Check out our other racer tests here…

The 2011 season marked an exciting time for BMW Motorrad Motorsport WSBK team. After an encouraging debut season in 2009, where the team achieved 17 top 10 finishes, followed by a first pole position and podium in 2010, 2011 was going to be the year that the team could concentrate on racing for more podiums and perhaps an ambitious win…

Rainer Baumel, previously technical director, moved into the role of Head Of Race Operations, while Stephan Fischer became Head Of Development and logistics, personnel, finance and responsibility for the race factory was placed in the hands of alpha Racing Manager Josef Hofmann.

There were extensive changes to the machine for 2011. The engine specifications were dramatically altered to give more mid-range power, evident by the use of a new shorter exhaust pipe. But maximum power was increased to 220RWHP. The year began with specification engine number nine and spec 10 was introduced mid season. The goal was to increase top end without losing mid range. This was achieved and saw a 5hp increase.

However, maximum power is not the only criterion in WSBK, with throttle response being equally important. The BMW S 1000 RR throttle-bodies are controlled by a ride-by-wire system that was continually developed throughout the season. It is controlled by an RSM5 management system, developed in-house by BMW Motorrad Motorsport.

Chassis-wise, there was also a lot changed for 2011. The weight distribution of the bike was optimised with the seating position of the rider shifted back to increase weight over the rear of the bike. The fuel tank was also new, as was the rear sub-frame and new Ohlins TRSP25 forks were used. Also, interestingly, a cast rear swingarm replaced the previous fabricated swingarm. Lastly, new livery was added to the carbon-fibre fairings to make bike look more like the limited edition blue and white road version. Nice touch…

THE RIDE
By the time I rode the BMW of hero Troy Corser, I’d already sampled the Althea Ducati, Yamaha, Alitalia Aprilia and a few 600s. So I was well and truly back in the groove on the track and the nerves had settled. As much as they can when riding a World Superbike!

The BMW Motorrad Motorsport pit set up was the most professional of the lot. It was incredibly clean and the team were really friendly. Fellow Speed TV WSBK face Steve Martin was hanging around so I had a chat with Steve about the bike he played such a big role in developing. Troy Corser popped in to the pit garage however I was not able to get a chance to chat to the two-time WSBK champ sadly.

Looking over the bike, the attention to detail is incredible. From the stunning Akropovic shorty four-into-one to the amazing and huge handmade radiator, the bike is incredibly perfect to the eye. Not a mark or a scratch and nothing looks like its worth anything under a million bucks.

I’d overheard a few fellow journalists complaining that the electronics on the bike were too intrusive, perhaps set too conservatively for some of us, so as the team fired up the bike I was a little concerned the ride might be less than the real deal – so far on the day every other team had left the bikes as raced, and showed us the data to prove that – and the settings they used.

The bike was fired up and I jumped on. The first thing that blew me away was just how tiny the machine is and how compact Troy must be! He’s no Marco Melandri midget but I was more cramped on Troy’s bike than on Marco’s, Checa’s, Rea’s or Biaggi’s machines.

The ‘bars are very traditionally positioned – wide, pulled back with an angle downwards. The levers are tiny and only for two-fingers. And the footpegs very, very narrow. The seating position feels way back over the rear wheel and despite the ride height in the bike; it feels rear biased and low. Overall, tiny. I felt like I was on a 250!

The engine idled over at a fast pace as I clicked up into first gear and headed off down pit lane with a fist full of revs to get moving in the tall first gear. The pit lane limiter kept me at 40km/h then automatically switched off as I exited onto the end of Portimao’s fast chute.

I was lucky again as I had new tyres. So I put my head down and started to push from turn three onwards. The peaky nature of the bike was immediately noticeable and it did not have the punch and throttle response off the turns that the other fours enjoy and nowhere near the Ducati. However, the throttle could be opened really early without torque tying the bike in knots – and the top-end acceleration was incredible. Much more than the Castrol Honda or the Yamaha and similar in feeling to the Alitalia Aprilia.

It was about now that I got into a rhythm and the electronics started to spoil my fun. At anything but close to upright the bike would cut ignition and fuel and splutter off the turns slower than a 600 supersport bike. In fact, the bike felt slower than the street bike in some instances. Off any of the first or second gear corners, right on apex when I started to pickup the throttle and feed some power in, the traction control would cut in and sometimes it almost caused me to crash when the bike did not react to the throttle and pick itself up to drive off the corner. To adapt I had to basically park it turn, stand it up and fire it off the corners. It was a shame as most of us there were experienced racers and should have been given the opportunity to ride the bikes as raced.

The only other theory s that Troy is carrying more speed and higher rpm at that lean angle and the TC is set to be less intrusive there – so I was not riding in the same rpm range as him, therefore the TC was misbehaving. However, after speaking with the other test riders, the experience was a common one apart from for the really slow guys that were not opening the throttle hard enough.

The handling of the bike was different to the other four-cylinder machines. Firstly, Troy has the set-up very stiff compared to all of the other superbikes. And as mentioned, you really feel like you are riding the rear wheel everywhere – whereas looking at the bike in 2009 and 2010 it looked very forward biased and Troy was a weapon at running it into corners blindingly fast.

With the narrow footpegs and tiny levers, I felt like I was slipping off the bike and I could not get the hang of the thumb rear brake – but I did make a point of trying it. I reckon once you got used to the mental mechanical action it would be brilliant.

Initial turn-in on the bike is brilliant. The steering light and agile and I could get the turning process done more quickly than I could on the other fours. There is a mix of braking turns and non braking turns at Portimao and the bike was great in both situations, turning with accuracy and speed and not much effort. However, I found that I had to put quite a lot of effort into keeping the BMW on its side through a turn, really using my outside knee to hold the bike down. On picking up the throttle for exit, the bike would snap and try to stand up. So running a long, accelerating line off a corner was difficult. It was a shame, as the lack of torque made the bike easiest to open the throttle early on and the chassis should not get upset so much without torque there to tie it in knots…

I think it was a combination of me not fitting in the seating position and having my 90kg at the time weight over the rear wheel, plus the aggressive nature of the engine in the higher rpm in some situations, that caused the reaction in the faster corners. In the slow corners I can’t explain it…

On the brakes the bike was extremely stable and the slipper clutch and back-shift system was brilliant. But with the thumb rear brake and stubby levers on the handlebars, the experience was different and would take some getting used to.

Acceleration down the front chute was definitely a thrill on the 220hp S 1000 RR as the electronics battled to keep the front wheel on the ground coming over the crest at 200-odd km/h before accelerating to close to 300 before the braking area. And experiencing how the electronics work was great, although it would have been more interesting if it was raining for example.

Overall I really enjoyed the ride but left thinking that the ASBK winning S 1000 RR of Glenn Allerton is a better handling package and I wonder how Troy would go on that if it had another 20hp…

BMW Motorrad Motorsport 2011 Season
Team Partner: alpha Racing
BMW Motorrad Motorsport Director: Bernhard Gobmeier
Head of Race Operations: Rainer Bäumel
Head of Development: Stephan Fischer
Managing Director Stephanskirchen: Josef Hofmann
Riders: Troy Corser, Leon Haslam
Crew Chief Troy Corser: Tom Larsen
Crew Chief Leon Haslam: Giacomo Guidotti

TROY CORSER – active WSBK 1992 – 2011.
Date of birth: 27th November 1971 in Wollongong
Place of residence: Monte Carlo
Nationality: Australian
Marital status: Married to Sam, two children: Kalani and Kelisa
Height: 1.70m
Weight: 68kg
Hobbies: Golf, wakeboarding, karting, jet ski, motocross
Passion: Racing
Favourite circuits: Phillip Island, Valencia, Portimão
First bike: Yamaha TY80, Honda CR80
First race: 1989 Australian Production Series 250cc
Career highlights: 1996 Superbike World Champion, 2005 Superbike World Champion
World Superbike record: 377 race starts, 130 podiums
33 wins, 47 seconds and 50 third places, 43 pole positions, 45 fastest laps

Troy Corser’s WorldSBK BMW S 1000 RR Specifications

Power: Over 220hp
Wet weight: 162kg
Fuel capacity: 23L

Engine: Liquid-cooled, inline four-cylinder, DOHC, 16-valve, four-stroke, Bore and stroke 80 x 49.7mm, 999cc, compression ratio: 14:1, fuel delivery: Dell’Orto fuel management system with 48mm throttle-bodies, gearbox: Six-speed cassette-style, clutch: wet multi-plate slipper clutch

Frame type: Twin-spar alloy frame with adjustable geometry
Wheelbase: Adjustable
Rake: Adjustable
Trail: Adjustable
Front suspension: Ohlins forks
Rear suspension: Ohlins TTX shock
Front brakes: Dual 320mm Brembo rotors with Brembo four-piston radial-mount monoblock calipers and radial-pull master-cylinder
Rear brake: Brembo
Front wheel: OZ Racing
Rear wheel: OZ Racing
Front tyre: Pirelli Slick, 120/70 – 16.5
Rear tyre: Pirelli Slick, 190/50 – 16.5 or 200/55 – 16.5
Instruments: BMW Racing

The post Racer Test: Troy Corser’s WorldSBK BMW S 1000 RR appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

Tyler’s teammate Jeremy McWilliams finished second in the championship both years for a 1-2 Indian blitz of the points table. The new streetbike was created in collaboration with Indian’s longtime partner Roland Sands, who indeed created the Super Hooligans series, first on the dirt ovals, then from 2021 onwards in road racing. I was fortunate to be the only non-American in a small group of seven journalists invited to test ride O’Hara’s title-winning FTR racebike at a sunny but chilly Chuckwalla Raceway in Southern California. This is the bike from which the new Super Hooligan streetbike is directly derived, making this an exclusive look at the background to its creation.

Read our other Racer Tests here…

The ongoing expansion of Super Hooligan racing makes this a series on the way up, with Harley’s Pan American ADV bike now in contention for the podium (it already finished third in one race last year) as well as the only category in which electric bikes compete on even terms with ICE motorcycles, with Energica’s Stefano Mesa fourth overall in the 2023 championship after finishing second in one of the rounds. Moreover, this year will see three-cylinder bikes up to 900cc in capacity from Yamaha, Triumph and MV Agusta join BMW, KTM, Indian, Energica, Zero and Harley in the class hosting more different brands on the grid than any other in US road racing.

Road racing in the USA at National level is currently enjoying a purple patch, with MotoAmerica’s stacked grids for a wide variety of contrasting classes delivering nail-bitingly close, handlebar-clashing, all-action competition – even between rival teammates! The result has been a sharp spike in racetrack attendance by paying spectators, as well as in logins by online race fans – and especially so now that the century-old warfare between Indian and Harley on dirt ovals has finally been transposed to what in America is still termed by many such followers as ‘pavement racing’.

Three-time Australian Superbike champion Troy Herfoss, 37, joining the same-aged O’Hara in the factory Indian team for both classes…

For this two-wheeled equivalent of NASCAR has sold heaps of seats at MotoAmerica events, something that would never have happened without the presence on the race card of the KOTB/King Of The Baggers class and its junior sidekick – well, in engine displacement terms, at least – SHNC/Super Hooligan National Championship racing. Between them, the two categories are generating hundreds of millions of online impressions every year, and on YouTube, together they’re fourth in terms of engagement behind Formula 1, MotoGP and NASCAR – they’re even ahead of Supercross!

Both categories were essentially the creation of the fusion king of Custom cool, former AMA 250GP road racing champion turned trend-setting designer Roland Sands. He’s justly acclaimed as the leading exponent of the crossover culture between choppers and racebikes which so many other designers have since picked up on, moving the two-wheeled Custom scene from a backstreet art form to a mainstream element of modern-day motorcycle culture, with bikes that steer and go and stop and handle better than OK in real world riding, besides being a blank canvas for designers to express themselves on.

“I like the idea of racing things that were never meant to be raced,” says Roland, 49. “Baggers and Hooligans came at MotoAmerica from different directions, but I guess RSD [Roland Sands Design] was involved in making them both happen, from building early days Bagger racers back in 2020 as a kind of Covid peace dividend, to getting the Super Hooligans up and running. In fact, the whole Super Hooligan thing came long before that out of dirt track, when we’d put a 21-inch front tyre on a Harley Softtail, and go ride the s**t out of it at Costa Mesa Speedway’s dirt oval. This was the most fun that I have personally ever had on two wheels, still to this day! So since 2017 we’ve had a Super Hooligan National Championship dirt series, but then we took what was originally this kind of low brow flat track theme, and with Indian’s support we turned it into a road racing category for bikes that would never normally see the inside of a race track.”

So starting in 2022 with a four-round Super Hooligan National Championship that led to an eight-race series in 2023, the Mission Foods-sponsored series expands this coming season to 10 rounds of SHNC road racing at five events staged across the USA. The season kicks off in March on Daytona Speedway’s high bankings, before heading on to The Ridge in Washington State, Laguna Seca in California, then Mid-Ohio, ending with a grand finale in September at COTT/Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas.

2024’s defending champion, Indian factory rider Tyler O’Hara, has won both the MotoAmerica Super Hooligan road race series run so far in 2022-23 on his S&S-tuned FTR, with former teammate and ex-GP great Jeremy McWilliams runner-up last year after the duo took lumps out of each other in the final turn at the COTA decider last September. Jezza has now decided that with his 60th birthday coming up on April 6th maybe it’s time to step back from full-time factory road racing.

But there’ll still be a major international element in both SHNC and KOTB racing this year, with reigning three-time Australian Superbike champion Troy Herfoss, 37, joining the same-aged O’Hara in the factory Indian team for both classes, and after winning the 2008 AMA Supermoto Championship, this particular Aussie is well versed in racing in the USA.

Indian Motorcycle’s involvement as the SHNC series’ title sponsor has extended to not only winning two championship crowns with race developed versions of its FTR1200 60° V-twin hotrod, but to marking those victories by teaming up with RSD/Roland Sands Design to make a limited-edition Super Hooligan streetbike inspired by the run-what-ya-brung race series. The so-called FTR x RSD Super Hooligan just unveiled for 2024 is built on the Indian FTR R Carbon platform, and will be limited to only 300 units for global sale, 150 of them in the USA with prices starting at $28,995 AUD, and each bike bearing an individually numbered commemorative tank console.

