"A goal without a deadline is a dream"

Screw it, on Friday I booked some track time on Sunday (today) and figured I would go into the garage and do whatever was required to get the bike track ready. One of those things, it didn't seem like much .. but it was a 13 hour day getting stuff together and ready.

Things like - cut and fit new chain, go over bike slowly and tighten/torque things, get a spacer machined for the HRC linkage and adjustable pull arm and get it finished, get the bike started, refit exhaust system so I got more rear wheel clearance, adjust clutch, lock wire things, etc etc etc ...

It took ages, but I got there and then went to bed - for a 5am start the next day. Geeez.

Stuff like ...

This doesn't look good. Carb not in far enough when reassembling after carb syc:



Better .. :



I finally settled on butchering a pull arm bearing sleeve for the spacer at the top of the adjustable pull arm assembly. Cost me a bottle of wine to get a friend to machine 14mm off either end to come up with a 77mm spacer:



After fitment of adjustable pull arm with a length of 130mm eye to eye (3mm longer than RO HRC item), clearance is good:



New DID 520 VT2 chain cut to 106 links for 14/43 sprocket combo. By the way, the VT2 is a 520 motocross *race* x ring chain. It is lightweight and strong and a perfect match for the power of the 400 - it is also MUCH cheaper than buying a 'race' chain for road racing. Seriously, like 50% of the cost or so. Great chain though.



Here is great and very cheap way to get your master link pushed though - put a nut over the end it comes though and squeeze with a pair of adjustable pliers - works a treat.



You know when you have it pushed through enough when you can get the clip and push it into the groove - it you cannot, squeeze some more other wise you'll not have a groove for the clip link to slot in to and you likely break the clip trying to get it on .... I have before. Don't squeeze too much - keep checking the clip/groove thing.



Round end faces direction of travel:



And VERY importantly ... lock wire it on:



On holidays once I lost my clip link (and luckily realised it pretty soon). Some ordinary paperclip wire fit into the master link groove and I then wired it on (like above) with more paperclip wire. It lasted 2000klms over christmas holidays and got me home. Nice eh. Dont trust the link, trust the lockwire!

and speaking of lockwire ... lots of that to be done here and there:



I can't recall if I mentioned, but I was having serious clearance issues with the 'Ethos' exhaust system and the rear wheel - one of the reasons for going to 106 links with the 14/43 sprocket combo.

So, I loosened up the entire exhaust and, after getting the chain on and HRC linkage (etc) fitted I held the exhaust system in a position that gave me clearance and *then* tightened things up. Viola!:



After much toil and 5 months or so of dicking about ..

A "fully operational battle station"





Yes, it looks like sh*t as I haven't done any painting or decals yet, but I need to get it out on the track to shake it down before race season starts ...

so how was it all then?

pretty darn good actually. Bike did not blow up - so mechanically we're looking good. Nothing fell off! (yet ..)

The new radiators did a great job - excellent.

I needed to do a sag setup and, after the first session when fork/shock oil was warm some rebound fiddling.

But, I am happy to say, that the HRC linkage and the VFR750 5" rear wheel felt pretty good - no complaints at all. I did not push it very hard, but tyre wear was good (I could have probably went up a few psi on the rear - but still good) - I got no nasty tearing like I did with the nitron on the same tyre choice at the same track.

The rear end felt tall-ish, and funnily, make the bike seem shorter because of it, but nothing silly.

I used the showa ultra 5w race oil for the forks and suspect this may be a bit thin. Out of 16 or so rebound clicks only the 5 from fully closed seem to do anything - by 7 clicks out it was just pogo-ing. I suspect that probably means oil is too thin - happy to hear comments.

The external positive terminal worked well for starting - so no issues there. However, the day was cut short by my 'leak-free' battery leaking crap all over so the perfect sun and conditions of the afternoon were spent driving home.

