The winter break was not uneventful. Kermit got married. We mourned the loss of our racer friend Tina Hambidge. US racer Bill Vose shocked us all with a string of 6.0s on his Busa-based funnybike, destroying rear tyres in the process. Our friend Fast Fil retired, for now, striking a deal for his bike with the Cannon Racing team.
Mick, Dave and Simon got to work repairing and remaking some parts to make us more reliable in 2022. A rear facing, as opposed to side facing, exhaust should help the bike go straighter. New injector mounts, ice tank, clutch plates and gearbox hubs. Work was still in progress when the traditional Easter meeting sprung.
We had already tested the weekend before, which revealed that the “unchanged” clutch had, in fact, changed significantly. We checked the bottles, lines, solenoids and controller, all of which were in perfect working order, which left the clutch itself. It seems new flat plates and a new drive plate mounting method meant new settings would be required, and the only way to arrive at them would be trial and error.
The first runs saw the engine bog badly, barely getting away from the startline, and acting jerkily driving forward to the burnout area. Patiently altering the settings with educated guesses, we progressed to a 9 second run, then a 8.0, but then a pop at the end of that run bent the single throttle butterfly 45 degrees, revving the engine with the throttle closed. Mick hammered it flat on the towbar of the van and we were good to go again, but the next day the bike was misfiring and popping in the burnout and launch, and a number of sensors had given up the ghost too, so we packed up and came home.
Later examination of the remaining datalogged sensors showed a ref/sync error, which means the cam and crank sensors are not in agreement about position. We’ll look at these with our tame ECU man Mark Harrison at Horsepower Factory soon. In the meantime, we’ve pulled out of the Springspeed Nationals as we don’t have time to fix the bike by then.
Congrats go to the Warpspeed Racing team for the event went and a STORMING 6.32 @ 213mph European record by Stu Crane in the final. Very well done sir!!
A huge THANK YOU to our new sponsor, Keith at Auto Electrical Parts UK, who has paid for our fuel for the year. Be sure to check them out, click here.
Thanks also to Michael Lines and Per at Bentec for their help and support with parts over the winter.
Photos from Fredy, Sarah, Simon and Mick.