It features fully adjustable Ohlins suspension with an upside-down 43mm fork and rear cantilever shock. Also included are twin 320mm Brembo front brakes, a four-inch touchscreen display with Bluetooth connectivity, and an Akrapovič silencer and heat shield, plus Gilles Tooling adjustable rear sets, oil cap, radiator cap, and bar-end weights. The bike features Black Metallic bodywork with Super Hooligan race graphics, a red frame with matching wheels with gold accents, and Indian Motorcycle Racing’s No.1 Championship logo on the front and side number plates. There are more logos from team sponsors on the rear seat cowl, and additional graphics for the radiator shroud, front fender, and front forks are available as options.

Check out the Indian FTR x RSD Super Hooligan Video

“Super Hooligan has always been about more than just racing,” says Roland Sands “It’s about pushing boundaries and having a blast riding motorcycles with your friends. Far from the full-fairing machines you normally see on the racetrack, a Super Hooligan bike has effortless attitude and a custom aesthetic, with an exposed powertrain. So when Indian Motorcycle approached us to co-design an Indian FTR for consumers, it was a natural fit and something we’re very excited to be a part of.”

SHNC rules are deliberately kept vague, so as to open the class up to as wide a variety as possible of motorcycles that were never really meant to be raced, albeit may have sporty pretensions. They must use stock frames, have no bodywork and last season liquid-cooled bikes couldn’t weigh less than 397lb/180kg in the state they finished a race or qualifying, including all remaining liquids (350lb/159kg for air-cooled V-twins, which are also permitted to modify the frames). That’s now been lowered to 377lb/171kg for waterpumpers in 2023.

Minimum displacement is 750cc, there’s no upper limit, but maximum horsepower is 125bhp, and for added spice, electric motorcycles are also eligible with the same minimum weight limits as the liquid-cooled twins. Good luck in getting an e-bike to scale anywhere near that figure with sufficient battery capacity to be competitive at the end of even a seven-lap Laguna Seca race, let alone a six-lapper on the Daytona bankings! Now for 2024 to broaden the lineup even further, three-cylinder bikes with a maximum displacement of 900cc are also included. Welcome to Super Hooligan racing, Yamaha, MV Agusta and Triumph!

In fact, 2023 saw the lineup of bikes comprising the grid considerably more variegated than in 2022, with the so-far dominant Indian FTR’s supremacy now seriously threatened by the KTM 890, joined by the BMW RnineT, and various Ducati V-twin models. But a key player was the more competitive of the two electric motorcycles on the grid (a Zero was the other) – Stefano Mesa’s Italian Energica, which scored the first-ever e-podium in Open class racing against ICE rivals with second place in Race 1 at COTA, after McWilliams bit the dust in a last-corner confrontation with teammate O’Hara.

Mesa finished fourth in the final points table, while third overall with five rostrum finishes putting him just four points behind McWilliams at season’s end was Andy DiBrino on a self-sponsored KTM 890, with one of those a rare non-Indian race victory at The Ridge, when both O’Hara and McWilliams were disqualified for an illegal handlebar shape/height. Yes, really – Super Hooligan Technical Regulations state that “No clip-ons that have been converted to top-mounted handlebars are permitted. The end of the handlebar must sit above the top plane of the upper triple-clamp.”

That protest was filed by H-D rider Cory West’s Team Saddlemen, entrant of the only Harley-Davidson on the grid, an eight-valve liquid-cooled Revolution Max-powered Pan America ADV which must adopt two velocity stacks and the more restrictive airbox of the Sportster S to keep a lid on its stock 150bhp output. “If there was one brand we wanted to add to the mix, it was Harley,” says series godfather Roland Sands. “Obviously, they bring a massive audience, and it’s also the one place where they can improve the Pan America platform in a serious way.

The only way to really expand what your platform is capable of is if you go racing, and we’re seeing that with Indian and the FTR, and on the Bagger side with Harley and the Road Glide, and Indian and the Challenger, and now Harley is trying to achieve than in Super Hooligan with the Pan America. Harley versus Indian, air-cooled versus water-cooled, electric versus ICE – I want to see all different styles of bikes racing together.” And that’s indeed what’s happening…..

THE RIDE
For an idea of what Troy Herfoss can likely expect to find awaiting him in contesting a catch-all category that doesn’t exist outside America, I was given the keys of Tyler O’Hara’s title-winning Indian FTR for what was supposed to be just five laps of Southern California’s 17-turn 2.68mi/4.31km Chuckwalla Raceway on the edge of the Mojave Desert, where on a bitterly cold but sunny February day I was invited to be the only non-Yank in a small group of journos invited to sample the bike. But I guess the flagman must have got distracted, since he forgot to wave me off until I’d done seven laps on the factory racer. Look, every little bit helps!

That came after 10 laps on a stock Indian FTR Sport, equipped with a flyscreen, a chin fairing, and a seat cowl, as well as 17-inch wheels front and rear rather than the 19/18-inch combo the FTR debuted with five years ago in 2019. This was the first time I’d ever ridden one of these dirt track-derived Indian V-twins on a tarmac racetrack, and besides providing ideal training wheels to learn Chuckwalla’s fast but featureless twists and turns, it also reminded me how much fun these Indians are to ride in something approaching anger, even if the lower-set pegs will readily drag in turns thanks to the good grip from the Dunlop tyres. But the sportier steering geometry provided by the smaller wheels helps provide added agility, helped by the high, wide handlebar, while the stock FTR’s relatively long 60in/1524mm wheelbase delivers good stability

“As a 20-year veteran of ProTwins competition, this is my kind of motorcycle”…

The footrests will touch down because the FTR’s riding position is relatively spacious as befits an all-statures streetbike, but switching swiftly to the RSD-built S&S-tuned factory race version of the same bike revealed that the already shorter Tyler O’Hara likes a super close-coupled riding position which was quite cramped for me in measuring 180cm/5’10” tall. Plus the super-flat Pro Taper handlebar stipulated by O’Hara for his bike meant I had to reach forward to grasp it, thus lowering my torso for a more aerodynamic stance which nevertheless felt pretty uncomfortable.

Ironically, the one thing I’d have liked to help me stay in place under acceleration would have been a bum pad at the rear of the long, flat, raised Saddlemen seat that could have stopped me having to hold on so tight to that low, flat handlebar under the pretty vivid acceleration delivered by the tuned 1203cc 60° V-twin motor.

For swapping the stock FTR Sport for the SH racer had meant going from a sporty streetlegal café racer hotrod to a full race Battle of the Twins bike which, despite its nominal 125bhp power ceiling, would surely give a good account of itself locked in battle with many more potent twin-cylinder racers. As a 20-year veteran of ProTwins competition, this is my kind of motorcycle. The blueprinted engine is otherwise stock, apart from race camshafts and a less restrictive airbox for better breathing.

But there’s a freer-flowing under-engine race exhaust concocted by RSD and S&S Cycle that’s seemingly devoid of any silencing properties other than those that deliver increased performance, resulting in a stirring cacophony of the sound of thunder, interspersed with relatively frequent pistol-cracking backfires on the overrun under braking into a turn. Some other Indian Super Hooligans were fitted with a much quieter Italian-made SC-Project pipe with a large titanium silencer, but not the test bike, which appears to be even skinnier and minimalist when you ride it without the bulk of a silencer.

Despite its tendency to run on into turns after you’ve closed the throttle, you soon come to terms with the backfiring, which is presumably caused by unburnt fuel in the combustion chamber on a motor too rich for ambient desert conditions. But on the other side of a given turn the motor’s huge eagerness to rev made it seem unlikely that the crank hasn’t been lightened compared to the stock FTR Sport I’d just been riding.

“Compared to its street-legal cousin, the Hooligan racer had a much more vivid pickup from a closed throttle”…

Which it hadn’t – but the free-breathing motor with a single injector per cylinder and twin 60mm Mikuni throttle-bodies makes the most of the extra hit of top end power seemingly delivered via the race cams to broaden the strongest part of the powerband, and the way Lloydz Garage has reflashed the stock Polaris ECU has surely also helped with this. It was all sufficient to propel Jeremy McWilliams on an identical bike through the Daytona speed trap at 166 mph/267km/h last year – some going for an unfaired 1203cc V-twin, and a strictly subversive turn of speed for a bike that was never conceived as being a road racer.

Yet that hasn’t been achieved at the cost of sacrificing the Indian motor’s wide spread of torque, which made it a forgiving ride as I completed my Chuckwalla learning cycle. It pulled well from as low as 3,000 revs before coming on strong at 7,000rpm in a punchy way which the standard FTR Sport hadn’t done nearly as emphatically, before hitting the soft-action rev-limiter at 9,500rpm.

Keeping it revving that high was easily done via the stock six-speed gearbox whose ratios suit the bike well – although the two-way IRC race-pattern powershifter was a disappointment, with a harsh change that needed refinement, plus the actual lever itself had a sort of kink in it which prevented me getting at the pedal, so I had to shift gear on the kink. Easily fixed if it were my bike, I’m sure. But compared to its street-legal cousin, the Hooligan racer had a much more vivid pickup from a closed throttle, sending the front wheel in the air exiting Chuckwalla’s slower turns in second gear – all accompanied by the raucous racket from that under-motor exhaust.

In compliance with SHNC rules, Indian has retained the stock FTR’s main frame and swingarm plates, but has fitted a 75mm shorter RSD-designed Trac Dynamics chrome-moly swingarm to reduce the wheelbase to 1450mm in pursuit of more agile handling. Coupled with the unchanged stock 25.7-degree head angle with a special set of triple-clamps delivering what bike-builder Roland Sands confirmed was 121mm of trail, that nimble yet stable steering was aided by the reduced rotational inertia and unsprung mass of the twin lightweight Dymag UP7X forged aluminium wheels which the Super Hooligan racer carries.

The rear wheel is a relatively narrow 5.50in item bearing a 180/60-17 Dunlop KR441 slick, so it’s not over-tyred at the rear, a common fault among those who think bigger is best, but don’t consider the reduced drag a fatter rear tyre brings in its wake, reducing top speed and also making it harder to shift the bike from side to side. That absolutely wasn’t a problem with the Indian Hooligan, which made nifty work of Chuckwalla’s tighter turns, thanks partly to the handlebar which even in fully legal form delivered a welcome degree of leverage in changing direction. It’s even sweeter-steering and sharper-handling than the FTR Sport streetbike.

Having moved weight rearwards via the shorter swingarm and the larger RSD aluminium fuel cell extending rearwards under the seat after Tyler O’Hara ran out of gas at Daytona in 2022, Indian had made every effort to increase front-end weight bias, from lengthening the cantilever Ohlins rear shock by 20mm to lifting the rider further up via the raised Saddlemen seat. This also provided extra clearance when cornering at extreme lean angles.

But even with fully adjustable Ohlins front suspension that’s supposedly sourced from the FTR R Carbon version of the model – though I’m sure the fork legs had heavily modified full-race internals – there was pronounced front-end chatter from the Indian racer at full lean in a couple of Chuckwalla’s faster turns. Unfortunately, with just seven laps allocated to me I couldn’t begin to try to resolve that, but for sure Messrs. O’Hara and McWilliams didn’t race the bike like that – though I’m sure they didn’t have to cope with the backfire, either. It would have been nice to have more time to spend getting the fuelling and suspension set up ideally on a bike that by winning seven of the eight 2023 Super Hooligan championship rounds was amply demonstrated to be the class paragon.

No complaints about the Indian’s braking, though, and there was much less weight transfer than on the stock FTR Sport under the super stopping power provided by the Brembo brake package, via twin 320mm steel discs with four-piston Stylema M4 Monoblock radial calipers, a Corsa Corta 17mm master cylinder and custom Spiegler metal brake lines. Braking hard for the tight second-gear hillside chicane while leaned over to the left saw the Indian hold a tight line leading into the crest-top entry, and it was forgiving, too, without insisting on sitting up and heading for Mexico if I miscalculated my entry speed when cranked over for a fast sweeper, and touched the front brake lever to lose a little momentum.

“The 300 owners of the streetlegal replicas of this racer have a treat in store”…

Weighing 429lb/196kg with oil/water, no fuel and bereft of street equipment, the Indian racer is about 90lb/40kg lighter than the FTR Sport, so there’s that much less to stop. But the way the Brembo package delivers such ferocious but usable stopping power is totally addictive – and effective. As indeed is the whole motorcycle. Indian has delivered a contradiction in terms – a well-behaved Hooligan of a motorcycle, that’s a thrilling real world ride. The 300 owners of the streetlegal replicas of this racer have a treat in store.

INDIAN FTR SUPER HOOLIGAN SPECIFICATIONS

Engine
Liquid-cooled 60º four-stroke liquid-cooled DOHC, four-valve per cylinder V-Twin, gear driven counterbalaner, 102 x 73.6mm bore x stroke, 12.5:1 compression, 1203cc (73ci), closed loop EFI with stock Polaris ECU reflashed by Lloydz Garage, single injector per cylinder, 2 x 60mm Mikuni throttle-bodies, six-speed gearbox with gear primary drive, wet multiplate slipper clutch.

Chassis
Tubular steel trellis frame with engine used as stressed member, fully adjustable 43mm Ohlins inverted forks, 120mm travel, Trac Dynamics chrome-moly steel swingarm with fully adjustable Ohlins TTX cantilever shock, 120mm travel, 1450mm wheelbase, 25.7º rake, 121mm trail, dual 320mm Brembo steel rotors, four-piston Brembo Stylema M4 calipers, Brembo Corsa Corta 17mm master-cylinder, Spiegler stainless-steel brake lines (f), single 254mm Brembo floating steel rear disc with two-piston Brembo caliper, Dymag UP7X forged alloy wheels (3.50 x 17in, 5.50 x 17in), Dunlop KR448/KR441 slick tyres.

