TANK UPDATE!

Right as you may have read on the previous post I bought a Tank Cover that was a bit,umm, shall we say different, so armed with my trusty grinder (my Dremel blew up) I set to work adapting the tank to fit better, lower and more like it was meant to be there.

As you can see in the pictures it was a not flowing with the frame.

Then after a bit of measuring, thinking, measuring and finally sod it!, I just attacked it, it started to look better straight away.

Note the gap between tank cover and radiator in the before and after picture.

Then came the cutting of the hole for the fuel cap, a steady hand and a keen eye is all that was needed. I took a deep breath and went for it with my hole cutter on my drill and it worked fine.

I will be locking the cap with an R-clip and lockwire set up.

All thats left to do is the mounting brackets that hopefull should be straight forward, fingers crossed

Shiney Stuff Arrived.

Some of the exciting engine componants have now arrived from the states. First came the race ignition (750rpm higher limiter plus 2-3hp accros rev range) then the Hot Rods heavy duty con rod arrived in a flash little display box all embosed with the logo next came the Wiseco piston kit, standard bore but slightly higher compresion ratio at 12.5:1 which I have been reliably informed is the right combination for 102 octane pump fuel ( keeping costs low,oh yes) and in the last two days a Hot Cam stage 2 arrived, again with flash packing and a wedge of stickers. The plan is to not tackle the engine mods until after I have sorted the chassis 100% but the force is strong from the shiney little toys oh yes the force is strong so strong. Picture wise you can reference to my earlier post and the original Ebay photo's.

Wow look! An Exhaust.

Now you all may have noticed that progress has been a little slow of late but here it is, the latest update to the CRF Supermono/450. It took a good 4 hours and alot of measure twice cut once but eventually it emerged all bleary-eyed and warm to the touch (from the welding you see) and it looks quite tidy I think. I have used a combination of componants for this particular mod but staying true to the original plan of using Honda parts I have managed to fabricate this exhaust using Honda 3 bolt flange and bends bought off the shelf. Cost wise the pipe work was less than £30 and I had a link pipe left over from a streetfighter Fireblade project so this was effectively 'buck shee', we like bargain modifications. Next on the list is to modify the severely oversized tank cover that arrived last week from Replicast. Now dont get me wrong the tank cover has been made to a very high standard and is even in Honda red but for some reason it's about the same size as my ZX6r tank which is far too big for my little race bike so the plan is to cut bits out to make it fit to the frame rather than hang over it and looking like it's for a different bike altogether. I will update pictures of the tank as I start the cutting, slashing, cutting, slashing haha, heeeaaars Jonny (music playing from psycho). woops sorry, its the voices, you here them too don't you?

Wheel Update.

I am sure you will all agree that when barreling through a project of any sort it is possible to focus so hard on the task in hand that you actually miss the easiest solution (wood for the trees, I think they call it). As you may have noticed I have had an issue with getting a standard rear wheel of the right proportions to fit the ever so narrow CRF swingarm, I was considering machining the wheel hub, machining the swingarm, bolting a CNC hub to a narrow 125 wheel....
Well, the fact is after giving my brain a couple of days to recover I suddenly had a "EUREKA" moment, I will just get a sprocket carrier made, that's it! easy as pie. I will update with photo's as soon as my race engineer has time to make the item, he agreed that this will be the most straight forward and simple solution, so fingers crossed! my bike could be sporting the Honda 6 spokes after all. TTFN