jason, you are one lucky guy for having such a lovely exhaust .....

owdo all, Well..here is the lovely no9 (my 9th bike ever, male if you insist and a good mate)

I bought the bike nearly 4 yrs ago from one of my best buddies. It was clean as a whistle with 16000k's on the clock. Fully tip top std panels apart from the red mid panels. Old and crappy BT56 tyres...



I loved the bike adn did nothing other than grind the sewing machine noise can off it and fit an ART can. Very loud and now at its new house.. I also popped on the no9 stickers and all was well in the world...



Ok..so I thought I had the skills...and then I crashed the bike into a dry stone wall. Was near glossop on the S bends down to Chapel en le Frith...I ran wide and had to decide to hit either a transit van or take my chances with the wall..

The wall won.



both sides were smashed off (as the bike decided to fall over out of the wall as I lay on the deck ) clutch lever, rearsets and screen brace etc. Can hanger bent, forks twisted in yokes and so on... I was devastated.

I then bought a really cheap and crappy fairing from ebay... it covered the bike and I also picked up a Quill can for it too to replace the now battered ART.

Looking good eh? NO.... I then met Tim Kilmurray..he was selling a nosecone and some lowers...so I bought them and my original one eyed monster look was born!




The bike stayed as is for a whle and then I won a Yamamoto exhaust on ebay and also fitted an RS250 Aprilia shock...




Getting better - I still think the RS250 shock is the best mod I ever did to this bike. It just transformed it from a soggy and strange bike to a planted and uber corner machine. Brilliant.

I then got addicted to trackdays...

So the bike got modded to become more of a race than road bike.

i fitted RVF carbs, open airbox and got it dyno'd. It said 66.1 bhp (which I do not believe) but the original dyno run was 60.9 and so I can believe 5bhp gain from getting the Yamamoto, RVF carbs and open airbox fitted and set up.

I acquired a new mudguard and a new race seat for my trackdays along with Coerce rearsets as I was dragging the std ones too much in corners...



**everyone bored yet? ***

The bike stayed in RC30 rep colours for a long time..until I decided on a painting session in the summer....I looked about and was going to recreat the Honda RA300 1967 f1 car scheme

...until I saw this picture and new my bike had to be painted like this...


So..it got painted....and I fitted my Stealth discs and CBR6/blade brakes too..





I rode it for a while and it was great. Had an HRC copy exhaust come and go..broke the Yamamoto, got another, sold it, bought an Ethos for it which it wears now.

The last great mod was to fit an oil cooler to it a we all know these bikes run hot and I was inspired by Rallykays RVF with a mocal cooler fitted..





At this time I managed to ruin my starter motor and stripped all the splines off it by misocating a dowel when popping the engine cases back on. I have fitted a race clutch and extra spring too. The generator was found to be dead...

so this got replaced too.

**bored yet?? (I am getting bored, but what the hell...might as well make a decent post eh? )

The bike was pretty much finished now..I had replaced practically everything bar the motor adn the frame (as I have also fitted a new swinagamr and bearings as mine were shafted. I painted it black as I am a tart and it looks good against the gold Talon rear sprocket and shiny toe guard. Also a Magical Racing carbon hugger - very nice!



The final touches were a new and lighter NC23 front wheel, fresh tyres and new alloy bars, pads, oil (again) and full tweaking of all parts.

The bike was finished and it sits in my garage looking like this now!




So..there you go. My bike No9

9 is a ninja's lucky number in japanese culture, and I so approve. Very, very nice bike! No9 gets the thumbs up from me (note to self- get a 30 Carlos) nice work.

i have seen this bike "in the flesh " and i too approve.
mark i like what you did there with the post telling the story,i might do the same for my bikes ,but i'll leave out a few bits or we'd be here all bloody day lol

LOL - I know mate...was a long winded job but I was not able to share the love first time around when I was going through it all.

So..an edited version for the greybike crew.

If you did one for your Castrol bike it would be wicked..have you any pics of it before you started modding it and making it the kick ass moto it is today?

CMSMJ1 wrote:If you did one for your Castrol bike it would be wicked..have you any pics of it before you started modding it and making it the kick ass moto it is today?

http://www.crm250.com/400greybike/forum ... ms=castrol

CMSMJ1 wrote:If you did one for your Castrol bike it would be wicked..have you any pics of it before you started modding it and making it the kick ass moto it is today?

i do have some old pictures of it and i'll do something similar over the weekend when the racing is over

my RVF400RT..'99/'98...



with the new end can on


"live to spend time to send it"