Performance
Top Speed: 267km/h (McWilliams, Daytona 2023), Weight: 196kg oil/water no fuel, Power: 125hp@8250rpm, 120Nm@5900rpm.

The post Racer Test | MotoAmerica Indian FTR 1200 Super Hooligan appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

BIMOTA V-DUE

The Bimota 500 V-Due was originally destine for the world GP circuits, unfortunately this was not meant to be, mainly due to lack of funding – so a decision was made to make the V-Due a street legal racer, at a premium price of $34,000, which was a lot back in 1997. The V-twin engine was the first ever engine that Bimota had produced, before that the company had bought all its motors from other manufactures and slotted them into their own frames. The actual engine took eight years to develop and produce and as you can imagine, for a small company the cost of this was extreme.

The engine itself was 499cc, liquid-cooled, two-stroke, V-twin that produced 126hp at 9000rpm and 90Nm of torque at around 8000rpm. The motor was direct fuel injection­ ­– this was designed so the two-stroke engine could meet stick US and European emission laws.  Eventually, the fuel injection and electrical malfunctions would send the company into receivership as owners started demanding refunds. Only producing 388 bikes out of the 500 they had originally intended.

SPECIFICATIONS: Bimota V-Due

ENGINE
Two-cylinder 500cc two-stroke, liquid-cooled with direct fuel injection with four-port throttle-body and electronic ignition, wet multi-plate hydraulic actuation clutch and electric starter system, six-speed close-ration cassette style gearbox.

CHASSIS & BODYWORK
Carbon-fibre bodywork, alloy and billet CNC frame, cast alloy wheels, Paioli inverted forks and Ohlins shock, Brembo brakes.

PERFORMANCE
126hp@9000rpm

Mick Costin YZR500 Replicas

Mick Costin, owner of Costin Motorcycle Engineering, is a two-stroke maniac probably most famous for the Red Bull Replica Garry McCoy YZR500 back in 2006. In fact, I’d go as far as calling him the mad professor of two-strokes Down Under. Thankfully for die-hard GP fans like me, he specialises in replicating the glory days of the mighty, raw, untamed and awe-inspiring 500cc two-strokes.

In his workshop in Western Sydney, Mick makes these dream bikes for lucky cashed up customers from all over the world. Read our feature on the Costin Engineering Wayne Rainey 500 here. 

SPECIFICATIONS: Costin YZR500 

ENGINE
1985 Yamaha RZ500 V4 two-stroke, bore and stroke 56.65mm x 50.0mm, compression ratio 6.6:1, RZ Performance crankshafts and conrods, bead blasted stock crankcases, stock ported and polished cylinders, machined heads, balanced Mitaka forged pistons and rings, factory six-speed cassette-style gearbox, dry conversion re-built clutch, Boyseen reeds, four 26mm Mikuni flatslide carburettors, Costin Motorcycle Engineering titanium expansion chambers, YZR500 mufflers, all bolts machined stainless steel or titanium, R6 radiator, custom black box incorporating programmable CDI ignition, programmable power-valve controller, CME radiator, 15/36 gearing.

CHASSIS & BODYWORK
Costin Motorcycle Engineering replica 1997 YZR500 frame handmade from 6061 billet and sheet alloy, matte black finish, R6 swingarm, Ohlins shock with custom linkages and Costin Motorcycle Engineering ride-height adjuster, Costin Motorcycle Engineering alloy sub-frame, CME titanium triple-clamps, 43mm Ohlins inverted forks, Brembo alloy 3.5 x 17in wheel (f) and Brembo Alloy 6 x 17in wheel (r), Brembo 320mm rotors with four-piston Brembo calipers (f), 210mm Brembo rotor with Brembo caliper (r), Brembo radial master-cylinder, braided stainless steel brake lines, titanium bolts, Costin Motorcycle Engineering rear quick wheel-change caliper mount. CME two-piece GP ‘bars, YZR500-style switches, STACK tacho, TZ Yamaha temp gauge, Domino GP throttle housing, 1997 YZR500 bodywork, YZR500 seat, TZ250/custom fuel tank, YZR500 front guard, billet alloy fuel cap.

PERFORMANCE
Lots!

THE ORIGINAL SUTER 500

If your after a full factory spec GP racer then look no further – Suter Racing Technology (SRT) had just what you need to impress your mates at the next track day.

What you got for your $96,400 is an alloy twin spar chassis that been partly CNC machined with fully adjustable steering geometry. The suspension is top grade Ohlins front and rear and is fully adjustable. You also get full carbon-fibre bodywork and fuel tank but the main draw card is the engine – it’s a V4 two-stroke that has double counter rotating crankshafts and roller bearings, this is not a rebuild of a RZ or RG engine it’s a true ground up built GP motor.

The induction is modern fuel injection with four port throttle bodies and carbon reed valves, while the gases exit through four single expansion chambers that have electronically controlled valves. The bike only weight 125kg ready to race and is well capable of clocking 300km/h – now all we have to do is sell Jeff’s organs and where in business… Suter Racing Technology are no stranger to racing in the mid ’90 they has world championship success with their 500cc GP bike the MZ Weber that claimed two pole positions and a handful of top ten finished piloted by Luca Cadalora. Suter also developed the Ilmor X3 and the Foggy Petronas FP1 world superbike.

The Suter Company is now concentrating their talents on the new Moto2 category using their Suter-MMX chassis with the controlled 600cc Honda inline four. Teams that use the Suter chassis are Team Forward Racing, Team STR Italrans, Mapfre Aspar Team, MarcvDS Racing Team, Racing Team Germany, Team Technomag CIP and Team Viessman Kiefer Racing. The company even develops some pretty wild looking luxury high-speed catamarans and recreational vehicles, take a look at their web site to find out more suterracing.com.

SPECIFICATIONS: Suter Racing 500 

ENGINE
V4 499cc two-stroke, double counter rotating crankshaft, 54 x 54.5mm bore and stroke, electronic fuel injection, four port throttle bodies with carbon reed valves, double flap electric controlled exhaust flap, SRT six-speed cassette gearbox, SRT multi plate dry clutch, four single resonance expansion pipes, Marelli ECU.

CHASSIS & BODYWORK
Alloy twin spar frame, multi adjustable steering geometry, adjustable wheelbase and ride height pivot position, Ohlins front and rear adjustable suspension, rear linkage adjustment, lightweight OZ wheels, Brembo 320mm steel rotors and four-piston calipers, 218mm single rotor with twin-piston caliper, full carbon-fibre bodywork and fuel tank 125kg ready to race.

PERFORMANCE
195hp@13,000rpm

The post Two-Stroke Tuesday | Three Dream 500s… V-Due, Suter, Costin appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

When Steve heard that Paul Feeney, the then importer of MV Agusta in Australia, was selling the V593 that John Kocinski won the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca in 1993 and the Australian GP on in 1994, Steve just had to have it. Naturally, when Steve offered me a ride I didn’t hesitate in saying yes, I could not get on a plane quick enough. I think this is the first time I’ve felt true fear from a motorcycle.

Check out our other racer tests here…

The bike is invaluable and has a lot of important history. Cagiva entered Grand Prix racing in 1990 and had to battle against the ultra rich Japanese manufacturers that had seemingly unlimited budgets in days when expenses and rider salaries were peaking. Still the small factory with the big heart pushed on and eventually, against the odds, rose to the winner’s podium. Some believe that the odds of them winning a world title was more than likely, had finances not restricted the forward progression.

Eddie Lawson gave Cagiva their debut victory on a drying track in the 1991 Hungarian Grand Prix. Lawson left Cagiva before he retired from racing but other stars were drawn to the passionate Italian team with Randy Mamola, Mat Mladin, Doug Chandler also riding the bike at one stage their careers.

But it was the determined and highly talented John Kocinski that gave Cagiva the most champaign, winning at Laguna Seca in what was to be the final grand prix in the USA for 12 long years. After completing the season on the updated V594 John finished the 1994 championship in third position but sadly that was the end of the line and Cagiva went broke.

The Ride
I’m pacing around nervously as the bike gets warmed up by the legendary Dick Smart, it is a nerve wrecking time as it is probably the most expensive bike I may ever get to ride. Daryl Beattie obviously picked up on my panicked pacing. “Just stay relaxed and ride it normally. It’ll just feel like a superbike, only faster and lighter. Watch those carbon brakes until they’re up to temp,” Daryl Beattie, along for a ride, reassures me in that weird way a surgeon reassures you before cutting your chest open with a hacksaw, “Keep an eye on the temperature too and watch the powervalves, they seem to be jamming up a little at 9500rpm”…

The next minute I’m being pushed down pit lane by ex Mick Doohan GP mechanic, Australian Dick Smart, just like the professional riding you see on the TV. I let the clutch out and the V4 fires into life. The racer comes out in me almost straight away. I’ve already got my knee down by turn two.

The first run down the back straight of Queensland Raceway I short shift and load the bike up, holding the throttle open in third gear to clear it and after a few coughs the digital tachometer suddenly screams past 9500rpm. I can feel my shoulder joints pulling apart as I shift at 12500rpm before grabbing the brakes for turn three, they felt just like normal brakes in that moment due to them still being cold.

Out of turn three I feed the throttle on slowly to lean the engine out a little and get through that rough patch at 9000rpm. Again, the engine clears its throat and I’m struggling to hold on, let alone keep the front wheel down. All I can feel is wheel-spin then the front wheel lifting up, this thing hammers. I’ve never felt acceleration like it, not even on a turbo or a World Superbike or drag bike.

I’m cautious through the two left-handers on my first time around but I feed it on a little on the short straight before turn six, just to get a feel for the power delivery. Onto the chute for the first time the engine coughs again but once it clears, the bike explodes in a surge of acceleration and shifting through the ‘box via the electronic reverse-pattern quick-shifter delivers a feeling like no other. Nothing feels like this – no four-stroke could be this exciting.

I feel like the Cagiva GP500 has knocked 20 years off my age, I’m 20 and fearless again. I squeeze the Brembo front brake lever at the end of the straight. One finger is all it takes but I have this picture in my head of the rotors suddenly getting up to temperature and locking the wheel before I can modulate the pressure. But soon I’m trail-braking into corners and I’ve got the hang of feeding the power on progressively out of the turns. I can’t believe how much concentration this bike is sapping from me.

The Dunlop tyres are up to temperature now and with more confidence in them, I’m pushing the Cagiva further and further on its side every lap. But I’m more than aware that I need to stand the bike up as much as possible before opening the throttle. Make no mistake, this ain’t no proddie or 600. Wind it on mid-corner on this thing and I’m going to be flying pretty high.

The chassis is ultra-stiff and the bike is so light. You’d really have to have an intimate relationship with the machine and a lot of laps under your belt to decipher confidence-inspiring feedback from it. Once you knew the bike, though, it’d be a brilliant talker. In my short session I was just relying on my past experience with slick tyres and knowing how far to push them at my very moderate pace.

The rear Ohlins GP-spec shock is predictably stiff and, to be honest, probably in need of a service after sitting around for so long, especially with my weight on it. The front suspension action is firm but nowhere near what I’d imagined. In fact the machine is riding the nasty bumps at Queensland Raceway quite well, with the exception of getting air over the bumps at the end of the main straight.

The session is coming to an end and my dream is almost over, just as I start to get smooth and comfortable, I put in what I feel are a few half decent laps about as quick as I could go on a stock 1000cc roadbike.

Not surprisingly the V593 feels better the faster I go and on the last lap I do just what Daryl said. I ride it like I’d ride a normal bike running into the turns fast, standing it up and winding it on harder and taking it right through to 13000rpm, 1000rpm short of redline. On the last lap I feel like I’m detached from the world. Like I used to feel when I was on a hot lap and in my ‘groove’ in my racing days.

No bike has made me feel like that since I stopped racing and I don’t think anything else ever will. I think I’m in love. I ride back into the pits and hop off the bike feeling eerily calm and sedate. The 1993 Cagiva GP500 represented the pinnacle of the Italian firm’s 500cc Grand Prix competitiveness. It was passion and drive that got them there, however, a World Title was not meant to be as they ran out of money soon after during the following season on the V594 version, the last of the GP500.

World Champion John Kocinski Talks 

Sitting down with the legendary John Kocinski, I got to learn more about the bike that had a short lived life in GP racing but a long lived legacy. John spoke about the team’s passion and excitement that surpassed the want to make money out of the sport, which is what motor racing should be about.

JW – It has been said that this was the bike that turned Cagiva from also-rans to almost wins and if you didn’t take the ride Cagiva would have pulled the pin. What is your take on that?

John Kocinski – Yes, it is probably true but a lot of my greatest memories have been when I rode for Cagiva. It was a company of great passion.

JW – When you think back on the V593 and V594 and the results, particularly the wins you achieved on the bike how do you feel?

John Kocinski – It is one of my greatest accomplishments to win on a machine that no one else other than Eddie Lawson has won on. It was heartbreaking when Cagiva could not continue in 1995 because we were so close to having a machine that could win a World Championship.

JW – How much of the work, in development terms, was done when you arrived at the team?

John Kocinski – Obviously, there had been work done, but it was far from complete.

JW – What were the strengths and weaknesses of the V593 and V594?

John Kocinski – The strengths were the agility and steering. The weakness was the power band.

JW – Was this motorcycle capable of winning the title?

John Kocinski – Yes, most definitely.

JW – Were you keen to stay on for 1995 if the team had survived?

John Kocinski – Absolutely. I loved the team, the engineers, I had great mechanics. It was just a matter of making some small improvements to the power delivery and handling.

JW – Daryl Beattie said that overall he rates the bike well and that both yourself and Eddie Lawson proved that it is a reasonable motorcycle. But were you guys over-riding to compensate for lack of performance or was the bike really that good?

John Kocinski –  No matter what machine you ride there are always issues. But definitely in 1994, the machine was the best it had ever been. I think the results say the same.

JW – What did it for you with 500s – the challenge, the acceleration, the adrenaline or the fear?

