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.

Ducati is legal

Well, as I have been off sick from work, I took the opportunity to queue for 2 hours at the French prefecture in Grenoble to get the Ducati paperwork sorted, and guess what it is now fully legal in France, and registered as a Collectors bike, this allows me to insure for an additional 9 Euros per year!! Obviously it is not covered for theft for this price. So it now has a French number plate, and I only hope the weather stays nice so I can take it out before the winter arrives.

I had to helicoil one of the front brake caliper holding bolt holes, which gave me the opportunity to try out a new set of helicoil tools that I bought. The helicoil process allows you to replace the often to soft aluminium thread with a much stronger stainless steel thread insert, which looks much like a spring. You have to drill out the old thread with a specific size drill, then tap the thread that takes the insert. You use a special tool to "screw" the helicoil in, and once it is in position you break off the special tab (which is what the insertion tool uses) with another special tool, and there you have a bright and shiny new steel thread in the place of the old one. It was a pretty straight forward operation, although I made a mistake in pushing to hard on the insertion tool, which made the initial insert (remember spring like) stretch and jump a thread. I had to remove it and use another one, by just turning the tool, no pushing, and it worked perfectly!

Rear Carb done

It's strange why the rear carb is cleaner and in better nick than the front one (internally). The accelerator pump definitely works, nothing of note inside, although I couldn't get the float out as the axle was too stiff, and I didn't want to damage it.

Change a few gaskets, and a couple of o rings. I noted the size of the jets as below :-
Emulsion tube AB265
Mains 152
Pilot 60
Accelerator pump jet 50

The front mixture screw was 2.5 turns out and the rear was 2.25 turns out. I need to check if my vacuum guages will fit the inlet stubs, so I can now set about adjusting the carbs and hopefully getting some resemblance of an idle.

Chris had bought the original workshop manuals which have some really good diagrams of the carbs showing all the different fuel and air circuits pretty good!

Will change the pads on the 350 this afternoon, as expected it's pissing down outside - still avoids working in the garden!

New disks....

Put the new disks on, and cleaned up the front wheel, took a couple of hours, but it was worth it - I wonder how long it will stay this shiny! I couldn't put the new pads and the new disks in together, as it would really have binded, so I have put the old pads in for the moment, until the disks are bedded in a bit, then I will put the new EBC pads in as well. I will do the rear carb tomorrow, as the forecast is rain, and hopefully I can try it during the week!

Ducati Disks & Carbs

Had a chance to do the front carb. on the Ducati, and received the rotors. Replaced a few gaskets from the kit I had bought although I didn't touch the accelerator pump as it works, I don't know if it needed bleeding or not, but it definately works, so I left alone. There was some nice sludge in the emulsion tube, so I was glad that I made the effort.

The new disks are sexy, I will put them on tomorrow.