The GSXR shock is a country mile better than my old tired boing-boing OEM unit - despite the OEM unit actually having been worked on (apparently) some years ago. So, for my 75kg weight the GSXR unit is a good fit for the HRC linkage if you are prepared to dick around a bit with battery location etc. Truth being told, the spring fouling on the swingarm probably doesn't matter but, I am a little obsessive ... so I preferred it not to.

So for $500 or so you get a pretty good shock and an HRC linkage - that is about what half a 'real' shock costs and it'll likely be a better setup.

I didn't get an opportunity to try the BMW shock, and at this point I am not sure I will. The GSXR shock felt pretty good and I am not very good at setting this stuff up .. so a professional would get it much better.

The steering damper was not intrusive, so that is cool. I'll still do an A/B comparison though.

So apart from cosmetics and some sorting out of suspension etc etc, we're pretty good to go. I'll be back at the track next weekend to continue.

Looks like we've reached the logical end of the thread now as the rebuild is kind of finished, so, thanks all for your advice and comments. Much appreciated. It has been fun, I've learned a lot and I hope I've helped some others out there. If you got questions or whatever, feel free to ask. No probs. I'll go first:

Q: "you're obviously a mechanical moron, did you get your qualifications from the back of a cornflakes packet"
A: yes. and i got a free toy.

Nice work Greg, I'm glad she ran without any major problems all day. Did you test up at Broadford?

I'm racing at Mac Park this coming weekend so I'll give you a full run down on how the Gixxer shock and HRC linkage set up works for me. I don't seem to have the clearance issues you had with the spring touching the swingarm, but I know the RVF and VFR swingarms are different in some ways??? I may need to get a stiffer spring (will wait and see) as I've had to set preload as stiff as possible to handle my current girth (I reckon I'm about 95kg fully kitted up...yep, I've been in a good pasture since my son was born 9 months ago!!! But plan to drop 10kg real soon).

he heh. Too many pies eh mate. :-)

Yes, it was at Broadford. I'll likely be there this coming (holiday) monday as well. The clearance thing is weird innit - mine was evidenced by yellow paint on the swingarm and you could see it touching. Certainly, let us all know how you go on the GSXR shock. Keen to hear.

Oh, what did you do re battery box / plaement? Is your bike stock-ish around that area?

How did you feel going around turn 1 at Broadford for the first time since the accident? A bit nerve racking I bet.

I've got one of Tyga's seat units (the RC211V I think) and the battery tray just misses the shock reservoir by a bee's d*ck, it's pretty tight.

Yes, I was a bit nervous about getting around there again! But .. I was taking it pretty easy actually, so not too much stress. I realised after a few laps that I wasn't even thnkking about it.

Re the battery box ... ahhh the Tyga unit. Of course. Good news for other Tyga bodywork people out there then.

Nice to see it all together, good to hear it stayed together too.

Thanks, here it is with a $25-ish paint job (seriously - $3.50 a can):





Fibreglass tail repaired and tank dents bogged up and painted.

Besides being darn slow, I chewed up a new rear pirelli at the first race day so I wasn't too happy about that. I am told the pirelli SC2 slicks are probably too soft for these bikes - so I changed over to bridgestone ycy on the 5" rim and spent a couple of days at Phillip Island sorting it out. SW Racing were there to help and some tweaks to the basic set up made a huge difference.

The result? Fantastic. Rear end felt terrific and very confidence inspiring, the bridgestone ycy got perfect wear and I got to 0.3s of my PB - so that is a nod to the stock gsxr shock being well suited to the hrc linkage, and me getting some track confidence back. The steering damper was great on the high speed corners too. All good. Except the $3.50 per can paint ... that is really sh*te!

StrayAlien wrote: All good. Except the $3.50 per can paint ... that is really sh*te!

It's been a great read this whole thread - thanks and good luck with the racing!

Oh, and look on the bright side. Here is the UK, we have to pay around £8 (14.40AUD) for the same shite paint...

Oh that made me laugh out loud! Looks like sh*'re paint unites us all across borders!