John Kocinski – That’s exactly what does it, I think, for everyone. The challenge, the acceleration, the adrenaline and fear.

JW – Give us one word that sums up the Cagiva.

John Kocinski – Passion.

500c Legend, Daryl Beattie Chat

Catching up with ex 500 GP racer, Daryl Beattie, after his laps on the Cagiva, it’s safe to say that he’s hooked again despite not riding a 500 GP bike since he retired back in 1997. There were some similarities between the motors on the Cagiva and his old Yamaha but the frame was a new experience for Daryl. “That’s the most fun I’ve had since I retired in 1997,” declared Beattie as he tried to wipe the smile off his face after leaving blackies all over Queensland Raceway on the V593 Cagiva GP500.

“That’s the most laps I’ve done on a track for years. I’ve only done those commentating laps at Australian Grand Prix but as soon as I left pit lane all the memories of 500 GP came back. Nothing beats a 500.” Admitted Daryl, “I felt good on the bike and it all started to come back to me.

“I remember this bike well and always wondered what it would be like to ride. It feels similar engine-wise to the Yamaha I rode in 1994 but it handles better. It’s really sweet and the carbon brakes are just awesome when you haven’t used them for a long time”.

Daryl says he always knew the Cagiva was a competitive machine in the right hands, “The King (Eddie Lawson) did a lot for Cagiva and Kocinski had some good results on the bike. There’s no doubt that it had more potential so it is a shame that this was the second last one.”

“It feels really good to ride a race bike again. You just can’t beat the way they steer, stop or accelerate. The thing just wants to wheelstand in every gear. Unreal…. I’ve gotten a taste for it again so I’ll have to talk Mick (Doohan) into coming out to some ride days with me”!

1993 Cagiva GP500 V593 Specifications 

POWER: 195hp@12600rpm
TORQUE: 75.5ft-lbs]@12000rpm
WET WEIGHT: 130kg
FUEL CAPACITY: 21 litres

ENGINE: Liquid-cooled, 80-degree V4, twin crank, two-stroke, 56 x 50.6mm bore x stroke, 498cc, two twin-choke 36mm electronic power-jet flat-slide Mikunis, crankcase reed-valve induction, pressurised airbox, titanium expansion chambers with carbon-fibre mufflers, electronically controlled cylindrical power valves – five transfer, three exhaust, electronic ignition with programmable advance curve linked to throttle opening, exhaust powervalve and carburettor power jet, NGK plugs, single plain piston ring pistons, needle roller small-end and roller big-end bearings, straight-cut gear to clutch from right-hand end of lower crank

GEARBOX & CLUTCH: six-speed cassette-style, ten possible ratios for first and fourth, seven for second and fifth, nine for third and sixth, drum selection, electronic quick-shift, dry multi-plate, seven friction and six steel plates, six springs

CHASSIS: Twin-spar aluminium with adjustable steering angle, carbon-fibre swingarm, Wheelbase: 1390mm, Rake: 23°± + 1 degree, Trail: 95mm\
SUSPENSION: Fully adjustable inverted carbon-fibre Ohlins forks, Ohlins fully adjustable shock
BRAKES: Twin 320mm carbon-carbon front rotors, Brembo four-piston monoblock calipers and Brembo radial master-cylinder, Brembo pads, single 190mm carbon-carbon rear rotor, Brembo twin-piston monoblock caliper, Brembo pads
WHEELS & TYRES: Ferrari hollow-section carbon-fibre wheels, 3.5 x 17in, 6.0 x 17in, Michelin slicks

PRICE: Over one million dollars

1993 Cagiva GP500 V593 Gallery

The post Racer Test: John Kocinski 1993 Cagiva 500 V593 appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

Words: Alan Cathcart Photos: Andrew Moreton                                     

Just like its rival Zongshen company which became the first Chinese manufacturer to take part in GP racing in the 2005-2008 seasons with customer 250GP Aprilias, CFMoto’s two Spanish riders Xavier Artigas and Carlos Tatay are mounted on rebranded versions of the reigning Moto3 World champion KTM RC250GP machine.

Check out our other racer tests here…

This reflects CFMoto’s close links with the Austrian firm whose Indian-made 200/390cc singles it has assembled in China for local sale since 2014, with various KTM twin-cylinder models also slated to enter production in coming years at CFMoto’s ever-expanding Hangzhou factory.

However, CFMoto already became the first Chinese manufacturer to compete in International road racing with its own products designed and built in China, and successfully, at that, with British rider Gary Johnson finishing fourth in the 2016 Lightweight TT on the gruelling 60.74km Isle of Man TT Mountain Course on the CFMoto 650NK-TT racer entered and prepared by the company’s British importer, WK Bikes.

This class caters for 650cc streetbike-derived Supertwins, and except for this Chinese-built motorcycle it’s been dominated for years by Kawasaki’s ER-6 (aka Ninja 650R in some parts of the world), and the Italian Paton powered by a Kawasaki motor, which have won all eight races since the class was first conceived back in 2012, with the Suzuki SV650 V-twin very much a supporting act. Johnson had in fact held onto third place for the first two laps of the race before slipping back to fourth after a pit stop for refuelling, yet at the end was only two seconds off the podium after 240km of gruelling road racing aboard a bike rejoicing in the nickname of ‘Madagascar’. Well, movie fans, look at the colour scheme …!

“After the very first time I rode the CFMoto, I was pleasantly surprised by its potential,” said Johnson. “It’s based on their production 650NK streetbike, but you shouldn’t discount it because of where it comes from. It’s basically a very good motorcycle, and WK Bikes have put in a massive development programme which has seen the race bike move to a far more competitive level. They’ve got good power out of it, and we’ve tried to blow the engine up to make sure it’s up to the job, but we could not blow it up!”

WK Bikes kicked off the CFMoto TT race project in 2013, when Aussie rider David Johnson rode a race-prepared but essentially stock 650NK sponsored by China’s Tsingtao beer for them in that year’s Lightweight TT, but retired with a dropped valve.

But DJ had been delayed travelling from Down Under to the Island in time for practice, so since two-time TT winner Gary Johnson (no relation) lives near WK Bikes’ Lincolnshire base, he offered to do a lap on the bike just to shake it down ready for the Aussie rider to hop onto it.  A 108mph lap from a standing start proved it had some potential, so Gary signed up to race it in 2014, now with official support from the CFMoto factory in China.

Johnson was fourth fastest in practice, but sadly crashed his Kawasaki ZX-10R in the Superstock TT, and injured himself too badly to be able to race the CFMoto that year. However, 24-year old TT newcomer Callum Laidlaw brought his own CFMoto 650NK using a standard engine home in 33rd place out of 38 finishers, averaging 105.045 mph for the race – a very respectable speed for a TT tyro on a motorcycle essentially just as it left the Chinese factory, except for a race exhaust, suspension and fairing. In 2015 it was Gary Johnson’s turn to DNF on the very first lap with a broken conrod – but next year it all came good, with that fast, trouble-free ride to fourth place at the finish line, just a tantalising two seconds off the rostrum.

The chance to ride Gary Johnson’s Chinese-made Supertwin came at Cadwell Park, on the full 3.47km circuit whose Woodland section complete with wheelie-friendly The Mountain is a mini-TT Course of its own. It came under the eagle eye of the man responsible for developing the bike, Grimsby-based performance engineer Chris Gunster, a former UK National level 125/250GP racer.

“We’d done a lot of work with Gary setting up his Superstock and Supersport bikes for TT racing,” said Gunster, “so when he agreed to race the CFMoto Lightweight bike they gave it to us to develop it properly – the first year when the Aussie guy raced it, it was dead stock, and very underpowered in comparison to everyone else at the sharp end of the field. Gary did that single 108mph standing start lap with just 79bhp, so we knew it had potential if we could start tuning it successfully – and reliably.”

Taking the stock CFMoto 650NK DOHC eight-valve parallel-twin engine measuring 83 x 60mm for a capacity of 649.30cc, fitted with a 180 degree crank, offset chain camshaft drive and a single gear-driven counterbalancer, Gunster had to retain the stock crankshaft under Lightweight TT rules, but after the 2015 DNF fitted British-made Arrow forged steel conrods, carrying JE forged pistons machined to suit the cylinder-head and valves.

These delivered a 14:1 compression ratio, up from an already quite respectable 11.3:1 stock as the bike left China, achieved by skimming the block that already came standard with chrome bores. The cylinder-head was also skimmed to help achieve the high compression that’s so important for good drive out of turns, while retaining the stock gasket, and then ported and flowed by the late ace TT tuner Steve Mellor – one half of the famous V&M team which helped David Jefferies beat the factory Honda racers to complete a clean sweep of all the world’s greatest public roads races in 1999 aboard the V&M Yamaha R1 tuned-up streetbike, including the NW 200, both the Isle of Man Formula 1 and Senior TT races, the Ulster GP, and finally the Macau GP in China.

Mellor, who passed away in 2018, was THE top tuner in the Supertwins class since the category was invented in 2012, and professed himself impressed by the quality of the stock Chinese bike’s engineering, before setting to work to wrestle more power out of it.

The resultant tuned-up CFMoto 650i race engine was now fitted with billet camshafts made by Kent Cams to Steve Mellor’s spec, with a very similar profile to the ones Gary Johnson used in his Kawasaki ZX-10R Superbike.

“These operate slightly shortened stock 33mm inlet and 28mm exhaust valves,” said Gunster, “and the reason for that is the original 650NK motor has the shim as part of the bucket, which is a quirky thing I’ve not seen before on any motorcycle, meaning if you want to re-shim it you have to change the entire bucket! Because of the logistics and expense of carrying several different buckets to adjust the valves, we shortened the valve stems to run a conventional shim under bucket system, like everyone else. We retained the stock valves, though, but with dual springs, running in standard valve guides.” 

The inlet valves are fed by twin Marelli throttle bodies, each carrying a single 5-hole Marelli injector, and these originally started out as 38mm units before Gunster began boring them out. “We tested different bores from 38mm to 45mm, and settled on 42mm as the best balance between top-end performance and low down rideability,” he said. “Even so, the motor is quite lumpy at low revs before it smoothes out at around 6000rpm, and a lot of that is with the size of the throttle-bodies and the injectors, because everything is geared around making it go fast. I was quite amazed to discover the throttle is wide open on a Lightweight bike like this for 68 per cent of a full lap of the TT Course.”

“I was quite amazed to discover the throttle is wide open on a Lightweight bike like this for 68 per cent of a full lap of the TT Course.” said Gunster.

“Now I understand why top riders like Gary who race them like them so much – you can really dominate them, and just ride the wheels off them!” An Italian Arrow race exhaust was fitted as is practically standard in the Supertwins class – most Kawasakis run one. There was no oil cooler, but with the extra power available the larger Pace coolant radiator earned its keep. Engine management was taken care of by the stock Ducati Energia (no relation, though – well, not since 1953!) ECU to which the team were given the access codes by CFMoto to permit modification and remapping.

Getting the airbox right is apparently a key issue in Supertwins said Gary: “The biggest problem seems to be how much those things want to breathe – there’s a midrange gain of as much as 7bhp if you can significantly increase the airbox volume from standard. So we basically cut the top off of a stock airbox to accommodate very long 50mm velocity stacks fed by an airscoop that lives above the radiator, to let it suck as much air as it wants. It’s a combination of airbox, throttle-bodies, injectors, fuel pressure and exhaust, which together with Steve Mellor’s tuning magic have collectively got us where we are. Where’s that? We have 102bhp@10,300rpm at the rear wheel, and peak torque of 74Nm@9,400rpm, which makes it on a par with the best Kawasakis in terms of performance.”

This tuned up motor was fitted in a 100 per cent stock unbraced tubular steel 650NK diamond frame which used it as a fully stressed member. This carried a fully adjustable 43mm Öhlins Road and Track fork housed in Harris adjustable triple-clamps designed for a GSX-R1000, which allowed the offset to be varied between 25-33mm, and thus the trail. With the stock cantilever steel swingarm and fully adjustable Öhlins monoshock offset to the right, this resulted in a fairly tight 1415mm wheelbase.

Dry weight complete with a Harris Moto2 race fairing and Kawasaki ZX-10R seat is 161kg, stopped by twin 320mm Brembo floating front discs and four-piston Monoblock radial calipers, with a 220mm rear disc. The team ran Metzeler RaceTec tyres, with the rear upsized to a 180/55-17 on a 5.50in rim, instead of the stock 650NK’s 4.50in wheel carrying a 160/60 rear tyre – for better grip on the angle, as well as increased stability, said Chris.

It was the wet weather grip of the treaded Supersport-spec tyres compulsory for Supertwins racing that most concerned me when I took to the track at Cadwell Park for my first of three sessions that day with the surface still damp from overnight rain. I needn’t have worried – the rubber from Metzeler (then about to become Chinese owned!) shrugged off any damp patches, and the easy-steering controllability of the CFMoto brought reassurance in its wake, in allowing quick corrections when the back end stepped out.

The street-pattern powershifter originally wasn’t working properly – and not at all for the top two gearshifts – but the stock ratios in the six-speed gearbox seemed well suited to the power characteristics of the motor, even though these were quite a bit different than on the street 650NK I’d last ridden at Broadford in Australia four years earlier in 2012.

“5,800rpm is when it came alive with a serious burst of power that wasn’t so fierce it’d unhook the back wheel.”

That’s when I became the first journalist outside China to get acquainted with the products of the first Chinese manufacturer to really get it in terms of what Western customers are looking for – basically, a decent build quality coupled with reasonable performance, and comforting handling from a middleweight bike, all at the right price. The CFMoto 650NK had all these – and still has – but the 650NK-TT Supertwin racer derived from it was another step higher up the performance ladder, with 45 per cent more horsepower and 20 per cent less weight than the streetbike it was derived from.

