Start of second....
All this work was not really the plan so my schedule was tight to get it running in time for the 2020 season..... still not the finish I wanted
But as most of you may have noticed, some sort of virus got in the way of pretty much the whole 2020 season.
Deadlines were not relevant anymore, the bike was far from finished and there was no goal to work towards anymore. Big dip in motivation....
After a few weeks got back at it and looked over all the plans for the lost 2020 season. This was April 2020.
Would the engine hold up another season?
Was the fork-upgrade going to support the quicker riding?
Did I need lighter wheels?
Is all the time spent on this bike still worth it?
Why is it still not finished?
All sorts of questions raised and after some thoughts I decided to go for it once more. There were no plans for any track time whatsoever for the whole season. And when the occasion would appear I could always use the street SV650 for some track duty.
Bam, decision was made. Going all out on an engine build was the next step. The bike was in pieces anyway and THIS was The chance to build a stronger engine for the bike. Parts and plans were in stock for a long time, but never worked out in details.
I wanted to do as much of the engine work myself, I always liked other topics of engine build with loads of details and machine time
And never got time to try it myself. That was about to change big time.
Plan:
Balanced XV1100 crank and conrods with new small-end bushings
Bored and re-sleeved BT1100 cylinders
Bored crankcases to adapt the BT1100 cylinders
100mm Porsche pistons compression ratio +/- 10,5:1
XV1100 heads adapted to the Porsche pistons and CR
New 48mm 2-1-2 exhaust
Adjustable camshaft wheels
Copper base and head gaskets
And so on...
And so on....
The story of the engine build is WAY to long to write down in this single post, but some random pictures will do the trick I hope. It almost took me 15 months to research, think and build the engine as planned and "finish" the bike. Quite some experiments and unknowns went into the build to say the least. But after a lot of ups and downs the engine was in one piece and it even started without exploding on the first go
So after summer I was working towards a deadline again to get it running and on track for the first time since fall 2019. On 23rd of September 2021 that happened at the most awesome track I have ever driven on, Spa Francorchamps. Almost exactly 10 years after I started the project this was an absolute highlite. The bike worked, didn't break down and drove better than ever before. Looking forward to the next season of RIDING the bike
instead of building or fixing it over and over....
First the result:
And Eau rouge towards Radillon on Spa Francorchamps:
And some random pictures of the engine build and bike finish:
And a small clip:
Gave the exhaust valves some extra clearance on the Porsche pistons:
And finally in one peace!
That was the engine. Bore of 100mm and stroke of 75mm make this Tr1 engine 1177cc.... NICE! At the sme time I started working on some Honda CBR600f3 forks and the frame was of to powdercoat.
End of second part....