The race was pretty awful, I couldn't see much when my visor started steaming up, and with the bike running badly.... 

So conclusions of the weekend are, I think I may have an electrical issue, may be as simple as a plug lead or plug cap, as these were the only things that were disturbed during the weekend, and I am now pretty convinced that carburation is not the route of my problems, and I think I have a breakdown somewhere in the electrical area. I think the popping and farting, is probably coming from unburnt fuel that is being ignited by an intermittent spark.... I will take a look.

Next race is endurance on the 350 at Carole!

it's raining again.....

Well it looks like the bike will get a good washing this coming weekend. The first weekends racing looks to be taking place under rain (the whole 3 days!)..... Well at least as I will be finishing running in it won't affect me too much, except of course I will get wet. 

I have managed to run the bike a couple of times up and down the road. The first time it was not running right at all, but taking off the carbs, checking the rotary disks, and putting it back together (and new plugs), seems to have it running right now, although I have no idea of whether my jetting is right. I have put the trunks back on the carbs, because the road outside my place is very stony and I was seriously worried about breathing in some gravel.

So we are ready to rock, I only hope I can put in sufficient laps on the Friday (free practise) to be able to open her up sufficiently for the races on Saturday and Sunday. I will be happy if I can beat the lap times I managed on the 350, which should be feasible given that Le Mans is a fairly fast circuit.

Anyway I will put the results on line on Monday, next week.

This weekends testing

Well, we had planned to be testing and running in the RG 500 this weekend, but I hadn't bargained for the snow! We were on our way to Ledenon this morning at around 7:00 am, and got as far as Montelimar, when it started to snow - big flakes, so we turned around and came back again (3 hour round trip), and guess what we couldn't even get the car up the hill! We had to stop half way up to put the chains on, and although I thought we would have made it, we stopped in the village at some friends house, to let the snow plough come through, and salt the roads.

There wasn't too much snow, but it was freezing on the road, and making it extremely difficult especially with two bikes in the trailer. Well it looks like I will be running in the RG at the first race weekend at Le Mans.....