So although Madagascar was perfectly tractable through the slow Woodlands section at Cadwell, and drove OK from 3,000rpm upwards on part throttle out of the slow Hall Bends, it wasn’t until the tacho sweep hit the 5,800rpm mark on the excellent Translogic dash – whose gear selected readout dominated your visual take on the screen – that the tuned Chinese racer really started to motor. That’s when it came alive with a serious burst of power that wasn’t so fierce it’d unhook the back wheel, but was controllable enough in its delivery to power the CFMoto out of slower turns really strongly – the legendary link between your right hand and the rear tyre’s contact patch was all there in spades.

There was then a second noticeable kick in power at 8,000rpm, all the way to the hard action 10,300rpm revlimiter where power was still building, and this meant it was really best riding the bike like a sort of gruff-sounding two-stroke racer, allowing the row of seven shifter lights above the dash screen to progressively light up till they flashed red at 10,000rpm and you needed to hit the next highest gear NOW!!

Even with the street ratios, you’d still be back in the fat part of the power band and especially the torque curve in said gear, so it really paid to rev the parallel-twin motor right out in each ratio to keep it on the boil. Yet the Chinese bike’s undoubted top-end power by the standards of the Supertwin class wasn’t delivered at the expense of low-down rideability – just that there was noticeably more power up high, so you needed to keep the motor revving. By the way, it was ultra-smooth in the way it did so – there was really no significant vibration at all, and this must have made it a good TT ride that wasn’t going to be tiring in a 240km four-lap race.

Back out for my second session with the track now dry, and the powershifter now working properly – if rather stiffly – I could start to explore the CFMoto’s handling qualities, and the best compliment I can pay it is to say that it seemed to be a bike with no surprises – it was totally predictable in the way it went, steered and stopped. OK, I was outgunned for performance with the 600 Supersports and 1,000cc Superstocks I was sharing the track with – but through Hall Bends or the bus-stop Chicane I could more than get my own back on them thanks to the Supertwin’s deft, agile handling, and especially on the brakes into Park Corner at the end of the back straight, or downhill into second-gear Manfield.

There, the ace combination of the 320mm front Brembo discs and their Monoblock radial calipers, plus the Sigma slipper clutch Chris Gunster had fitted (it was adjusted just right, so as to still provide some engine braking while consistent with stability) did their job really well in slowing the CFMoto racer predictably and effectively from high speed. I could also trailbrake on the angle into the Gooseneck Esses or Manfield without the NK650-TT sitting up and understeering on me, still turning in easily and forgivingly.

“I could trailbrake on the angle into the Gooseneck Esses or Manfield without the 650 sitting up and understeering on me, still turning in easily and forgivingly.”

But I didn’t care for the chatter I especially got at Charlies on Madagascar, after I upped my pace and tried to take this critical corner that determines your eventual speed down the back straight at Cadwell one gear higher, in fourth. A couple of times I got my line wrong, and had to feather the front brake to lose a little speed – no problem with a bike that’s so forgiving it’d surely make an ideal beginner’s racer.

But the Öhlins fork needed some attention to the damping – it seemed too stiffly set up to let me max out the grip from the front Metzeler in pursuit of optimum turn speed, resulting in front-end chatter most laps there especially, if not at Cadwell’s other fast sweeper, Chris Curve. Probably that’s because I took that corner progressively harder on the throttle as it opened up, thus lightening the front-end a touch, whereas at Charlies I was on part throttle, so without as much weight transfer. Just needed some dialling in, surely…..

The riding position Gary Johnson had opted for was aimed at maximising front-end grip, because the ZX-10R seat had a thick pad on it which pushed you up in the air, and threw a good deal of your body weight onto the front wheel via your wrists, arms and shoulders. But it strangely enough didn’t seem too tiring a stance in my hour of riding the bike, and the tall screen did a good job of deflecting bugs, as well as making it easy to tuck well away behind it for those many miles of flat out riding on a bike like this which was clocked at 158mph through the TT speed traps.

With its now well prepared and even better tuned race engine fitted, the CFMoto NK650-TT was – indeed, still is – not only a serious contender for top honours in the Lightweight TT with a rider of Gary Johnson’s caliber aboard, it’s a bike that merits more widespread availability. At the point that the stock 650NK it’s derived from costs 40 per cent less than the ER-6 Kawasaki, the Chinese bike provides an affordable basis for anyone to go racing, beginner or expert, male or female.

I reckon the CFMoto factory itself should produce a customer race kit incorporating the performance tuning incorporated in Madagascar, or maybe even a turnkey racer devoid of street equipment but retaining the electric starter, just as KTM did with the RC8R Track. This is a very capable motorcycle within the context of its category, which deserves a wider audience – and it doesn’t matter where it was manufactured.

Guogui Lai Interview

Mr.Lai Guogui is CFMoto’s founder, president and principal shareholder, whom I first met when I visited his company’s factory in Hangzhou in 2014. The chance to ask him on a later encounter at the Milan Show about his company racing in the Isle of Man TT, was too good to pass up.

AC: Mr. Lai, why did CFMoto enter the Isle of Man Lightweight TT officially, with a factory-backed 650NK modified for racing by your British importer?

GL: “Competing officially in the Isle of Man TT is part of our planned strategy to develop awareness of CFMoto. As one of the most quality oriented and technically advanced manufacturers in China, CFMoto has been steadily advancing our presence in the powersports sector for some time, in producing higher end and more leisure-focused products. Participating in such a world famous race as the TT has been an opportunity to accumulate experience for our future marketing and racing programmes. In any case, our British distributor WK Bikes had already competed in this race, and we have had a long term partnership with them for some years, so we were happy to support their presence in the Lightweight TT.”

AC: What were your feelings when you saw Gary Johnson’s excellent 4th place result with the CFMoto racebike, against all the Kawasakis which dominate the class?

GL: In a world class event like this, most of the bikes in any TT race are Japanese, so I was very happy to know that CFMoto had this excellent result for our factory team. I want to say thanks to our rider Gary Johnson and WK Bikes, who I know have been working so hard on this project. Having a CFMoto entry become the first bike from a Chinese brand to finish a TT race over such a gruelling high speed course is a good encouragement for us for our future racing plans. 

CFMoto 650NK-TT Racer Specifications 

ENGINE: Liquid-cooled dohc 8-valve parallel-twin four-stroke with 180-degree crankshaft, chain camshaft drive, and single gear-driven counterbalancer, 649.3cc, 14:1 Compression Ratio, EFI with 2 x 42mm Marelli throttle bodies and single injector per cylinder, 83 x 60mm bore x stroke, 6-speed with gear primary drive gearbox, Multiplate oil-bath Sigma slipper clutch.

CHASSIS: Tubular steel diamond frame employing engine as fully-stressed member, Front: 43mm Öhlins Road and Track fully adjustable inverted telescopic fork, Rear: Extruded steel swingarm with tubular bracing and fully adjustable cantilever Öhlins monoshock, 1415mm wheelbase, 120/70-17 Metzeler RaceTec on 3.50 in. cast aluminium wheel, Rear: 180/55-17 Metzeler RaceTec on 5.50 in. cast aluminium wheel, Front: 2 x 320mm Brembo floating stainless steel discs with radially-mounted Brembo Monoblock four-piston two-pad calipers, Rear: 1 x 220mm Brembo steel disc with twin-piston Brembo caliper.

PERFORMANCE: 102bhp@10,300rpm (at rear wheel), 161kg with water/oil, no fuel, split 52/48, 253km/h top speed (Isle Of Man TT 2016)

OWNER: WK Bikes, Horncastle, Lincolnshire, UK

CFMoto 650NK-TT Racer Gallery

The post Racer Test: CFMoto 650NK-TT, Chinese-Built Supertwin  appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

He simply asked me if I was interested which didn’t need any consideration at all and all I needed to do was make sure I was free on the 17th or 18th of November for the two available days on track for the journalists at Motorland Aragon. Of course it was going to be Jonathan Rea’s hotly anticipated breakout test on the 2015 ZX-10R.

Check out our other racer tests here…

Since I was at Almeria on my standard ZX-10R for the four days leading up to the first day on track I pushed Martin to get me out on track on day one just so everything fitted together a bit better for me and not having to wait around for a full day. He kindly obliged and got me third on the list on day one. 

Pulling the curtains back in the hotel room on Monday morning revealed that it had poured rain all night and was continuing to piss down. Upon arrival at the circuit the KRT team manager Guim Roda informed us all that everything would proceed as normal and there would be no waiting or trying to get moved to the second day because they had their own things to test which also meant that under no circumstances were we allowed to crash either of the two bikes.

Guim apologised for not being able to control the weather and after a technical briefing with one of the Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) technicians it was time to get suited up. Holy shit, I thought because rain hadn’t really ever entered my mind because it just doesn’t rain in Spain and since I stopped racing you can very happily choose to simply not ride in the rain. The benefit of retirement my mate Neil Hodgson and I always say to each other, and to make matters worse I only had a dark visor.

Tom’s Crew Chief Marcel Duinker was calling me over and the warmers were off and it was time to go out on the Number 1 Kawasaki ZX-10R Factory World Superbike. It brought me back to my days racing for the Factory Kawasaki team in World Supersport and later Motogp although this time the Germans running out of Bavaria had been switched to Spaniards out of Barcelona.

“Just as I was about to pull the clutch in and nudge it into gear Guim lent over and told me in no uncertain terms, ‘Do not crash this bike’.”

Just as I was about to pull the clutch in and nudge it into gear Guim lent over and told me in no uncertain terms, ‘Do not crash this bike’. With that ringing in my ears I headed out with a quick thumbs up for encouragement from my mate and new KRT rider Jonathan Rea who was present in pit lane.

The moment I got onto the track I had a slight issue because Marcel had forgotten to tell me how to get the pit lane speed limiter off so I rode around the first 3 corners pressing every button I could find until it cleared and went off. Only later did Danilo (Tom’s Electronics and data guy) tell me all I needed to do was change into second and it switched off automatically. Finally up and running I had to remind myself not to use the clutch on the downshift  because the ride by wore system took care of all of that which is an absolute pleasure to ride once you get used to it.

“The first thing you notice though is the smoothness in the way the bike comes off the turns when you open the throttle.”

The first thing you notice though is the smoothness in the way the bike comes off the turns when you open the throttle. The No 1 Superbike almost feels like a cross between a V engine and the big bang Yamaha. Danilo has worked some real magic with the electronics and the fuelling to certain cylinders and when he opens to butterflies to all four cylinders to create the bottom part of the power and the early throttle opening towards the characteristics of a V engine while keeping the advantages of the inline 4 screamer engine once it starts stretching its legs up top. The early part of the throttle opening when it feels like the M1 Yamaha is hard to tell if it is related to lean angle or throttle percentage opening or rpm or a combination of all those things and more, and I am sure they are more than happy to keep their strategy to themselves.

Added with the lighter crankshaft effect on the corner entry and the extra confidence and stability you get running into the turn the bikes actually makes you want to ride it more and more. Even in the wet I would have been happy to do another 20 laps even if my teeth were chattering. I would have taken the extra big piece of foam Tom has on the back of the seat I assume to hold him in place simply because personally I like a bit more room to move around on the seat and the bike. Tom typically brakes really hard and late, he stops the bike to turn it, then gets the bike up and accelerates as hard as possible out of the turn. Even in the wet I could see the bike is set up to be very stable on the brakes and very stable on hard upright acceleration. Tom would explain in a little more detail later on when we chatted why this was the case. 

I had one little moment on the gas when I was accelerating onto the long back straight from low rpms in second gear when I was almost upright and again like David’s bike I thought I was past the risky point and I was able to safely keep opening the throttle when suddenly it stepped out really quickly. My feet stayed on the foot pegs on tom’s bike but still I had to close the throttle and take a little more care next time around. You get to around 40% throttle it you feel like you are hooked up and maybe the suspension is reaching a hard point or the link even reaching a hard point but the tyre can’t manage it anymore and it lets go. 

Being a factory Superbike I expected some really big hit of power at the top end and the bike to really take off but we all know that is not the best way to keep a tyre consistent over race distance and the smoothness in the way the bike builds power is very impressive. You go from the big-bang style early part of the corner exit through the seamless transition onto full power of all four cylinders while quickly going up through the gearbox without any real surge but all the while knowing the bike is pulling really strong. You certainly notice how the Superbike keeps pulling in the higher gears just as strong whereas the Evo bike flattens off ever so slightly in the last couple of gears. There are no noticeable flat spots or dips in the power curve and it keep pulling strongly to just over 15,000rpm.

“You certainly notice how the Superbike keeps pulling in the higher gears just as strong whereas the Evo flattens off ever so slightly in the last couple of gears.”

I really like the way Tom’s bike came into the apex while trail braking and the stability on the brakes while downshifting quickly at the end of the straight was simply amazing but most of all fun to see how much later each time you could rush into the turn and still make it around. The only negative was it took some pressure on the lever each downshift to get each gear to go in. More of a mechanical thing but  and something you needed to be conscious of because once I went down three times only to realise it hadn’t gone down the last gear and I had to kick it down a bit firmer next time. A bit notchy is the term I think best describes it. I overheard Jonathan Rea talking about the same thing later in the day when he got out on the bike for his first couple of runs.

Again the front feeling was great on the brakes and corner entry and being able to trail brake into the turn in the wet is something I don’t remember doing that often when I raced. I have never ridden on Showa before but I have always heard that if it is the proper factory Showa material it is about as good as it gets and the feeling I had straight away in the wet was pretty confidence inspiring.

It certainly is a testament to KHI, the whole Kawasaki Racing Team and of course Tom Sykes who has been there from the start of this current ZX-10R, that they have been able to deliver such a competitive Superbike over the last three seasons only to miss out on three world titles in a row by six and half points to the almost prototype Aprilia RSV shows how good the base bike has been. This is obviously back up by the fact that Salom won the Evo class and the Stock 1000 European title should have also been claimed by the ZX-10R only for the Perdercini rider to crash on the last lap of the race in Magny Cours while in the lead and throw it out the window.

