There has always been talk, and it's surfacing again, of people throwing big singles inton small 2 stroke sports machine chasis. I always wondered at the sense in this. The factory V-twin smoker of an RGV for example, makes more power and is a hell of alot smoother than any XR500 lump.
Ten years ago I actually owned a similar beast. A 1989 RGV250, fitted with a monster of an aircooled, 5 speed KX500 single. The engineering was performed by Damon at Cycleworks and to be honest, it was a bloody nice job. He built the expansion chamber and exhaust system, a steel engine cradle and welded in a block of aluminium between the frame spars as a top engine mount.
The bike had been converted for racing and had alot of spares eg: barrels, pistons, crank and a shitload of gearing. It had been owned by the late Stu Ploughman and he'd only raced it once when exiting Coke at Manfeild, it developed a nasty tankslapper then promptly threw him on his head. Stu decided this might not be the bike for him and I swapped it for a wrecked RGV I'd just totalled.
Having no room for a kick start, we were forever pushing this fucker up and down the road trying to get it to go, once running, the neighbours were running for cover. It was THE LOUDEST bike I've ever heard, and VIBRATE! FARRRKKKK! I used to do numerous testing runs up and down the Wainui Coast road, not sure what I was testing but Jesus was it good fun. The bike had been dynoed at 53hp, about the same as my previous RGV (on the same dyno) but it had about 6 times the torque. It was geared for the moon and was a bit of a mission to get rolling.
Once rolling, you had to try to remember to change gear as the bastard strained ahead then promptly ran out of revs, begging for another gear. Tachos are for poofters. It was fast. but dangerous. Not alot of thought had gone into weight distribution and a hastily fitted steering damper only helped a bit. All in all, the bike ran flawlessly.
Right, time for my first ever race meeting. Clubmans for the first time suited so we traiklered the beast to Manfeild, unloaded, waited till everybody had started their bikes so as not to look too conspicuous, then start pushing. We pushed the fucken thing around for hours, would it go? No way! Disgusted and dijected, we loaded it on the trailer and returned to the safety of the Wainui Coast road. Unloading the piece of shit, I thought I'll give the bugger one last shot. Started in about 2 meters! WTF???
1 month later, it's time for the next round. Start the bike in the morning before we left (6am) just to make sure and we're off. Get to the track, bike starts! Yay! Out for the first practice, two laps and in and doing quite well, the fucken thing seizes into Coke. Push it back to the pits and a then VERY young Fizzerman gets stuck in. Pulls the motor down, new barrel, gaskets, piston and ring. About 30 seconds before the call for the dummy grid.
Out I go, nice and carefully on the warmup lap and grid up for the start. All of a sudden, the bike's starting to creep forward, I'm still hanging onto the clutch. Look down and the clutch cable is holding on by one strand and gettin longer. I ramp up the revs a little to stop from stalling and the rear wheel starts to spin, the cable lets go completely and I'm sitting on a start grid, 15 seconds before the start, doing a big phat static burnout. I contemplated kepping it going 'till the start but wasn't sure how slicks would enjoy such abuse. Absolutely wrecked, I shut it down and pushed it to the inside of the track.
I only rode the bike once after that day. In a fit of clear thinking, I thought I'd take it to work at Ngauranga, I lived in Naenae at the time. Rode to work, no worries, coming home, there's five cops on bikes sitting at the weigh station on Hutt Road. I'm riding a slick shod, noisey as fuck, race bike. Didn't know about runers at that stage so I stopped when asked. To the cops credit, he didn't give me a ticket. He did, however, ban me from riding my bike on the road and made me push it home. Every 10 minutes a car would drive past keeping an eye on me. Took fucken hours.
I sold the beast soon after that to a guy in Taranaki I think. Saw him do a warm up lap at Wanganui that year on it and haven't seen the bike since. Strange.
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Originally Posted by White trash
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