I ended up going five seconds faster on Tom’s Superbike than the Evo bike but I know probably only half of that is relevant because I was getting better each lap with the conditions and getting my brain up to speed again but I felt much more in control at a faster speed. Unfortunately I got the ‘IN’ board but one of the few times in the wet I wanted to actually keep going because they have done such a great job with the bike.

I had managed to bring both bikes back in one piece and therefore Guim would probably invite me back next year to hopefully ride another Championship winning Kawasaki but for now it was time to grab a quick chat with Tom and his side of the garage.

Team Interview

Danilo Casonato (Data Electronics)
AP: I asked Danilo about the effect he has created with the Drive by Wire system to smooth out the throttle opening.

DC: This is just the effect of the Drive by Wire system where you can manage cylinders 1 and 2 and cylinders 3 and 4 in a different way. Like you said you felt it we can use 2 cylinders with more power and 2 cylinders with less power. On the corner entry we have only one cylinder burning and therefore less engine brake and it is easier to control rather than all four cylinders.

AP: How do you guys compare to your competitors on the electronics side?

DC: Of course we try to watch what the other guys are doing and take notice but mostly we are always learning and our aim is always to react to what the riders are asking for so I suppose it is the riders that drive the direction of development. 

Marcel Duinker (Chief Mechanic)

AP: Where do you see the team in terms of competitiveness/strengths and weaknesses?

MD: I think at this level everyone is pretty equal in the end it is just each bike has different concepts and different strengths for example we have an inline 4 screamer so for the last few years we have worked very hard to come as close as possible to the positive concept of the softer V engines and I feel really proud that we were able to do this with our type of engine. Our speed over the whole season in terms of race pace was amazing. The slight changes in the rules didn’t affect us so much this year with engines limited to 8 because the Kawasaki is a strong engine and we lost no power at all.

Tom Sykes (World Champion)

AP: Well mate I have just taken your bike for a ride so firstly thanks for letting me out on her and I must say I really enjoyed it. What impressed me the most was the smooth connection when started to open the throttle and the ride by wire system on corner entry. The first part of the throttle opening though is really impressive has this been a big point that you guys have worked on from day one?

TS: Well yes because being an inline 4 it certainly is going to be more aggressive on the initial throttle opening and acceleration so we needed to create something where our competitors have strengths. We also wanted to keep the advantages of the inline 4 and I suppose masked some of the difficulties with the nature of this bike. I feel we have managed to do that very well and we have a very good base to start from every time we roll out on the bike but saying that we still have some limitations especially in the wet on the side of the tyre at full lean angle.

This is more from the suspension side of things and most particularly the rear. The electronics give you the confidence to open the throttle but then when you get to about 40% throttle opening on full lean angle you arrive at the physical limit of the traction and then you can’t keep opening the throttle, which then stops you running the lean angle you want or feel you should be able to have and hence carry the correct corner speed.

AP: So you kind of get to that point and just have to wait until you can get the bike up and onto a safer part of the tyre. You can’t keep building speed?

Tom: Exactly and a perfect example of that was the second last round at Magny Cours when leon Haslam rode around the outside where if I had made just a few more degrees of lean angle and increased the corner speed I would have had a highside. It’s unfortunate really because other than that the bike is real nice to ride. That problem that I have just mentioned in the wet is still ever so slightly present in the dry too and we can sometimes find a way around it but place like Qatar and Jerez and Magny Cours where you are on the side of the tyre for long periods of time is hurts us. Our advantage with this bike is there it works pretty well in all departments and that was my goal from day one to make a very usable bike.

AP: Chassis wise are they trying to address this and Showa are they coming with ideas?

TS: Yes Marcel has been picking his brain and coming up with ideas and thankfully both KHI and Showa have come here with some new parts and ideas to try so I am quite positive and hopeful we are going to get there. Without elaborating we have plenty of parts to try and we know what we need and now testing away from the race weekends we can get through it all and get it sorted.

Tom Sykes 2013 WorldSBK Kawasaki ZX-10R Specifications 

ENGINE: Inline four-cylinder, liquid-cooled, DOHC 16-valve, 998cc, 76mm x 55mm bore & stroke, Magneti Marelli Ride-By-Wire EFI with 47mm throttle-bodies and oval sub-throttles, electric motors fitted to throttle-bodies for RBW, lightened crank, KHI camshafts, conrods, pistons, cylinder-head, gearbox, clutch all top secret! Akropovic Ti exhaust system, KHI wiring loom

CHASSIS: Stock ZX-10R frame with bracing around the head stock and an insert for head angle changes. Swingarm pivot point adjustable, factory swingarm, carbon-fibre sub-frame, KHI rearsets, ‘bars, levers and controls, Showa factory suspension, Marchesini wheels, Brembo brakes, SpeedFiber carbon-fibre bodywork

PERFORMANCE: Approximately 220hp@15,000rpm, 165kg

Owner: KRT. Currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Tom Sykes 2013 WorldSBK Kawasaki ZX-10R Gallery

The post Racer Test: Tom Sykes’ WorldSBK Championship Winning Kawasaki ZX-10R appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

So when the chance came up to ride the very last version of the famous and successful TZ250 I couldn’t say no and just quietly I was quite looking forward to it. This bike was a little special though, it had come directly from the Garage 4413 team who campaigned it to the runner-up slot in the All Japan 250cc Championship. The bike’s current owner, Harry Danilidis, purchased it from the team two years ago, straight after the Championship.

Check out our other racer tests here…

Harry chose it simply because, in his own words, ‘it was a pure race bike and the last of its breed’. Harry’s passion for the bike is evident when he lets us know that it only did one season and was never crashed so therefore the spares kit is still full. It made me feel quite privileged to be given an open pit lane, a clear circuit and a brand new set of soft compound Bridgestone slicks to use as I saw fit.

On the technical side, the bike is a kitted TZ250-5KE and the final evolution of the original TZ250. In standard trim the bike puts out a claimed 93hp but with the addition of the kit that is boosted significantly to 105hp. The cylinders are factory items but the porting is done in-house by the team. A few other parts are sourced from ‘The Japanese Tuning House for Yamaha GP bikes’.

The ignition system is Yamaha along with the dry clutch and the factory exhausts. Trevor Lusby of Scott’s MC was our mechanic for the day and looks after the bike. He mixed the fuel at a fairly conservative fuel/oil mix for us journos and has jetted the bike slightly on the rich side just to be safe and taking into account the cool morning temperature.

I had previously ridden a GSX-R750 earlier in the day testing some Pirelli tyres and that is usually considered a pretty nimble bike in terms of the big four-strokes so when I jumped on the TZ and accelerated out onto the private circuit more affectionately known as ‘The Farm’ I knew I was on the right bike. Anyone who has ridden at The Farm will know that there is absolutely no rest and corner after corner that includes a five-changes-of-direction chicane to give a grand total of 29 corners. If there was any bike you would want under you while negotiating 29 corners per lap then this little Yamaha is the one.

As I wound up to speed and got used to the two-stroke again, the brakes were the first thing that took me by surprise with their incredible stopping power. The Nissin calipers give great feel and that coupled with the Bridgestone front tyre soon pushed aside any concerns I had of stopping without the assistance of the engine braking that I have come to rely on. I simply just squeezed the TZ’s brakes a little harder and never missed an apex all day.

I have to mention the Bridgestones that Trevor had fitted for me because from the moment I went out and got the bike on my knee, they gave me great confidence and feedback. The front actually seemed to get better and better the harder I pushed it and although the rear started to slide on the corner exits towards the end it was very predictable and a lot of fun. This was typical of a soft compound tyre getting a little hot and starting to move around a little.

The engine pulls from as low as 6-7000rpm exiting the slow turns but builds revs really quickly as I went up through the gears all the way to the shift point about 12,500rpm via the quickshifter. It flattened a little right at the top but as Trevor mentioned earlier this was due to him going on the rich side with the jetting. This also made it a little rough on initial opening from closed throttle at low rpm.

The real reminder that you are riding a true race bike comes when going back down through the gearbox. Rushing into one of the turns in fourth gear then banging it down all the way to first reminds you how easy and quickly this is done on a two-stroke. I went down three gears while braking really hard with the rear wheel barely touching the surface and there wasn’t the slightest unsettling from the rear during the downshifts.

Initially looking at the bike I assumed it would feel very cramped and small with the high footpegs but once I was on the bike and lapping I had plenty of space in the turns and no problem getting tucked in down the two straights.

The TZ gives the feeling and response that I remember chasing on the four-strokes for years. The little Yamaha turns in very easily without being unpredictable and comes into an apex time after time and holds its line on the exit because it steers on the throttle.

Finally I have to bring up the five-corner chicane again because on most bikes you would be thinking, oh no not again but on the TZ you finding yourself looking forward to reassuring yourself that it really is that easy. Sadly though, these pure race bikes were built for one reason and are destined for museums, parade laps and passionate collectors. Very few will have the opportunity to sample these thoroughbreds, which is a shame.

Jeffs Thoughts
I’ve wanted to ride a proper late model 250GP forever. Having raced 250 proddies for years and being part of a top running Honda team in Japan that ran 250 GP bikes (I was riding 600s and 1000s), I’ve always drooled over 250 GP machines. But a few things stopped me ever racing one – mainly money and my fat arse! 

The first thing that grabs me is the size. I’m 25kg heavier than I was last time I rode a 250… Once I squeezed in I was OK. And after the initial amount of clutch slip and rpm took me a second to get used to after so many years of four-stroke riding, I was off up the chute. The bike was hot and the tyres too so I wasted no time. I put my head down and ran the bike through to 12,500rpm. I like to do that – rather than ease into a shock of power just get the shock over with! Once I had a feel for the powerband and throttle I was off.

I’ve done a million laps of The Farm and never been fully satisfied on any bike I’ve ridden on the challenging layout. There is always a section that doesn’t suit a bike in some way. But not this time. The TZ250 is perfection.

The bike was jetted on the rich side so it was a matter of rolling off the throttle very gently mid-turn to lean the bike out then it would snap into its powerband and that sticky rear Bridgestone would step out. So much fun! The gearbox actuation was incredible and the quickshifter sensational.

But the big thing for me was the performance of the front-end – the tyre, brakes and forks all worked together to give feel and accuracy that I simply have never felt before. No chance of running wide or missing an apex whether on or off the brakes. The chassis was inch perfect everywhere and the most amazing section, the Famous Five Esses, was a dream on the 100kg 105hp pure racer.

The bike was so well presented and it was a real honour to ride it. I can honestly say I’ve never had so much fun on two wheels. It’s over and above the ride on John Kosinski’s Cagiva 500 or Broc Parkes’ ZX-6R. It was just a dream come true for this boy racer!

2009 Yamaha TZ250 5KE SPECIFICATIONS 

Price: N/A
Power: 105Hp
Wet weight: 95kg

Engine: Yamaha 5KE 250cc two-stroke GP engine, SJK internals
Bore & stroke: 54 x 54.5mm 
Displacement: 249cc
Compression: 7.2 – 7.7:1
Fuel delivery: Keihin flatslides
Exhaust: Yamaha Racing
Gearbox: Cassette-style adjustable ratios
Clutch: Dry
Final drive: Chain

Chassis: Aluminium, hand made
Wheelbase: Variable
Rake & trail: Variable
Suspension: Front: Showa; Rear: Showa
Brakes: Front: Nissin/Brembo Rear: Nissin
Wheels: Front: 2.75 x 17 Magnesium Rear: 5.50 x 17 Magnesium
Tyres: Bridgestone slicks

2009 Yamaha TZ250 5KE Gallery

The post Racer Test: 2009 Yamaha TZ250 GP Bike appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

I had a bit of time to look over the Yamaha before riding it and what a work of art. By far the sexiest machine on the grid with loads of exposed carbon-fibre and titanium, the YWST R1 was about as distanced as you can get from the road bike…

Check out our other Throwback Thursdays here…..

Melandri is quite short, so my expectations were that I would simply not fit on the bike. But I was wrong. Aside from the rearsets being way too high for me, I actually found the bike a good fit as I try the number 33 bike for size a few minutes before my allocated session.

The bars are flat and pulled back GP style, the seat height not radically tall, the dash a good easy layout and the tank feels much narrower than the bulky streetbike tank. The bike feels nothing at all like a stock R1. If anything it feels like a large version of a TZ250 GP bike to sit in. Really surprising…

As Silvano, the Chief Engineer, fired the beast into life while the mechanics smiled at me (I’m sure the journo day is good entertainment for them) I got a little nervous, understandable I guess. I had not seen the track for almost 12 months and I had never ridden a WSBK bike.

I rolled forward, click up, fan the clutch and motor down pit lane with hundreds of people watching me. No pressure then? That sweet drone of the big bang engine is really exaggerated on the WSBK bike and by the time I exited pit lane it hit me – this is really happening! Melandri’s R1!

I knew the track very well and there is no time to muck around. I treated the first lap as a warm up lap in a race for example, so by the time I cross the chute for the first time I was trying hard. I’d already decided that this may be my only chance to ride these bikes and that I was going to have fun…

The top end of the bike shocked me, where the street bike drops away this thing starts to really haul – at that point the fastest top end I have ever felt on any bike and mades our domestic superbikes feel like 600s. Braking hard for turn one from around 300km/h I was given my very first experience of what $60,000 brakes feel like. The feeling was like nothing I have experienced and the stopping power incredible. At least 30 per cent more than anything I’ve ridden, I couldn’t imagine what a MotoGP bike must be like…

The back shifting was cool – I just clicked up and the bike revved itself and dropped down the gears allowing me to focus on braking and turning, something normal these days. The initial turn-in is ultra light and fast, quicker than all the bikes on the day as it turns out, and the biggest surprise for me was how soft the suspension is. The forks were very soft, even by a street set-up, but that was how Marco liked it apparently.

Braking hard for turn one from around 300km/h I was given my very first experience of what $60,000 brakes feel like.

Wayne Gardner rode the Ben Spies bike in 2009, he found the bike difficult to turn between initial turn and full lean but this problem had been solved – Marco’s bike falls graciously on its side and remains super planted. The grip from the SC1 WSBK Pirellis was insane and at that point I was cranked over further than I’d ever been.

Picking up the throttle is so easy. The Yamaha was the smoothest fuelling machine there and completely seamless, even from first gear corners. As soon as the throttle was cracked there was no jump, just smooth incredible torque and drive as the fat rear tyre hooks up while the unobtrusive electronics do their thing.

All up one of the best motorcycling experiences of my life and it only lasted 15 minutes. I guess that is all it takes to have a good time!

The bike is so quick off the corners I felt like I was being fired out of a cannon. Shifting via the quickshifter was smooth and the run-on into corners was amazing – there was very little engine braking but it comes in before the apex as the rpm drops – helping pull the bike into a nice tight line. Then it is point and fire off the turn, riding the back wheel to take full advantage.

The dynamics of the Yamaha made it a great racer. It was really nimble and fast steering, so it would’ve been great to fight for positions on and it fired off corners at almost any rpm. Really, a sensational bike to ride with an incredible top end to match.

As I came over the back dip for the second time I got a scare! Marco has the wheelie control set-up to work at high rpm but for a plonker like me who short shifts it isn’t working. I almost flipped the bike in fourth gear at about 200km/h and go for rear brake – but the lever is only for show. Marco runs no rear brake – at all! Doesn’t use it… Phew…

Well I got the bike back in one piece and was grinning like a mad man and hugging the crew – they were stoked to see someone so excited as well. All up one of the best motorcycling experiences of my life and it only lasted 15 minutes. I guess that is all it takes to have a good time.

TECH TALK
Featuring a revolutionary crossplane crankshaft engine and unique uneven firing order, the production model of the 2011 YZF-R1 delivers near linear torque providing smoother acceleration and greater levels of grip than previously thought possible, setting new standards for one litre sportsbikes.

Modifications to the machine for WSBK racing from the homologated model include different camshafts, pistons, valves, an enlarged radiator for extra cooling and the addition of an oil cooler. The 2011 YZF-R1 had no rear sub-frame but incorporates a strengthened frame. The exhaust was unique, and was developed in partnership with Akrapovic. The standard fuel tank was also been replaced with a lightweight version with an increased capacity, within FIM regulations.

The bike featured the latest Magneti Marelli (MHT) electronic systems with over 30 sensors on the bike to monitor variables such as temperature and pressure of air, oil, water and fuel. The temperature of the brakes and the tyres were also measured, as well as brake pressure, suspension travel, speed, acceleration, throttle position, camshaft position and crankshaft position. The swingarm was also developed purely for the WSBK racebike.

Many other details had been modified in parts and body design, a variety of carbon and titanium bits and pieces awere used that made the Yamaha WSB R1 one of the most sophisticated bikes on the grid.

For 2011, development was focused on further improved weight balance of the bike, resulting in again a further optimisation of fuel tank position as well as a power increase and further electronic systems improvements for traction, anti-wheelie and torque control as well as engine brake control.

Further regulation changes to the 2011 racing bike also include the use of more production parts such as fuel injectors, fuel pump and fuel regulator which also had an effect on the fuel injection mappings used in 2011.

2011 WSBK Melandri Yamaha YZF-R1 Specifications

Power: Over 215hp
Wet weight: 162kg
Fuel capacity: 23L

Engine:Liquid-cooled, four-cylinder, four-valve, DOHC four-stroke, Akropovic exhaust system, BMC airfilter
Bore and stroke: 78.0 x 52.2mm
Displacement: 998cc
Fuel delivery: Magneti Marelli
Gearbox: Six-speed cassette-style
Clutch: Wet, multi-plate slipper clutch

Frame type: Aluminium Deltabox
Wheelbase: Adjustable
Rake: Adjustable
Trail: Adjustable
Front suspension: Ohlins with TTX36 internals
Rear suspension: Ohlins TTX25 with YRT swingarm
Front brakes: 320mm Brembo rotors, Brembo four-piston monoblock calipers and Brembo radial-pull master-cylinder
Rear brake: Single 220mm rotor with twin-piston Brembo caliper
Front and rear wheels: Marchesini
Front tyre: Pirelli Slick, 120/70 – 16.5
Rear tyre: Pirelli Slick, 190/50 – 16.5 or 200/55 – 16.5

Instruments: Magneti Marelli race dash

2011 WSBK Melandri Yamaha YZF-R1 Gallery

The post Racer Test: Marco Melandri’s 2011 WSBK Yamaha YZF-R1 appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

Not only have I always been a fan of the Katana and all classic era Japanese fours, I’ve always admired the drag racing engineering brilliance and huge list of achievements Trevor Birrell and Dale Gilbert have collectively amassed over the past 30-years. Then of course, there’s the pure awe of watching Steve Martin reeling off insanely fast laps on this bike, like his 1:38.373 on the Saturday of the Classic. What a lap…

Check out our other racer tests here…

The Trevor Birrell Racing/D&D Industries/QBE/Suzuki team came together when Trevor and Dale were looking for a new challenge from a life of drag racing. They all visited the Phillip Island Classic in 2009, along with friend the late Peter Kerr of Racebike Services. Dale and Trevor were introduced to Steve Martin via Peter, who was an original sponsor and mate of South Australian Steve.

12 months later Steve blew everyone away on a Katana built by the guys and things went from there, the team winning the Phillip Island Classic in 2010, 2013 and 2014 and BSFS 2012. Dale and Trevor brought in their long time drag racing supporters, Castrol and Serco, while Steve brought in Pirelli tyres and QBE Insurance to form their team along with other team sponsors Suzuki Australia, Bendix, Venhill, Light Alloy Engineering, Race Bike Services, MCR, Springwood Suzuki and Dunlop.

Steve’s #99 TBR Katana
The #99 is the most famous bike in classic racing and for good reason. When it arrived on the scene back in 2010 at the Phillip Island Classic, Steve smashed everyone taking pole position and four wins from four starts! Not bad for a bunch of drag racers with a gun rider!

Trevor Birrell is famous for his big four-stroke air-cooled engines, particularly Suzukis. He started drag racing in 1982 and earned Nine Australian Championships and 17 National Records between 1982 and 2011. Dale started drag racing in 1984 and soon started building bodywork and chassis for drag bikes and has won over 10 National Championships.

After the previously mentioned hook up at PI, the guys realised they had enough parts to have a go. Initially using a braced standard frame then moving to chrome-moly in 2011. The engine is based on the mighty GSX1100 and was built to a tight budget using TBR’s 30-years worth of spares and plenty of know-how from Trevor.

The barrels are bored and sleeved to take the 79mm JE custom order forged pistons, which are decompressed slightly. With a 66mm stroke the bike is 1296cc. There are two types of head used by Trevor, a big port head and a CNC ported head. Gilesey’s bike runs the CNC head as he likes the aggressive punch, while Steve uses the smaller port head but more aggressive cams, Steve prefers this type of power delivery than the more aggressive initial throttle opening of the other engine set-ups.

Valves are stainless steel and oversize and Trevor currently gets two race meetings before the head needs a service. Titanium valves and brass alloy seats are high on the priority list but at $150 a valve versus $30 a valve, budget prohibits this for now. Springs are APE and titanium retainers are used. The camshafts Steve runs are TBR units and quite aggressive, while Giles and Roberts run Yoshimura Stage III and cam timing is secret!

The #99 bike runs Pirellis and the rear tyre is not able to sit on the narrow 5.5in rim correctly, contributing to grip issues. The gentler mid range allows Steve to open the throttle earlier but the thing still spins up a lot once the tacho hits 6000rpm, as it is quite a peaky power delivery.

The standard crankcases are used, although EFE are slightly stronger internally than GSX/Katana cases, they are identical externally. The team have a few sets of EFE cases but Steve’s bike runs Katana cases.

The crankshaft is GSX1000S, a special edition Katana built for endurance racing homologation, such as the Castrol 6 Hour. The cranks were stronger and had bigger conrods and are still available as an OEM part. Trevor uses these after welding and balancing. He also bronze bushes the small ends as they get extremely hot and gudgeon pins turn orange so need to be replaced regularly!

The gearbox is standard GSX with heavily undercut gear dogs and a modified detent mechanism, however, the biggest upgrade is the GSX-R1000K6 slipper clutch and Light Alloy Engineering clutch cover. Some challenges have arisen with the gearbox autoshifting when the clutch releases into turns, as it was not designed to be unloaded, but Trevor is working on an improved detent setup between races.

The exhaust system is a sexy Yoshimura period replica titanium four-into-one and fuelling is via Keihin 35mm smoothbore carburettors. The team have extensively tested with 37mm and even 39mm but the 35mm items offer the most controllable power.

Ignition is by MSD MC-4 using a single ignition curve. The MSD ignition has a huge range of capabilities and in future could be used to help some traction problems, with programmable gear specific ignition curves on hand, multiple switchable maps and rev limits the MSD system could help Steve with tyre life and traction via switchable maps, particularly towards the end of a race. It’s a great system used a lot in drag racing.

Spark plugs are NGK J10A items. The engine is wet sump, runs Castrol 10w40 oil and a Lockheed oil cooler and fuel is Avgas. Starting is via remote external starter. A trick addition are quick-release engine mounts, another trick from the drag racing world.

The chassis is a work of art. Dale Gilbert is a renowned drag racing chassis engineer and applied his skills to this road racer. After building a jig off a stock Katana frame, Dale built the chrome-moly frames by hand, heavily bracing them. The three frames are all different spec as per rider’s choice; with the #24 frame an original steel item to mute the critics out there and prove the team can be competitive on a stock frame.

Once the frame is fabricated, it is measured and aligned at Motorcycle Crash Repairs in Victoria using a Scheibner digital measuring system and aligned on a Globaljig frame straightener. The frames are not painted, saving weight and making repairs easy at the track. The swingarm was originally a $50 unit from an RF900 but rules changed and a hand made braced swingarm had to be fabricated. This was done by Light Alloy Engineering and is a work of art.

The wheels are GSX-R1000 front and GSF650 rear, with Manta rotors and AP Lockheed calipers fed by Venhill lines and squeezing very trick Bendix Carbon-Matrix pads. Shocks are Ohlins and the forks are CBR600F2 with Ohlins internals. Racebike Services Tony Hamilton tunes suspension.

All billet parts including the triple-clamps are made by Dale on his CNC mill. The dash is a single centrally-mounted Auto Meter Phantom tacho with an oil warning light, a tether on the left bar is also fitted and a kill switch on the right. Grips are Renthal and the throttle is from a KX250 Kawasaki, while the ‘bars themselves are chrome-moly aftermarket items.

The bodywork is stunning and also hand made by Dale Gilbert. From a distance you swear it has the original grey pillion seat on it. Amazing job…

On Board the #99 TBR Katana
The first thing I noticed about the #99 katana was the rolled back feel – a lower ride-height than the other bikes. The front felt taller and I felt like I was really sitting in the bike rather than on it, more like an original Katana. The ‘bars are widely spaced and under the triple-clamp but still feel tall by modern standards. Grips are ultra-thin, which I found really hard to hold and have a relaxed grip on.

“A big wide air-cooled motor protruding out either side under a narrow, long fuel tank mounted to a narrow frame really gives me the impression I’m about to ride a big motor with handlebars and wheels bolted to it!”

The footpegs are close to the seat and being an old girl there is a nice long reach to the ‘bars, which helps to duck behind the tiny fairing. Overall it’s a good fighting position. The 1980s superbike feel is something else. A big wide air-cooled motor protruding out either side under a narrow, long fuel tank mounted to a narrow frame really gives me the impression I’m about to ride a big motor with handlebars and wheels bolted to it!

The siren goes off and the guys get the remote starter out and fire the beast into life. The servo pie and large strawberry Moove I had for breakfast, well, hangover cure, is churning in my stomach. For some reason I thought a Berocca to wash it all down would help but it ain’t helping now. Damn I shouldn’t have opened that second bottle of red last night. Worse – I’ve got my brand new Ricondi custom suit on for the first time and I was a full 8kg lighter when I was measured for it! Time to lose my reputation as the fastest A Grader in Australia with a triple-chin, I reckon!

Well if anything is going to snap me into life it’s a bloody big-engined Katana so I roll out pit lane onto the track. The Pirellis are straight off the warmers and time is limited so I don’t muck around, knee is on the deck in turn one. I fire out of one to two and can’t believe the power of this thing – really, it’s amazing up top, or at least feels that way with the delivery.

As soon as I change direction for turn two I feel the chassis difference on Steve’s bike. The steering is quick, ultra quick in initial turn, but a bit of muscle is required to get the bike over on its side for the run through the apex. I’m struggling and running wide. I feel like I can’t lean the bike fully over. I push on for a lap and figure it out then try and have a bit of fun. First run onto the chute I notice the Pirelli really sliding around as the bike weaves and bucks wide open in fourth gear (it also pulls fifth there no worries!).

I grab fifth 100m or so before the start line and do my best to tuck my lard in behind the screen and fairing. This bike is wickedly fast but does not feel quite as fast as the other two at the end of the straight. I still absolutely blast past a BMW S 1000 RR and two Fireblades! Hahah. Suckers!

Sitting up and peeling into T1 on the brakes I almost oversteer, then pull the bike on its side through the turn. It’s hard work and I take my hat off to Steve. He must be a fit old bastard! Opening the gas the initial drive of the big port motors is not there but once the engine is revving higher the acceleration from T1 to T2 is amazing. Hard on the brakes helps me get the bike on its side for the double-apex through Southern loop.

There is some sidewall pumping from the rear tyre out of Southern Loop and then the run to Stoner Corner and the corner itself is a blur. It is literally a blink form T2 to T3. I’m in fourth through Stoner corner, pinned to the stop on the exit and it’s superbike fast. As I approach Honda I think about the escape road then decide to give the brakes a good squeeze. I’m amazed at how good they are and the familiar feel of the Carbon-Matrix pads is there immediately. They need heat and they cool by Honda so the first bit of initial braking is not there then they get hot and bang you have brakes for the lap until they cool again on the chute…

I pull it up for Honda. Again, initial steering moment is super quick but then I find it hard to complete the turn and keep it on its side nice and tight. The power delivery off Honda causes wheelspin. I also notice I’m carrying a full 1000rpm less than on the other bikes as I can easily hold second gear for Siberia while on the others I felt I needed to grab third briefly. I’m told Gilesy just revs it to 10,500rpm in second there!

“Holy crap! Even the seagulls don’t scare me as I’ve got a massive air-cooled engine to take them out with!”

Through Siberia the #99 machine is good once in the turn and fires off the corner like a missile. This is where these bikes feel really fast, from Siberia to Lukey Heights. Holy crap! Even the seagulls don’t scare me as I’ve got a massive air-cooled engine to take them out with! Lukey Heights arrives quickly and I crack the throttle to get balance and a bit of drive, but I get wheelspin. Amazing.

Braking into MG is easy, the powerful brakes and firm front end and lower rear ride height mean Steve’s bike is stable here. The gearbox is super heavy in shift and the throttle is also heavy, so I feel a bit clumsy here, in and out of the corner where you short-shift to third. Driving through T10 takes a bit of finesse as the Pirelli wants to light up, then it’s 9500rpm in third before grabbing fifth for the ride of your life through the final corner, the big Kat wheel spinning and wheel standing onto the chute like the angry beast it is.

I did another few laps and that was enough for me. My arms usually don’t get that sore and I can ride a superbike all day long as I’m just relaxed on a bike but, my hands were cramping and every muscle in my upper body strained. It was either the Katana or the pie but I’m blaming the Katana. At the end of the test I could not get the grin off my face. Hats off to the team who have proven that drag racers can go road racing with great success.

The Three TBR Katanas
I also managed to test the #19 bike of the legendary Shawn Giles as well as the #24 steel framed bike of Brendan Roberts on the days, which will both get full features soon. All three bikes were very different and it is amazing how they achieve the same lap time in such different ways.

Shawn’s #19 bike was on rails, tall in the back, low in the front with soft forks and smooth, linear power delivery from low rpm to the peak. It was easy steering and not tiring to ride.

Brendan Robert’s #24 bike, which has the steel original heavily braced frame, was the fastest straight-line bike of the trio with monster mid range and top end power, smooth delivery but not as smooth as the Giles engine, and a nice handling set-up but pretty flexy and with plenty of headshake.

Brendan’s bike had to be manhandled a fair bit more and had a firmer suspension set-up too. Steve’s bike was a wild animal, with the shortest chrome-moly frame here and the most aggressive engine, she sure was a loose unit that could do with some sitting in a dark room calming down! YeeHaa!

#99 Steve Martin TBR Suzuki Katana Specifications 

ENGINE: Trevor Birrell Racing engine. 1982 GSX1100 Katana based engine, 79 x 66mm bore x stroke, 1296cc, 10:1 compression, GSX1100/Katana crankcases, Suzuki GSX barrels bored and resleeved to accept 79mm, Wiseco forged alloy pistons, Wiseco rings, GSX1000S polished and welded crankshaft, Suzuki main bearings, big end bearings and conrods, CNC ported cylinder-head, oversize valves (+3mm EX, +4mm IN), RD valve springs, modified valve seats, Yoshimura stage III cams, GSX-R1000K6 slipper clutch, standard plates and heavy-duty springs, modified shift drum, undercut gear dogs using standard five-speed gearbox, GS750 primary drive gears, 35mm Keihin smoothbore carburettors, titanium Yoshimura exhaust system, MSD-MC4 ignition unit, D&D Industries billet engine covers and remote starter access, Lockheed oil cooler.

CHASSIS & BODYWORK: Dale Gilbert D&D Industries chassis and bodywork, hand made chrome-moly tubing with additional bracing in steering head and swingarm pivot areas, 20mm shorter than standard Katana, standard Katana steering head size and rake angle. Frame is measured on a Scheibner measuring system and straightened on a Globaljig frame aligner at Motorcycle Crash Repairs. Light Alloy Engineering swingarm, Ohlins shocks, CBR600F2 forks with Ohlins internals, GSX-R1000 3.5 x 17in front wheel, GSF650 5.0 x 17 rear wheel, Pirelli slicks, Manta rotors (f), AP Lockheed dual-piston calipers, stainless rotor, Suzuki caliper (r), GPX-Pro GPS lap timer and data loggers (testing only), D&D Industries fibreglass bodywork, D&D Industries CNC billet triple-clamps, billet rearsets, all CNC billet parts made by D&D Industries, aftermarket chrome-moly handlebars.

PERFORMANCE:185-horsepower, 140ft-lbs torque, top speed Phillip Island 260km/h, best lap 2014 Phillip Island Classic 1:38.373.

#99 Steve Martin TBR Suzuki Katana Gallery

The post Racer Test: Steve Martin’s #99 TBR Suzuki Katana appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....

“The acceleration is what really shocked me. Compared to the NSR, the RCV is amazing. It’s just phenomenal.” Those are the words of 1987 world 500 grand prix champion, Wayne Gardner – who was still sweating after a sliding, wheelstanding, wheelspinning ride on Max Biaggi’s Repsol Honda RC211V. It had been 13 years since the 18-time GP winner had ridden a grand prix bike, his last world championship race being the South African Grand Prix, 1992, aboard an NSR500.

Read Mossy’s test of Rossi’s RC211V here…

Fittingly, and by pure chance, his return to the Honda garage was under the watchful eye of Erv Kanemoto – who was also there for Gardner’s last GP. “Walking into the pit garage and seeing Erv was great,” said Wayne, “It wasn’t planned that way and it was very fitting that my return to riding a grand prix motorcycle was with Erv. “As soon as I walked into the pits those 13 years seemed to disappear. I felt like I hadn’t left, although I am older and fatter now! But the feeling was still there. It was very emotional for me.”

It was the Australian Grand Prix – an event that was built from the foundations laid by Gardner back in the late ‘80s – and a fitting place for WG to give his fans a buzz. It was also an opportunity for Phillip Island to say ‘Thank you’ to the man that put Aussie motorcycling on the map. As Gardner caught up with old mates in the Honda camp, his 1987 NSR500 was wheeled out into pit lane and placed alongside the #3 RCV of Biaggi.

Check out our other racer tests here…

The crowd began to stir as images of the old Rothmans Honda were shown on the screens around track. You can bet that most of the crowd are hardened GP goers. Punters that were there for Gardner’s gutsy wins in 1989 and 1990. The NSR’s livery was bringing back memories. The crowd was starting to rumble…

“The build-up to the ride was amazing. It was an experience I’ll never forget. As I was gearing up in the change room I just couldn’t believe it’d been 13 years. The routine was the same. Leathers on. Then boots. Stretching. Walking into the garage and getting the rundown from Erv. Earplugs in as the bike is being warmed up. Brap. Brap. Brap… “Checking the monitor, cleaning my visor. Checking my helmet strap and then, finally, getting the nod from Erv. You’re up!”

“The first thing I noticed about the RC211V is the size,” admits Wayne, “Although it looks very tight and compact, Biaggi’s bike is actually quite roomy. The reach to the ‘bars is further than the old NSR and the seat-to-footpeg distance is also roomy. There’s plenty of space to move around on the bike.”

With 250-odd horsepower on tap and, err, a fair gap between rides, it was no surprise that the Repsol Honda garage began to stir and break into a group cold sweat as Gardner rolled out into pit lane and began his trip to the pit lane exit. All eyes turned to the monitor and Erv Kanemoto was at the front, joined by team manager Tanaka-San. Silence was followed by bursts of nervous laughter as Wayne wheelstood out of pit lane and onto the track…

“As soon as I clicked first and started to ride away I thought, ‘I remember how to do this. I know how to ride a GP bike,’ so I pulled a wheelie straight away!” The plan was for WG to do a sighting lap and two flying laps, so there was no rush to set the world on fire in the first corner. Still, once a racer…

“I was supposed to wave at the crowd, just do some demo laps. I took it easy for the first few corners, then I made a decision – bugger waving at the crowd, I’m going to have some fun on this thing!” With a lifetime of experience on wild NSR500s it is no surprise that Gardner found the RCV to be smooth and rideable, comparing it to one of his favourite bikes, the Suzuka 8-hour RVFs that he enjoyed so much success on.

“The RC211V is very rideable. The power curve is really, really good – just like a roadbike but much more powerful. Initially I made the mistake of riding the bike a bit too much like a two-stroke, keeping it in the high rpm. The result was lots of wheelstands and wheelspinning, but I soon figured out where to short-shift and how to ride the torque. The V5 is amazing. It pulls from quite low in the rev range and it’s nice through the bottom-end and mid-range. From 9000rpm the bike really starts to accelerate hard and to 17000rpm it is just amazing.

“The V5 is amazing. It pulls from quite low in the rev range… From 9000rpm the bike really starts to accelerate hard and to 17000rpm it is just amazing.”

“The gearbox is terrific. Biaggi has his shifter set very sensitively and you only have to touch it to change gears. The ratios are wider than the old two-strokes and I think this is a motorcycle that could benefit from overgearing – because of the torque curve. It’s very useable. “I liked the clutch set-up, with the back-torque limiter. I tried it out into Honda hairpin and the rear tyre just skipped a little. It is set just right.” Wrestling the NSRs of 1985 to 1988 was hard work (they improved in 1989), and Gardner developed a very aggressive point and shoot riding style, steering with the rear wheel out of necessity.

The modern grand prix motorcycle is, however, much more refined in the chassis department. “I can’t believe how well the RCV handles,” admits WG, “Turn-in is very light, very easy, accurate and predictable. The motorcycle is extremely stable, even through the fast sections, and the brakes are fantastic. They are so, so hard hitting once they’re up to temperature. Really amazing. There’s good feel and feedback from the chassis, it’s very neutral and reasonably light – but it does feel heavier than the 500.”

“Max likes to ride with lots of corner speed, so he runs the front very stiff and the rear quite soft. That didn’t really work too well for me as I’m more aggressive on the throttle off the turns, so a few times on my last lap the rear squatted and the bike ran wide off the turn – but that’s only a setting issue.”

NSR500 vs RC211V
“Wow. I really don’t know where to start with the differences – the NSR just seems so old, a bit like it’s rider!” Gardner spent some time sitting on his 1987 NSR after the RC211V ride – and he couldn’t believe the difference. “I didn’t realize that the NSR had aged so much but I guess it is almost 20-years old now. It’s just so small, it feels like a mini bike!”

With a weight limit of only 115 kilograms compared to the RCV’s 148 kilograms and no bulky electrics it’s no wonder the NSR500 feels so small. It is. The seat height is much lower than the RCV, the NSR is narrower and the bike is generally pretty bare bones by today’s standards.

“Still, millions of dollars were spent developing the 1987 NSR500 and it was a very, very fast motorcycle – plus it won the world championship. But I wouldn’t say it was a good motorcycle at that stage in its development. The ’86, ’87 and ’88 NSR500s were very, very difficult to ride.” Although the brutish NSR got a new chassis for 1987, a new V angle of 112-degrees and a conventional crankshaft rotation (clockwise), the V4 500 was still a handful, and didn’t like to go around corners. “The only way to turn the NSR was with the rear wheel – and you have to work hard to do that for 30-laps on a 190-horsepower bike with a 4000rpm powerband.

“500s are very physical to ride over race distance, and mentally draining. Keeping them on the pace is tough and they are easy to over ride and crash on. The RC211V felt much easier to ride and I think that, over race distance, the four-stroke would be easier than the two-stroke. In saying that, these guys are doing an amazing job riding at the level that they are. Rossi seems to be the only rider taking a four-stroke beyond its limit day-in-day-out but the others are still very fast.”

“The RCV felt much easier to ride and I think that, over race distance, the four-stroke would be easier than the two-stroke.”

“Technology has come a long way since the NSR days, and it shows when you look at the fundamental components of each of these factory bikes. The NSR wears cast-iron rotors with conventionally mounted four-piston calipers. The RC211V has carbon rotors with radial-mount calipers. The NSR has conventional forks – the RC has huge inverted items. The list goes on.”

“The 500 was very mechanical – no quickshifter, no rider aids such as traction control, back-torque limiting, or even telemetry! It was still very much seat of the pants riding, right down to jetting the four 36mm Keihin carburettors and picking gearbox ratio’s – which was absolutely crucial on the 500. “Riding the RC211V was a hell of an experience. But I have to say, nothing beats the excitement of a 500cc Grand Prix two-stroke!”

The RC211V engine is a direct descendant of a V6 Honda engine called the FXX, which was designed in the late ’80s to optimise mass centralisation and compactness. The engine was successful, but never put into production – despite out-performing the RC30’s V4. RC211V project leader, Tomoo Shiozaki, was part of the team that developed the FXX, and the influence of that engine shows in the RCV’s V5. The V5 was chosen to avoid the 10kg penalty a six-cylinder would incur – plus Honda though it would be a good challenge…

Biaggi’s Honda RC211V MotoGP Racer Specifications 

ENGINE: Liquid- cooled, DOHC, 20-valve, 990cc, 75.5-degree V5 four-stroke, 72.3mm × 48.2mm bore x stroke, Multi-injector programmable EFI, digital ignition, Six-speed cassette-type gearbox

CHASSIS: Twin-tube frame, Telescopic forks at the front, unit pro-link rear suspension, twin radial-mounted four piston calipers with carbon discs at the front, Michelin tyres all round, 17in at the front, 16.5in at the rear, 2050mm length, 600mm width, 1130mm height, 1440mm wheelbase, 130mm ground clearance..

PERFORMANCE: 240hp (increased to 256hp in 2004), 148kg wet weight, over 330km/h top speed.

OWNER: Honda Racing Corporation, Japan 

Biaggi’s Honda RCV MotoGP Racer Gallery

The post Racer Test: Wayne Gardner Rides Max Biaggi’s RC211V appeared first on Racing, Riding, Motorcycle Reviews, Race bikes, Tech Tips, Rider Training....